Report purloined from the Facebook posting of one of our regulars:

This is indeed very sad news. Thanks for informing us.

PC

Thanks for forwarding the info. I'm sure his family covet your prayers. He did a good job.

Alan

Words fail. This is a tough loss too soon. Kip was the right guy in the right place at the right time for the right reasons.

Kip was a total gentleman and very dedicated to the core mission of telling the great and largely undertold story of how the steam engine helped America prosper.

He did the best he could to fight the battle in the endless maze known as the federal gummit.

He will be sorely missed. Condolences to Mrs. Hagen and the family.

R.I.P.

Ross Rowland

I never pass such news without verification. And from the vestibule of our snowy Santa Train this afternoon I saw a note from Steamtown's preservation specialist Mike Tillger. The news is so sadly true that Kip Hagan has passed.

Harold "Kip" Hagan was as good a friend to railroad preservation as anyone. Rare among National Parks is a Superintendent with local roots. He was a Scranton native, more than once relaying to me his boyhood stories about his family's lumberyard in town, watching the Lackawanna's diesels bringing in railcars, and later EL. While we were proposing to bring F3s to Steamtown and to paint them in the Lackawanna freight scheme, he listened. I watched as he looked the pictures from the 1940s of freight-painted F3s and FTs in those very shop buildings and working along steam in the yards. His face glowed, and he saw the message that the steam-era F3s conveyed. He believed in us to get the job done. We got the job done, and he was pleased. There is more to do, and we will do it. It's tough to convey in writing just how friendly and supportive Kip was as a person. He had a way of keeping everyone around him at ease.

Kip Hagen as the Supterintendent of Steamtown was the right man in the right place at the right time for the right reasons. He had enough years in the NPS system to learn the ropes of management and how get money through the giant NPS system. He chose Scranton as the place to finish his NPS career. Kip believed in the Steamtown message, continuing the work of his predecessors. Kip's experience in the NPS system allowed him to conquer many capital projects, the biggest of which may be that Steamtown has one of the best-equipped steam shops in North America, and a sound structure in which to house it.

Kip was also a big supporter of the archive project, and welcomed the Lackawanna Chief Engineer's files that the Tri-State Chapter NRHS had been caring for and housing for more than 20 years. Kip was pleased that Tri-State and other volunteers were logging thousands of hours cataloging what was more than an acre of file boxes and rolled maps. The success of that effort attracted the Lackawanna glass plate negatives and other historic photo and railroad paper archives making Steamtown one of the leading sources for research about anthracite-region railiroading. Historian Pat McKnight's great work is well-known to us all. Kip is his boss and supporter.

Kip's successor has some busy shoes to fill. The things I'll remember most about Kip are his contagious smile and his optimism. The things I'll regret most are not completing a couple of letters to him about some successes and future endeavors.

This is such a tough blow to those of us outside of the NPS who knew and worked with him. Our prayers are with Donna, his family and the entire Steamtown NHS team.

Well said Mr Rowland and DoverTower. Without Kip I don't know if DL&W 565 would be where she is today. Yes we have a long way to go, but we are much closer to having her the gem of roundhouse thanks to him and the staff! He will be missed!

This is indeed sad news and he'll be missed by a lot of people

... and thanks for verifing that your information was accurate before posting....

Unfortunately, and all too often, people feel they have to be the first with news and don't take the time to check the accuracy of the what they're relaying.

This happens not just in internet forums, but all the professional media. These people succeed in tarnishing their own reputations.

Bob H

The original source for my posting was probably the same as Mike D's--Mike Tillger. Discounting the ridiculously-slim-but-nonzero chance of a faker hacking his account, that was good enough for me; and yet I still checked about five other places first. Mike D basically copied/pasted his own FB post to here.

If someone else had posted the news first to start this thread, would you certain folks be getting your knickers in a bunch about "verification first"? There really was nothing else for me to post other than the confirmed-enough-for-me report.

Tis just my opinion, but maybe we should postpone the kvetching about verification and the like to another time and place. This seems like the least appropriate arena, currently.

Mr. Hagen was always a source of encouragement, support and appreciation. Thanks to him, many lazy government dollars found good use at Steamtown.
My sincere condolences to his family and the larger Steamtown Family.