Curious to see if 2102 or 425 ever operates out of that location.

John

The other thing that really hurts any entity that is government controlled, and a some nonprofits as well - is the 'we didn't plan for that' problems.

If the heating system is considered to be a capital upgrade, it had to be budgeted. If it's not budgeted, it's not happening until it does. And it has to be specified, and competitively bid. A private entity would swallow hard and move on its feet to make decisions and keep going, borrow money, whatever.

Having worked for HUD in public housing for a few years when I first got out of college sure taught me that. If you had a catastrophic and expensive failure, it was a slow and expensive scramble to resubmit a budget to fix anything....NOW, even if it was just rejuggling the same money to different buckets.

While it's in the principle of not 'wasting' taxpaper money, it's also one of the biggest reasons why government controlled sites for operations, and sometimes ownership, can manage to fail the most basic mission of just sustain yourself somehow. Because old things breaks, stuff happens, trains are expensive, and time is money.

If Steamtown ever has a chance of getting better, you'd think it would be under old hometown Scranton Joe Biden. Outside of that, is there any way to get a NPS site "deacessioned" and moved to being some kind of independent, non-profit organization? And would it do better if it was cut loose? Is there enough donation money out there to really improve things, or would it end up going the way of say Trolleyville, USA?

I've often wondered if somehow the NPS could advertise for a Designated Operator ( DO) to operate the entire place ( including the excursions) and as part of the contract pay the DO an annual " fee" of say $ 2MM . My guess is that a good number of successful tourist rail operators ( i.e. Strasburg, NH&I, Conway Scenic, Essex Steam Train etc. ) would respond and submit a biz. plan that would re-establish active mainline steam excursions and other steam related activities operated so that the place lives up to its mission statement as shown on its website.

The NPS does have DO relationships at a good number of parks where they contract out the operation of hotels, restaurants etc., so why not a whole facility??

Probably never happen but it sure could work and vastly improve the places performance.

And, that would save $ 4 MM taxpayer dollars that now fund an non-functioning entity.

Hope springs eternal. Ross Rowland

There have long been rumors/reports of apparent animosity between the R&N and Steamtown, supposedly personal by Mr. Muller against SNHS/the NPS on the order of that between Rowland and Steamtown's existence. My suspicion is that absent any one-off special occasion like the 1995 "Steamtown Grand Opening" gala to mark the pending 200th "anniversary" of American railroading or the "Stourbridge Lion", the odds of R&N steam showing up at Steamtown are "slim to none, and Slim left the station a while back...."

If one is especially cynical, they could even see the R&N's commencement of operation out of nearby Pittston as a (perhaps well-deserved?) "shot across the bow" to Steamtown.

If this were Britain, Steamtown Scranton might have seen visits by now of NKP 765, N&W 611 and 1218, Reading 2102, PRR 1361, Frisco 1522, and more. Instead, some of us wax nostalgic at the lone visit by MILW 261 in 1995-96..........

That's more what I was alluding to. I'm curious to see if R & N will operate steam out of Pittston at all.

John

The extreme danger of this is that what politicians bequeath, other politicians will eagerly yank away, or at least try to. Think Amtrak on a local level. And I won't even dare to get into analyzing either the sincerity of Biden's supposed nostalgia (or political opportunism) or how "pork barrel" it would look for Biden to personally push for funding for a Scranton project. If you think the Steamtown Scranton project got bad press as "a second-tier collection in a third-rate location" (or whatever the exact quote was) when it was first created in 1985, imagine how awfully the magnifying glass of Fox News or other right-wing media will examine Steamtown's mission and validity should Biden make it a "pet project."


Bureaucracy seldom dies. The cliche used by the political "right" is that the "government's" answer to a failing approach to a problem is to throw more money at it rather than admit failure (see: public education, Amtrak, etc.).

That said, this 2011 article highlights 26 National Parks/Monuments eventually weaned from the Federal teat. It should be noted that of these, only three technically no longer exist, and one of those is the National Visitors Center that was abortively built in Washington Union Terminal.

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2 ... -parks9202

I think it extends beyond Steamtown. The R&N has made no secret of its desire to be operating the lines owned by Lackawanna and Monroe Counties and operated by the Delaware Lackawanna RR.

Minus the 2013 Railfest weekend where #425 was on display over the weekend. So never say never...



From what I've seen in an interview online with Tyler Glass, they plan to run 2102 out of Pittston during the year at some point.

Joe Biden lived in Scranton to age 10, then his family moved to Delaware for his father to find work. As it happens, they lived in the Green Ridge neighborhood while it was still served by trolley. Thus the President may well have ridden Scranton Electromobile 505, now in the collection of the Electric City Trolley Museum.

But Scranton has a US Senator, Bob Casey Jr. (D-Lackawanna). Casey is finishing his third Senate term and has announced he is running for a fourth.

Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

Where there's even a little life there's always room for hope.

Best news is that Steamtown only has one way to go.......up.

Hope springs eternal. Never give up. Ross Rowland

NKP 765 visited in 2015.

Hello, Ross,

I know that Steamtown has said that Canadian National 2-8-2 #3377 is the likely next candidate to return to steam after Boston & Maine 4-6-2 #3713 is up and running. Did you happen to hear any update or anything about that while you were there? Just curious.

Someone will eventually tell the full story of Steamtown. Start with the October 2020 issue of Railpace. It goes downhill from there.