I don't think this discussion is taking us anywhere other than to allow people both knowledgeable and less so, to vent. For the time being, Steamtown has s ingle steam switcher they may use. It has four excellent candidate locomotive for rebuild and operation.
It has been terribly mismanaged by administrators who know nothing about locomotives and history.
We can hope somebody who knows and loves the subjects for which Steamtown was originally conceived will take the reins.

The question is, can SNHS achieve a level of performance that we can be content with within the federal system? At a minimum, to me, that would include a stabilized physical plant, a return of mainline steam, improved volunteer and community relations, and either measurable, steady progress of restoration efforts on outdoor equipment or deaccession of at risk pieces.

My memory may fail me here, but I seem to recall Kip Hagen tried to secure funding to put many of the pieces in the yard undercover. The NPS rejected this plan as the yard did not have any such structure in antiquity. So, the NPS would not allow funding to slow the decay of artifacts in the yard, and there is not enough provided to the park in terms of funding or personell to adequately maintain those pieces against the elements.

If we're using that analogy, he has one operating antique car, eight not-quite-operable ones nicely displayed in a nice garage............... and thirty rusting in his back yard, none of which are "parts cadavers" for the others, which he "hopes to get to someday......"

The backyard/barn automotive stashes come up routinely as either estate liquidations or surrender to court-appointed custodians in auto enthusiast circles websites such as BarnFinds, and they are the moral equivalent of the PCC stash in Windber, Pa. or the Kepner collection.............. "got in way over his head," "so much wasted potential" and "the guy had a mental problem....." (Of course, some could point that all the way back to Nelson Blount in this case.....)

Don't get hung up on the analogy. Someone asked why people even care, and my take is that it's the same sentiment.

Really, though - can the NPS truly achieve some level of operation that a reasonable person would be content with? The public areas of the park have been without heat for nearly a year now. It will be AT LEAST a year before heat is restored, maybe two. A section of the roundhouse is closed to visitors due to unsafe conditions.

I can understand a shortage of skilled workers in the shop, but there is really no excuse to fail across the board. The Steamtown experiment has floundered even with good superintendents at the helm, I can't imagine how it can ever succeed within the current framework. Yet, the NPS rejects offers by qualified entities to lighten the load.

"Everyone complains about Steamtown, but nobody does anything about it." Not true. Ask the local RHS.

What official, serious offers have been made? The idea has been thrown around endlessly - but you’re saying that direct, serious, written and planned offers have been made?

Yes. The entities involved can decide if they want to come forward or not, it's not my place to disclose who. But a serious offer was proposed by proven and compentent partners directly to the Sec of the Interior during the Trump admistration.

My understanding is that the offer was in keeping with the majority of comments here over the years in regards to what a NPS/vendor cooperative arrangement could/should look like.

Let's be honest here --- You've got to be certifiably koo koo to get mixed up in steam locomotive restoration in the first place. (I oughta know.)

I fear 3713 will never be put together in my lifetime much less run. Much like NKP 587 and A&WP 290. There is so much lost opportunity at Steamtown. The good news, is that it looks like SRR 722 is moving off that list along with PRR 1361.
Eric

Never say never. Hope springs eternal. Ross Rowland

I think you have stated the issues succinctly and correctly as well. I would add, that there's probably two minimums, one for us "koo koos" and the general public.

We might like to see multiple running locomotives and long excursions; the general public just wants a one real steam engine that they can ride or observe running-some want both. The old yard shuttle, where we just ran around with freight cars and did some switching demos and cab tours was very popular and well received.

(I'd be disgustingly wealthy if I has a dollar for ever time a visitor said "is that really a steam engine"-and one intrepid kid in the late 90's announced loudly that the "Thomas" that was visiting was really a diesel. This was before Strasburg put BEDT in blue.)

Generally, if they get an hour, they are happy, much more taxes the patience of the very young, and the arthritis and bladders of the very old. The Moscow trip was in many ways the perfect ride; 25 miles, a challenging grade, mainline speeds, although a plurality of passengers said "that's it" when we got there-they were expecting the Kremlin perhaps?


There are constraints and limitations.

1.) The park service doesn't have an a significant institutional competence dealing with operating or industrial preservation.

2.) The Park Service has no institutional knowledge or competence with railroads.

3.) The Park Service has an extraordinarily long and bureaucratic funding cycle; where many repairs and projects must have separate and dedicated authorizations for encumbered amounts.

4.) They are indeed loathe to construct anything new outside a visitor center. They might repurpose a (rebuilt) structure, just as the round house includes a theater and various exhibits around several stalls that retain their original purpose-engine servicing. When we suggested the idea of creating a small stand with QR code that would like phones or tablets to an interpretive video, the approval process sound a lot like the levels of hell in Dante's Inferno. This is why the loss of the storage building was a double loss; not only was an original structure lost; but a one that was contemplated as an exhibit space.

If you visit Fort McHenry, observe the treatment of the Star Spangled Banner flag-it's kept isolated in a special atmosphere that slows the degradation of the fabric and makes potential infestation but critters that might snack on it unlikely, if not impossible. It's displayed under special lights for the same reason. It is also displayed flat as not to stress the two century old fibers. There's no sense that the flag should fly, Most people, familiar with the fraying of a favorite old shirt don't ask "why don't you fly it" once they hear about its fragility. It's easy to fly a replica. It's also a singular object where damage or wear to a single part would be ruinous to the whole.

This is the sort of preservation, where there's no conflict between a intended use case vs every available means of physical preservation and where the Park Service has both internal staff and outside experts experienced in the preservation of fabric-where few people argue about their methods or objectives.

While it's clear to me that the Park Service hasn't developed the objectives and methods required at Steamtown to have greater operational stability-the question is was it ever possible for them to do so-or was the expectation that they could successfully run a 64 acre, multiple structure operating railroad museum simply a bridge too far?

To hell with steam locomotive restoration. Having just crawled in from working to keep a pair of ostensibly "antique" cars running (this week's mission is the wiper motor on the "beater" and the torn strut boot and tie rod end boot on the "show car"), I marvel at the masochists that keep classic older British, German, Japanese, and even American cars running. (Then there was the two-stroke Saab whose driver I helped out two weeks ago.....)

Put it this way: I've already sent the excellent producer of certain superb "how-to" videos on YouTube the equivalent of three cases of beer so far.............

I think many of you are creating a straw man with this sort of definition, because it isn't the way the Park Service defines its mission, i.e.: "The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. The National Park Service cooperates with partners to extend the benefits of natural and cultural resource conservation and outdoor recreation throughout this country and the world." https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/index.htm

That is all US citizens, not just those in the area, or those of us whose relatives worked there (as my great-grandfather, whose photo I posted previously, did for a time). There isn't anything about mainline steam or restorations. Nor is there in the budget justifications for parks found here: https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/budget.htm You WILL see a lot of justification in terms of the dual goal of protecting our natural and cultural heritage and making it available for the enjoyment of citizens. Steamtown's website says: "Steamtown NHS is an industrial heritage site dedicated to the role that steam railroad transportation - and the people who made it happen - played within America's Industrial Revolution" but again the emphasis is on preserving our industrial heritage and making it accessible to we citizens. Who wants to bet against the idea that most visitors, as with the majority of tourist-train riders, couldn't care less if there is an operating steam engine on the train they ride or in the shop they tour?

As far as privatizing a national park, groups try to force the government to give up we citizens' assets (for pennies on the dollar) from time to time, e.g. every so often Grand Canyon or Yellowstone is suggested as a privatization target, because a private operator such as Dis-nee could make more money running it like a business. Well, sure they could, but they would not necessarily be performing the dual goal of protecting our heritage and making it available to all of us (not just those who could pay a Dis-nee World-size entry fee). When Dis-nee tried to take over the Manassas battlefield site two decades or so ago, and call it "Dis-nee's America", it went over like a f*rt in an elevator, being called incredibly insensitive by many famous historians, (e.g. David McCullough), especially given Dis-nee films such as the "Song of the South".

We US citizens paid $66 million for the Scranton former DL&W shops in 1995, which is the equivalent of $131 million today, to "preserve unimpaired" one of the last intact mainline railroad steam shops "for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations." But you can bet that no one is offering $131 million for it right now. I'm sure that some are "generously" offering to take it off we citizens' hands for next to nothing though.

You people who want something else: build something else. If you want more mainline steam, use your money for mainline steam. But the national park system belongs to all of us, and those of us who were opposed to a Jellystone Park type Dis-nee thing at Yellowstone will also be watching carefully so that if, by some horrible twist of fate, the park is privatized, that it doesn't go for anything less than $131 million.

I think Yogi Bear was Hanna Barbera..... not Disney.

The visitation numbers tell the tale. People want excursions. More people want steam excursions.

No, but more “themed” train rides could go a long way. I’m not talking about visiting this destination to go do something - I’m talking beer/wine trains, Halloween trains, etc. Have the IHS do that, the Santa trains they run are VERY popular, and they’re the same thing as the regular yard shuttles, but with Santa and stuff. Do similar things for Halloween, Easter, etc and watch attendance/train ride visitation rise…