News coverage of the "Save Steamtown" rally in Scranton today:

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2025/0 ... se-square/

https://www.wvia.org/news/local/2025-02 ... l-job-cuts

Where were they for the last 20 years as ridership and visitation languished? Have they donated time or money? Maybe next they can have a save the mall rally. Oh wait, that's still on life support.



Contrary Mr. Wowak, nobody has suggested ANYBODY was "disposable". As a general rule, I don't think of anybody as "disposable". I leave that to people like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and Castro and lesser known malevolent deviants like James Paul Forte.

In my twenty plus years as a Stea volunteer, I found only three shop people who I would describe as occupationally useless.

The first, a long time air brake mechanic (now retired) acted as though performing the morning brake test was a favor to the train crew rather than a key safety procedure. Then he spent most of the day shuffling about only to harass train crews at the end of the day about shower times because he couldn't leave fast enough and didn't trust volunteers to lock the door near the locker room.

Then there was "RIP" who was fond of telling T&E crews that they weren't getting their hands on the 26 until it was out that summer-and that performance was an annual exercise fomenting division for about five years.

And then there was the former shop manager, who retired after Superintendent Hagan's death rather than face questions from a new Super.

What is interesting is this post has unintentionally exposed the major flaw with federal civil service. Retention is directly tied to incumbency, not competence and it's difficult to discipline or remove non-performing employees.

Despite the deep dissatisfaction with the glacial pace of the 26 restoration-disciplinary action was estimated to require so much time and effort that it was easier to allow retirement to accomplish removal.

Even for cause terminations are exceedingly rare. A former Steamtown Super, who was promoted to a "crown jewel" park was investigated by the DOI Inspector General for alleged self-dealing. While that charge was not supported, there was an incidental finding that the Superintendent in question used his government issued computer to collect, store and view pornographic material. Instead of being terminated, he was reassigned until he retired.

Steamtown had an interpretative ranger that managed to work at home for years (long before COVID) but still managed to get a Congressman to read a tribute to him in the Congressional Record.

As detailed elsewhere, the "head count" of Steamtown has diminished over the past 20 years or so from near 90 to 42 in the most recent "Greenbook" (Budget Justifications).

Almost ten years ago, I and the late Tom Shore, while in the planning states of an official friends group that became the IHS, had a discussion about staffing and the concentrated number of shop employees nearing the age of retirement. We told Superintendent Conway that sort of clustering created the risk of a "mass superannuation event" and this would be especially disruptive to Steamtown given its unique focus. An interpretive ranger can read up on steam era railroading and become effective quicky. No other park operates rolling stock with UC or even modern valves. Mechanical staff simply can't be "poached" from other parks.

I don't know what she did or did not do in reaction to that alert. I do know that neither she or or successor presided over an increase in shop staffing-certainly not in numbers to be capable of maintaining both an operating road engine and the 26. That might nor be either's "fault"-it could be that once again, being focused on industrial history and something of a "one-off", the regional office failed to properly understand the rarity of the skills involved and the difficulty of finding replacement staff.

Keep in mind also, that park regulations require that volunteers don't supplant paid staff. In many parks, volunteers are "relegated" to a limited number of rolls. The late Mark Brennan used to tell a story of a visitor from another park terrified to find out that one of the engineers was a volunteer-and in complete disbelief that could happen, because in that person's park, volunteers weren't allowed to operate lawnmowers.

Also, I assume this has changed, but the former Division Chief of Maintenance, who was at one time promoted to assistant Superintendent was actively hostile to volunteers in the shop and it left a lingering "why bother" attitude among some T&E volunteers who might have volunteered in the shop-like I did when they needed big guys capable of swinging water soaked mallets on acetylene heated steel.

The hard reality is that for every "uber-fan" like us who are capable of correcting rangers' mistakes in presentations and could probably be a better guide or restorationist than the people who are paid on the Federal pay scales to do so, there are a hundred or more "fans" like these, the ones who take their kids regularly and enjoy the heck out of the place but have NO fathomable idea what happens behind the scenes until the local TV news anchor tells them about something like the staff cutbacks. I run into such folks routinely just about any time I go to some large "public" rail attraction like Scottsdale, Arizona's McCormick-Stillman RR Park, the Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood, the RR Museum of Pa., or even non-RR places like zoos, county museums, farm museums, and the like. (Remember that many a well-run private museum, like the B&O RR Museum, manages to convince many locals that they "have" to be a government-run museum as well..... because every museum is government-run, don't you know?)
Then some of them rally behind the protestors and/or organized labor folks who depend on government jobs (and maybe are paid to agitate, in a few cases) at the rally at the government buildings to "SAVE OUR JOBS!!!!"

I like going to the National Parks now and then, here and there. But absent my in-depth knowledge of Steamtown both before and after NPS control and the constant debates at places like this as to whether government should be involved in any RR museum, I would not pretend for the slightest moment to have an understanding of the VAST logistical and administrative challenges and problems of running anything from the Grand Canyon to Independence Hall, from Cape Hatteras National Seashore (moving the tallest lighthouse?!?) to Yellowstone (will it ever just blow up?), from Arcadia NP to the Everglades, from the National Mall to Death Valley--and then having a whole bunch of NEW "national monuments" dumped on their laps for politically self-serving reasons.

What I saw in these stories reminded me of the photos I saw of people "protesting" or lamenting many of the last passenger trains to run pre-Amtrak in 1971. It may make them feel like they "did something" and "made their views known," but was ultimately worthless--common traits of far too many "protests" in the 21st Century.

Perhaps the most telling part of the WVIA story was that the Cheseks posed front of the Baldwin 26, on and in the gauge with their minor son on the footboards; blissfully unaware of their lack of safety.

I would really like to know how that happened. Were they allowed this pose? As bad as it is, was the engine at least in "three step" protection?

It appears he's an operator/trainer @ BAE Systems in Scranton. This is a military contractor and you would think he would have some safety sensitivity in such an environment and that they might have added training after the April 2024 fire.

Having grown up with accounts of a great uncle who was cut in pieces under the wheels, safety and its pursuit was always something I took seriously. I'm going to pass on this story to somebody who I know shares that concern.

What exactly do you think are the "political justifications or conditions"?

We used TTAPS apprenticeships to hire two bright young guys to start to stem the hemorrhaging of experience in the shop and one of them was indiscriminately fired last week, so...

As a nation, we have to face reality. I regret the hardship endured so far by the government employees who are now getting a lesson in the cruelty faced regularly by employees of the private sector. Although it is unfortunate that Steamtown, amongst many other government assets and programs of value, find themselves in the crosshairs; what is happening is necessary.

It isn't just that DOGE has unmasked a plethora of goofiness and nonsense paid for at exorbitant prices on the taxpayer's dime, it is the reality that our government is in the hole by $36 Trillion. Let that sink in.....$36 Trillion. $36 Trillion caused by a multi-generational political establishment that wanted both low taxes and excessive spending to reinforce their re-election...in some cases for decades. My concern isn't the cuts made, it is whether or not the current administration has the courage to make the much deeper and harsher cuts that are necessary.

However, no one wants to have a true discussion about the other part of this that needs to happen....a significant and painful INCREASE of taxes. Taxes need to go up big time. Thats right, the spending needs to go down to a shadow of its former self and taxes (tariffs, income, inheritance, capital gains, sales, all of it) need to go up significantly if we are ever going bring the debt to a safe number in the timeframe we need to save this nation.

The older generations may scoff but those of us who have a few decades left to live here know that retirement is a fantasy, Social Security is never happening for us, and it is necessary to endure this pain if we have any hope for a quality future for our grandkids unburdened by the excesses of the second half of the 20th Century and the first quarter of the 21st.

Ah yes, to passively disagree with the message let's discredit the messenger.

At the start of my Federal career in the early 1990's I was involved with Bill Clinton's efforts to reform the Federal Government via the Al Gore run National Performance Review. Somewhere I still have the two "Hammer award" pins I received from working on various projects (mostly Internet related). Through this program somewhere between 250,000 to 400,000 Federal jobs were eliminated. The Interior department was one of the targeted departments.

Now at the twilight of my career I get it to experience it all over again.

It would seem these efforts have historically popped up every 30-40 years since 1905.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinventing_Government

Expect more staff cuts and watch out of the FY26 budget.

And if you can't dispute the observation, you can impute pathology. Project much?

Perhaps you don't understand the meaning of the term "passive aggressive". Passive aggressors are indirect, working through delay, evasion, omission & silence. If you work in large organizations long enough, you become an expert at recognizing it-or you don't survive, because it is the prison rape of bureaucracies, public and private.

Here's one of series of shorts featuring "Veronica" dealing with a passive-aggressive boss. Notice the avoidance and evasion.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WbHBEwyDMdA

Veronica is very popular where I work.

The messenger discredited itself. If you want to do a human interest story, don't record the humans putting themselves in danger and by extension normalizing that lack of awareness.

I'm sorry, but the hiring or termination of those two folks recently only tangentially addresses my contention that the park is where it is because of two decades of neglect and that responsible parties were warned about the dangers at least decade ago.

The problem was that there was no hemorrhage, rather the exponential decay of staff levels over time and two people were a band-aid on a gaping wound if you insist on that metaphor.

The following people (not the whole list, have left in the past decade) either retired recently or where planning to leave at the time I cleaned out my locker in 2021.

Bruce M
Mike O
Willard S
Mike T
Kevin B

They were the guys that remembered what it was like to have two and sometimes three engines under steam, and that kind of OJT is invaluable.

Apart from the shop, there's been a worse loss in T&E. The following were Class 1 engineers with extensive experience in road operations and all DSLE's (Corwin, Patterson, Shore, Wyatt) Three have passed on and one decided to leave due to no foreseeable opportunity to run road steam. Two more engineers just bailed.

Now, there might be three individuals left who've run road steam. One is near or past the age of eighty (assuming he still makes the trek) and the other two are past fifty, the last road excursion was in 2012.

I do miss the old days.. Three engines cooking in the house. Mainline doubleheaders. Steam every weekend, usually with both the yard shuttle and a trip on the hill.

At the rate things are going there should not be any conflict over funding the government - there will be no government to fund, other than Congress.

So this isn't "significant"?

Perusing various regional news reports here and there:

More protests against staff reductions have been occurring at selected popular national parks, notably Joshua Tree and Yosemite in California. The Yosemite protests included unfurling a massive upside-down flag from the edge of El Capitan in view of masses gathered for the final weekend of the annual "firefall" spectacle, where sunlight makes the famed waterfall look like a flow of molten steel.

Perusing some commentary, I will suggest that the protests are not garnering quite as much sympathy as their organizers may be hoping.......

This is not the correct, appropriate, or legal way to handle concern over government waste, full stop. Honestly, I stopped reading after that because I feel no need to take anything else you have to say seriously.