$6 won't even buy a single movie ticket these days. The same people who decry Steamtown for how they use their meager budget now want to complain when they try to supplement it? Ridiculous. I'd pay the $6 any day.

Since I already have to drive two gours to get there, plus at least one night in a hotel, what's an extra $6.00? How cheap people can be never ceases to amze me...

The plain fact is that ALL the National Parks are hurting financially because at the Federal level conscious decisions are being made to trade "guns for butter", so to speak. We are a rich country, but no country is weathy enough to afford services for its citizens AND war at the same time. The tradeoff is clear with a cursory examination of the 2005 FY Federal Omnibus spending bill. Simply put, money is being systematically removed from budgets that provide services and placed instead in defense and other "priority programs". You can apply your own personal value system and decide whether the tradeoff is the correct use of tax dollars, but the facts are indisputable; it is what is happening.

Institutions like the Steamtown NPS are trying to survive in a severely resource constrained era. They cannot thrive in this situation, but are trying to carry on until something changes. Steamtown administration would surely prefer to operate differently, but are backed into a corner.

The entire NPS is in this situation, not merely Steamtown, along with many other social services whose funding is being cut back (AMTRAK, for one), arts and humanities, Headstart, etc.. By policy directive, our current administration re-directs money towards its beliefs and goals, which can alienate the needs of nearly 1/2 the population.

Being only 90 minutes from Scranton, I get over to Steamtown quite often and let me tell you these are exciting times over at the Park. Under the leadership of Kip Hagen, Bruce Gibson and Mark Brennan, Steamtown is now actively seeking to host railfan-type events. Night photo sessions, which used to involve everything except approval from the President of the United States, will become more common, and photo freight and similar opportunities are on the not-too-distant horizon. Couple that with Steamtown's second year of "guest photographers" giving slide and video shows on many weekends in the winter and you have a place you can visit quite often and never get bored. And the current group of park rangers are mostly railfans who are excited to bring Steamtown to its full potential for visitors who are passionate about trains.
Among the guest photographers that will be presenting shows this year are Jeff Brouws with a presentation on Richard Steinheimer, Jeff Smith with a presentation on the photography of pioneer John Bowman, plus Tom Nemeth of Railpace Newsmagazine, Mike Harting with some exciting multi-media shows and even yours truly.
Many of Steamtown's biggest displays are in the parking lot (i.e. the Big Boy, Reading 2124 and more) so charging admission to the grounds is not unreasonable.
Steamtown has gotten some flak about scaling back steam operations from what it was a couple of years ago, but after talking with Superindendent Hagen, I'm inclined to agree with their decision. One of the goals is to maximize the number of operating days they can get out of each locomotive during its 15-year FRA cycle. To that end, days where only a few tourists ride the train have been cut, but the trade-off is that the operational life of each engine will be extended. And on days where two trains formerly operated it was often a case of one train running with a good crowd and one train running almost empty, so it makes sense to put everyone on just one train.
There are exciting times ahead at Steamtown. Stay tuned!!!

Night photo sessions, which used to involve everything except approval from the President of the United States, will become more common, and photo freight and similar opportunities are on the not-too-distant horizon. Couple that with Steamtown's second year of "guest photographers" giving slide and video shows on many weekends in the winter and you have a place you can visit quite often and never get bored. And the current group of park rangers are mostly railfans who are excited to bring Steamtown to its full potential for visitors who are passionate about trains.
Among the guest photographers that will be presenting shows this year are Jeff Brouws with a presentation on Richard Steinheimer, Jeff Smith with a presentation on the photography of pioneer John Bowman, plus Tom Nemeth of Railpace Newsmagazine, Mike Harting with some exciting multi-media shows and even yours truly.

Gee Steve, sounds more like events for photographers to me. What's the deal with the obsession about photography?

dave

Scott, can you give us an update on 1361, the site that I have been using to track the progress of the restoration hasn't been updated for many months now.
http://www.trainweb.org/horseshoecurve-nrhs/K4s.htm