STEAMTOWN Discussion

This article is the headline of todays local paper.

http://www.scrantontimes.com/articles/2 ... 8_top2.txt

The article mentions the discussions that are going on this board.

Mike

Site Admin Note: adding a brief abstract from the original article, now archived, per RR.net policy:

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/timesshamro ... 1293130713

"There are a lot of pieces sitting and rusting, and people say, 'What's going on? Why aren't you guys doing something?' " he said. "We are just an example of what is happening across the country with infrastructure and working with available dollars and trying to keep up with maintenance."

"They have done a good job of bringing steam back to Steamtown," Ms. [Joanne Blacoe] said. "It's a nice balance they have."

Mr. [Donald L. Pevsner] said he not saying anything about Steamtown that hasn't already been said by others for 10 years or more - he is just the first to wrap it up in one package. A collection of Steamtown's caliber, on a site in the Northeast U.S. with the DL&W yard's potential, "is like manna from heaven," he said.

Given the current popular movement to "heal the planet" and the present very high price of scrap metal this is a memorably ill-advised time to bring attention to a dirty polluting railroad attraction operated by the national park service. The disenchanted steam fans are likely to end up forcing the scrapping of part of the collection or even the shutdown of the entire operation.

MX

(1)Today's SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE front-page lead story is long-overdue.

(2)If anyone really thinks that the NPS will close down a $66 million building because of just criticism, then they are irrational defeatists.

(3)No one ever achieved meaningful change by fearfully putting his head in the sand.

Henry's response was very well stated.

Want to expand the appeal of the place, then I would suggest expanding the mission statement first. The Steamtown mission statement has never been realistic anyway, it attempts to create a presentation based around a single type of motive power and ends up actually distorting history because most of the steam locomotives on display and in operation at the site co-existed with diesels during their service lives. When they end up having to use diesels anyway, without acknowledging that they are part of the collection too, it turns the mission into a joke. So change the mission to a wider scope.

You also have the issue changing demographics, there are fewer and fewer people in the railroad enthusiast hobby that identify themselves as steam fans, but if this place is to survive, it can't be dependent on railfans. It has got to appeal to the general public. So why not make it relevant to a wider range of interests. If it is such a failure as it is, why continue with such limited scope? How about this for a concept:

THE MUSEUM OF TWENTIETH CENTURY RAILROADING

MX

I think outsourcing some of the excursions might be a good idea. If the article is to be believed, it was stated that in order to get funding for many projects, that Steamtown must find a matching donation of a private nature. If a sort of lease deal could be worked out for engines and cars with private business owners, Steamtown would essentially have to pay zero dollars out of pocket; half from governement funds, and half from private operators, means Steamtown would simply act as a middle man. It also means several other things. One, that rusty equipment and surplus rolling stock would not continue to be an eyesore. Two, that Steamtown would be able to keep it's two steam locomotives on site, for demo purposes. Three, the museum could become the 'meeting place' for these new excursions; imagine if you had a busy platform, with three seperate engines all arriving in about the same time from areas outside Scranton, plus operational steam equipment in the yard, and the ability to offer three different excursions OUT of Steamtown.

You just need enough people willing to cut through the red tape to do it. Steamtown would not have to give up an operational equipment, shuttered engines would be back up and operational again (still in the ownership of the museum under a lease contract), and the museum roundhouse becomes the main meeting point of the excursions. This is ever further realized in the fact that private operators would most likely be able to avail the use of the repair shops at Steamtown, keeping the line going but also showing the actual meat and potatoes of steam repair to visitors to the park.

The SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE story just got picked up by the Associated Press, and a much-shorter version has gone out to thousands of newspapers all across the USA. It is long-overdue that the spotlight shine big-time on the <name redacted> regime's management disaster.

First: I've been to Steamtown & Electic City ... enjoyed both.
- Both don't seem to want "friends of" at their facilities

$176M since 1986 !
- Maybe the management should talk to some of the "private" steam RxRs & discover how they do it on the cheep ?
- So how much of the problem is too many folks on the payroll ?
- Why isn't the overhaul shop making money ? I thought they were going to have a 1st class O/H shop to fix everybody elses steam engines ?
- Deterioration ... a bunch of equipment is outside stuffed & mounted ... rusting in place, well that's SOP for most private museums too. The round house/museum area is great. The turn table operation also is something to be seen.
- Operations of lack there of ... that was the result of a change in the management & lack of money to keep the equipment up to snuff ... steam engines are very labor intensive ... that shouldn't be a surprise to the management there ! At Essex they have two diesels to run the dinner trains & only use the steam for the shorter trips ... this extends the life of the steam engines !

Regarding relying on steam railfans to pay the bills ... steam is still a big draw for the general public, especially familys with young kids, but they'll do it once, so you need to come up with reasons for them to come back.
Maybe they need Thomas to pay them a visit ... how about a dinner train ?

(1)The headline in the SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE story dated Sunday, September 14 was "STEAMTOWN DERAILED."

(2)In a case of supreme irony, Steamtown personnel managed to derail CPR Pacific #2317 in the Steamtown yard on Friday, September 12: two days before the story ran. The later headline is sheer coincidence, as the editor who chose the story title knew nothing about the #2317 derailment at the time.

(3)The cause of the accident is negligence: a contractor paving the office-area parking lot left too much blacktop against the rail flange. After that, no one even bothered to look before attempting to run #2317 over that track. As a result, #2317 now has a ruined pony truck plus reported damage to the main wheel drive boxes, and will require serious shop work before it can run again anywhere.

(4)#2317 was restricted to the yard because the <name redacted> management was too short-sighted to put new tires on it, which had been purchased several years ago and which remain just sitting around the shop.

(5)It can't get much worse than this.

That is very sad news about xCP 2317 (4-6-2 G3 Pacific from 1923).
She was their main tourist engine to Moscow ... have fond memory of a trip.
She also has had a unlucky life ... (add her numbers & you get "13") ... once derailed on home turf and ran a little off center after that.

So, now what ... 2-8-2 xCN 3254 & 0-6-0 Baldwin #26 ?
or maybe they can tow their Big Boy around with a diesel

Which brings us back to a comment by a railcamp participant: (approximate quote)

They talked about steam locomotives all week long but when they needed to do work they started up the diesel.

Here is an interesting statement from the Steamtown Special History Study on their website:

"Because the purpose of Steamtown National Historic Site is the preservation of equipment and rolling stock related to the era of steam railroading, none of the diesel-electric locomotives is considered suitable as a museum locomotive, although some of them are old enough to be considered historic. Steamtown National Historic Site has, however, found it prudent to keep one or more of these diesels as serviceable switch engines for use around the yard and for emergency service out on the excursion line in case of the breakdown of a steam locomotive while in use."

The entire entry can be found here:

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/onli ... n/shs5.htm

The problem with this is that many diesels ARE equipment related to the era of steam railroading. Many of them were operated alongside steam locomotives for several decades during the steam to diesel transition. There are steam locomotives at Steamtown that are newer than some of the preserved diesels in the area.

So the Steamtown mission is not really to present and interpret history, because history did not happen the way they have assumed with their mission. It is actually a distortion of history, a dream world of what U.S. railroading might have looked like if the diesels had not been there and if the operating steam trains in the United States had been powered by Canadian locomotives.

MX

Red Arrow Fan wrote:I have to agree with 3rdrail and Stmtrolleyguy, the stuff out in the yard is just rusting away. Surely a little time and $$$ could be spent on pro-actively slowing the aging of these nice pieces?!? Maybe construct a shed roof over the yard? (But then you couldn't see everything from the overhead bridge; but you could still walk around at ground level, and rain wouldn't be pouring into these decaying cars.)

I had the same feeling as 3rdrail about that "pink" Brilliner on the flatcar in the yard. The roof boards are caving in. It was sad to see it (after riding these so much in the 60s & 70s).

I went to the PA Trolley Museum in suburban Pittsburgh this weekend (1st visit). They have about 40 trolleys/interurbans/subway cars/work cars. Some are beautifully restored, some in the process of being restored, and some are outright junk, but they are ALL UNDER ROOF in 3 buildings. I assume these buildings were funded by donations, visitor admission fees, and perhaps some grants. Then again, that's a private enterprise, whereas Steamtown/Electric City is a government-run operation (insert your own bureaucratic jokes here). The PA Trolley Museum facilities and collection blows the doors off of Electric City.

Who are these private operators that are lining up to run steamtown? GCRY is out of the steam biz, as is Ohio Central, the cog to some extant, and the list goes on. AOE is gone, etc. I just don't see anyone that is lining up to make a steam train profitable in an economically depressed area. Then to strong-arm NS and CP? They have their own political pressure as well. NS will just go to Specter and Casey and tell them "well, guess we'll have to close Juniata shops, laying off hundreds of democratic voters." Or "guess we'll think twice about getting that next order of PA-built GE engines"

I just thought it was time to bring this classic discussion back up to the top of the page again. While this discussion has been running, the economy has taken a big dive, the stock market has lost about a third of its value, we have had a $700+ billion bailout of the banks that were rendered unstable by bad investments in subprime mortgages. What is next? How about massive defaults in Alternative-A (ALT-A) mortgages in 2009 to 2012, that are going to make the first crisis look like small change. (reportedly $402 billion in ALT-A mortgages written in 2006 alone). Then there is going to be the cascade of bad credit card debt (estimates say 900+ billion), then defaulted auto loans, etc. etc.

Do Steamtown's problems still seem so serious?

MX

I think that Steamtown is going on the back burner.

Perhaps it will be on the back burner considering all that is going on. However they already put up their 2009 schedule and They have planned two trips to East Stroudsburg, one to the Delaware Water Gap. and one to the Viaduct.

The longer excursions sold out in prior years and this is good to see these excursions.

Mike