I arrived at Scranton and checked into the Radisson Lackawanna Hotel in the former Lackawanna station for four nights then parked the car on the side of the building and saw Flagg Coal 75 sitting over on the railroad tracks.
Flagg Coal 0-4-0 75 owned by John and Barney Gramling of Indiana. It is a 40 ton saddle tank locomotive built by Vulcan Iron Works of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvnia in 1930. No. 75 went into service in December 1930 as Flagg Coal Company 2 in Avoca, Pennsylvania where it was used as a switch engine. In 1935 it was sold to the Solvay Process Co. in Jamesville, New York and renumbered 75. There, it was used to push four-wheel hopper cars from the steam shovel to the crusher at the rock quarry. In the early 1950's the Solvay Process Co. disbanded their railroad operation in favour of trucking and in 1953, No. 75 and twelve other locomotives were sold to Dr. Groman and his planned Rail City Museum in Sandy Pond, New York.
There, the locomotive sat untouched until 1991 when John and Byron Gramling purchased it with the intent to restore it to operating condition. The father-son duo painstakingly disassembled the locomotive, moved it to their shop in Ashley, Indiana and over the course of the following ten years returned it to service, completing it in October 2001. Since then, the steam engine has since travelled as far as Florida, Michigan and North Carolina as a living, breathing ambassador of American steam railroading..
Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern caboose 4810, nee Delaware, Lackawanna and Western 882 built by the railroad in 1952.
I carried my luggage up to Room 416 before making my way to the Hilton Hotel to pick up my National Railway Historical Society ticket packet. I then walked through the Steamtown Mall out onto the bridge across the Delaware-Lackawanna mainline and in to Steamtown.
Genesse Valley Transportation Company M420 2045, nee British Columbia Railway 642 built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1973 and acquired by the railroad in 1999.
Delaware-Lackawanna C-420 405, ex. Indiana High Rail Corporation 310, exx. Delaware and Hudson 405, nee Lehigh Valley 405 built by American Locomotive Company in 1964.
Delaware-Lackawanna RS32 211, ex. Tishomingo Railroad 211, exx. Delaware Valley Railway 211, exxx. Eastern Tennesssee 211, exxxx. Municipal Docks 40, exxxxx. Crystal Car Lines 4402, exxxxxxx. Southern Pacific 4002, nee Southern Pacific 7302, built by American Locomotive Company in 1962.
Delaware-Lackawanna C425 2461, ex. British Columbia Railway 811, nee Erie-Lackwanna 2461 built by American Locomotive Company in 1964.
Delaware-Lackawanna C636 3642, ex. Conrail 6792, exx. Penn Central 6342, nee Delta Bulk Terminal 1000 built by American Locomotive Company in 1968.
Delaware-Lackawanna yard.
Reading RS-3 467 built by American Locomotive Company in 1952.
Nickel Plate Road GP9 514, nee Norfolk and Western 2514, built by Electro-Motive Division in 1958..
A Brief HistorySteamtown National Historic Site is a railroad museum and heritage railroad located on 62.48 acres in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, at the site of the former Scranton yards of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. The museum is built around a working turntable and a roundhouse that are largely replications of the original Delaware, Lackawanna and Western facilities; the roundhouse, for example, was reconstructed from remnants of a 1932 structure. The site also features several original outbuildings dated between 1899 and 1902. All the buildings on the site are listed with the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Yard- Dickson Manufacturing Co. Site.
The original Steamtown USA was in Bellows Falls, Vermont. Much of the present-day collection of steam, as well as a few diesel locomotives, and the freight and passenger cars, were on display there. That unique collection of railroad equipment was assembled by the late and great Nelson Blount who died in an airplane crash in 1967 which cut off the main financial support for Steamtown USA. His collection was then moved in 1984 from Bellows Falls to Scranton. Blount's dream was to have a museum in a working railroad yard with steam excursion runs, plus a functional locomotive shop. That dream would be later realized at Steamtown.
Steamtown was established by an act of the United States Congress on October 30, 1986 and officially opened to the public in the summer of 1995. Congress established Steamtown to interpret the story on main line steam railroading between 1850 and 1950. Visitors can see museum exhibitions about the history and technology of steam locomotives in the United States as well as diesels, freight and passenger cars. Some locomotives are displayed out in the open so visitors can have a hands-on experience. There is a mail car, railroad business car, a box car, two cabooses and a recreated Delaware, Lackawanna and Western station with ticket office that visitors can walk through. There is a steam locomotive cutaway section which helps visitors understand how a steam engine works. Other exhibits include the history of early railroads, life on the railroad, the relationship between railroads in term of business, labor and the government and the history of the Lackawanna Railroad. There are short films shown throughout the day in the Steamtown Theater.
Our Tour
Brooks Scanlon Cooperation 2-6-2 1 is the first steam engine you see as you cross the bridge. It was built by Baldwin in 1916 for the Carpenter-O'Brien Lumber Company to work at the company's Eastport, Florida, saw mill. Carpenter- O'Brien was one of the many concerns milling the extensive native pine stands in the South at the turn of the 20th Century, and even owned a ship, the S.S. "William J. O'Brien", which hauled two million board feet of lumber per trip to its yard on Staten Island. In 1917, the Florida mill and timber holdings were sold to the Brooks-Scanlon Corporation.
The Brooks-Scanlon Corporation started out in 1896 operating saw mills in Minnesota. In 1910, when the lumber stands were exhausted there, the company moved to Oregon where it had purchased two large tracts of Ponderosa pine in 1905. At that time, it also bought stands of timber in Louisiana. By 1917, however, it was apparent that the Louisiana plant would eventually run out of timber, which finally happened in 1923. So, the company bought out Carpenter-O'Brien's Eastport mill and, in the process, acquired 1.
It is not known if this steam engine was used to haul logs to the mill from the woods, to switch in the Eastport yard or both but, in 1929, the mill was closed. At some point, ownership of 1 then passed to either the Lee Cypress Company or, still later, to the Lee Tidewater Cypress Company, switching at a mill in Perry, Florida. In 1962, the company was dissolved, probably because the lumber had been completely milled out and its five surviving locomotives, including 1, were sold to F. Nelson Blount. 1 never steamed again.
Union Pacific Big Boy 4-8-8-4 4012 built by Lima in 1940. It was retired in February 1962 after logging 1,029,507 miles in service and was donated to Steamtown in 1964, when it was hauled to North Walpole, New Hampshire the collection's first site. In 1967, it relocated with the collection to Bellows Falls, Vermont and then in 1984 to Scranton. After ten years on display in front of the downtown Lackawanna Station Hotel, it was moved to the Steamtown yard.
Barber Asphalt Company single-dome tank car built by the German American Car Company (later the General American Tank Car Company) in 1911. It was removed from interchange service not later than mid-1941 as the privately-owned tank car has arch bar trucks that were banned after that date. It was donated to Steamtown in February 1991.
The Delaware and Hudson locomotives that would pull our excursion to Sunbury tomorrow.
Delaware and Hudson GP38 7312, ex. Guilford Transportation Services 231, exx. Delaware and Hudson 7325, nee Lehigh Valley 325 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1972.
Delaware Hudson GP38 7304, ex. Guilford Transportation Services 223, exx. Delaware and Hudson 7317, nee Lehigh Valley 317 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1972.
The Steamtown layout board.
LDelaware Lackawanna and Western SC 428 built by Electro-Motive Coorparation in 1935. The two pre-SC models differ from the later production units in that the hood does not taper down to the cab. 426 is one of the first diesel- electric switchers built by the Electro-Motive Corporation; they were equipped with 8 cylinder Winton 201-A engines. Two pre-production SC units were built in 1935 and delivered to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western as 425 and 426.
Delaware & Hudson box car 18119 built by the railroad in 1949.
Lehigh and New England caboose 583 built by the Reading Railroad in 1937.
Rutland Railroad caboose 28 built by the railroad in 1928. This caboose was assigned to runs between Rutland, Vermont and Ogdensburg, New York then later downgraded to bunk house use at Bellows Falls. It was donated by the railroad to Nelson Blount in Riverside, Vermont in 1961 and restored by Steamtown in 1995.
Delaware Lackawanna and Western box car 43651 built by the railroad in 1922. It was acquired by Norton Abrasive Company by the late 1950's and then sold to Railroad Museum of New England in 1980 or 1981. As part of an equipment exchange, Steamtown acquired the car in 1993, with delivery in 1995 and was restored by Steamtown in 1999.
Snag Chalfont & Company 0-6-0 8 built by Baldwin in 1923. It worked switching iron ore to the company's Etna blast furnaces, as well as pipes, tubing and steel sheeting to connections with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad. Some time in the 1950's, it was sold to Duquesne Slag Products in Pittsburgh where it hauled slag for concrete, ballast, road building materials, roofing and other industrial products. In 1963, it was sold to the Penn View Mountain tourist railroad in Blairsville but by 1975, it had become too worn out to operate. It was sold again and in the early 1990's, was donated to the Steamtown collection.
Canadian Pacific 2317 built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1923. Outshopped in 1923, 2317 was the eighteenth G-3 built and seventh in the G-3-c subclass. Eight more were built to complete the fifteen G-3-c roster. 2317 retired in 1959 and was bought by F. Nelson Blount in 1965.
Long Island Railroad rotary snowplough 193 built in 1898 and for sixty-nine years until its retirement in 1967.
Reading Railroad FP7 902 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1950.
Reading Company FP7A 903 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1950. It later worked for the South East Pennsylvania Transporation Authority as 4373 until its retirement in 1981. In 1983, it was bought by the Philadelphia Chapter of the Railway and Locomotive Historial Society and displayed at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. Restoration began in 1986 completed nine years later. It is now owned by the Reading Company Technical and Historical Society but on loan to Steamtown since 2010 to be used on excursion services in exchange for maintenance.
Lowville & Beaver River 2-8-0 1923 built by American Locomotive Company in 1920 for the Cuban sugar plantation Compañía Azucarera Central Reforma as their 8. However, it was never shipped to Cuba. Instead, in 1923, it was bought by the Lowville & Beaver River Railroad, a shortline operating in New York State west of the Adirondacks. Built as an oil burner, Alco removed the locomotive's oil burner from the firebox and oil tank from the tender and converted the grates to burn coal.
As the L&BR had done since buying its first new locomotive, 8 was renumbered 1923, the year of its purchase and it worked on the L&BR hauling freight and passenger trains until January 1947, when passenger services stopped, although it continued hauling freight serving local farmers, paper mills and a block factory at Croghan, New York until May 1947. It was then placed on standby and went into storage. For a brief period of four months in 1954, the locomotive steamed again while the company's diesel underwent repairs, and then again in January 1957, when cold completely disabled the diesel. That, however, was its last stand. 1923 was sold to Blount in 1964 for $2,000. The locomotive apparently moved to Bellows Falls, VT, in October of that year.
Delaware Lackawanna and Western caboose 889, later Conrail 19905 built by the railroad in 1952. It was donated to Steamtown by the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society in 1990.
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, Baggage-Express Car 2065.
Canadian Pacific 4-4-4 2929 built by Canadian Locomotive Company in 1938. When the first F-2-a was outshopped in 1936, the name "Jubilee" was given to the wheel arrangement to mark the 50th anniversary of Canadian Pacific's inauguration of its transcontinental service in 1886.
The fast, local intercity services for which the Fs were designed never developed, however, and the locomotives were assigned to work on local passenger services on the prairies and in eastern Canada instead. 2929 continued in service until 1958 and was bought by F. Nelson Blount the following year.
Canadian National 2-8-2 3377 built by Canadian Locomotive Company in 1919. Designed for freight service, 3377 underwent a number of modifications, including being fitted with a superheater, feedwater heater, mechanical stoker and large-capacity air pumps for the braking system, allowing it to haul long main line freight trains. 3377 was sold to F. Nelson Blount by Canadian National in 1961 and moved with the collection to Scranton in 1985.
Erie-Lackawanna multiple unit motor unit 3505, nee Delaware, Lackawanna and Western 2505, built by Pullman and General Electric in 1930.
Illinois Central 2-8-0 790 built by Alco (Cooke) in 1903. Designed to haul freight trains, 641 was probably better utilised by the Illinois Central than it would have been if it continued working in Chicago's Union Station transfer yard. 641 hauled freight in Tennessee for most of its life and was rebuilt in 1920 with a superheater and possibly replacement boiler and firebox. It was renumbered 790 in 1940 and remained on the Illinois Central roster until near the end of steam. In 1959, the steam engine was sold to Louis S. Keller of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who planned to use it on railfan excursions between Cedar Rapids and Manchester, Iowa, although the excursions never eventuated. In 1965, 790 was sold to David de Camp, who moved it to Lake Placid, New York, hoping to operate it there. However, it never steamed again and was sold to Blount in 1966. It is the only Chicago Union Transfer locomotive to have survived.
Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 759 built by Lima in 1944. In May 1958, 759 was the last steam locomotive the NKP overhauled and it was retired soon after. F. Nelson Blount bought 759 in 1962 for his collection in Bellows Falls. Ross Rowland, Jr., then carried out repairs and on 17th August 1968, it made several trial runs. Two weeks later, it began an excursion career that lasted until 1973. Briefly fired up at Steamtown in 1977, work was to begin on reflueing, but sponsorship fell through and the locomotive has stood cold ever since.
Boston and Maine baggage-smoker coach 2068 built by the railroad in 1900.
Wooden caboose.
Wooden caboose.
Work train car.
Central Railroad of New Jersey box car 18049 built by American Car and Foundry in 1922.
Berlin Mills 2-4-2T 7 built by Vulcan Iron Works in 1911. Number 7 worked for Berlin Mills for thirty-three years but was eventually rendered obsolete as the company grew and acquired heavier motive power. The locomotive was sold to the Groveton Papers Company in nearby Groveton, New Hampshire, in 1944. Number 7 worked for another twelve years at Groveton until retired in 1956, when it was replaced with a second-hand 45 ton diesel switcher. The locomotive then went into storage until 1961 when it was leased to the Woodsville, Blackmount & Haverhill Railroad. The 7 operated for only one year on the excursion railroad between Woodsville and Blackmount, New Hampshire, and then sat idle until 1969, when the Groveton Papers Company donated it to Steamtown.
Bullard Machine 0-4-0T 2 built by H.K. Porter in 1937, one of the smallest standard gauge locomotives built. It operated in plant and yard use by the Bullard Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut and was designed for one-man operation. It was purchased by Nelson Blount in l963 from American Machinery Corporation.
Reading Railroad 4-8-4 2124 built by Reading Shops in 1947. The first twenty T-1s were designed to haul freight, largely coal traffic, the last ten to haul passenger trains but, except for a few troop trains, mainly hauled freight. They worked until 1956 when all steam was retired on the Reading Railroad. The company kept only four steam locomotives: T-1s 2100, 2101, 2102 and 2124. In 1959, 2124 re-entered active service on the first of the "Iron Horse Rambles", also known as the "Reading Rambles", on 16th October, hauling sixteen passenger cars full of railfans from Wayne Junction to Shamokin. 2124 made a brief appearance in the opening scenes of the film "From the Terrace" with Joanne Woodward and Myrna Loy, shot at Jersey City, New Jersey. The Reading Company ran fifty-one "Iron Horse Rambles" excursions from 1959 to 1964, also utilising T-1s 2100 and 2102. The last excursion ran on 17th October 1964. However, 2124 was taken out of service after a trip in October 1961 and was then sold to F. Nelson Blount in 1962 and joined the Steamtown collection.
Grand Trunk Western 4-8-2 6039 built by Baldwin in 1925. Fitted with feedwater heaters, power reverse gear and automatic or mechanical stokers, they were the first locomotives on the GTW to feature both Vanderbilt tenders and enclosed, all-weather cabs. Although designed for passenger service, the Grand Trunk Western soon put them to work on fast freight trains. In the late 1950s, 6039 was leased to the Central Vermont Railway. It was bought by Blount in 1959 for $7,425.
Lackawanna F3A 664 in primer, ex. Central of New Jersey 56, exx. Bangor and Aroostook 46, nee Bangor and Aroostook 506A, built by Electro-Motive Division in 1947.
Lackawanna F3A 663, ex. Central of New Jersey 57, exx. Bangor and Aroostook 44, nee Bangor and Aroostook 504A, painted as Erie-Lackawanna and built by Electro-Motive Division in 1947.
