Monday, September 4, 2017

Rail Destination: Strasburg, PA

This year I decided to extend my PA trip to Allentown for DCI East to include a side trip to the Strasburg Railroad.

The Strasburg railroad is the oldest continuously operated railroad charter in the US.   Today' it's a tourist railroad running several steam trains per day on a short 45 minute excursion trip (an out and back ride - 4.5 miles).   The locomotives and various passenger cars are all historic equipment, restored to running condition.   Trains run hourly, and there are plenty of things to do on site for the kids.   There are occasional special trains, like a Wine and Cheese special, or a Day Out with Thomas.  (They also do limited freight service....)  The rail cars range from an open air coach (great for photos!) to an air conditioned parlor car.

Across the street is the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, a large collection of restored equipment, cars and locomotives, preserved in an indoor climate controlled environment.    It's easy to take in both attractions on the same day (at a discounted price).

The trip is through the beautiful Lancaster county countryside, making the train ride a great way to see the area.  You can see some of my on-train photos here.

If you're ever in the Lancaster area, a trip to Strasburg RR needs to make it on your agenda!



Down the tracks
The previous excursion train approaches the station


#90
Train arriving at the station.  
Steam always look great in Black & White - the clouds were an added bonus


Runaround
Locomotive #90 runs around our train to pull us back to the station
Ironically, the Steam excursion turns around at the Amtrak electrified Harrisburg line.


'round the bend
Our train as we go around a bend.   Farmland runs on either side of us.



An open coach.  
Not the most luxurious, but no windows makes better photograph opportunities





One last Steam photograph




 The RR museum of PA - half the collection, as seen from a catwalk.

You can find more photos from my Lancaster trip on my Flickr pages.







1 comment:

  1. Great collection of photographs! The Strasburg Train is fun as is the PA Railroad Museum. Also, it was nice nice to make your acquaintance recently on the Boylan Bridge in Raleigh.

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