The Strasburg Rail Road is a
heritage railroad
A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...
and the oldest continuously operating standard-gauge railroad in the western hemisphere, as well as the oldest public utility in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. Chartered in 1832, the Strasburg Rail Road Company is today a
heritage railroad
A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...
offering excursion trains hauled by
steam locomotives
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
on of track
in
Pennsylvania Dutch Country
The Pennsylvania Dutch Country ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Deitscherei'' Dutchery', also called Pennsylvania Dutchland ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Pennsylvania Deitschland'', german: Pennsylvania Deutschland), or simply the Dutch Country or Dutchland ( ...
, as well as providing contract railroad mechanical services, and freight service to area shippers. The railroad's headquarters are outside
Strasburg, Pennsylvania
Strasburg is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It developed as a linear village stretching about along the Great Conestoga Road, later known as the Strasburg Road.Susan M. Zacher, NRHP Nomination Form Strasburg/ref> The population ...
.
Strasburg has a total of 5 operational steam locomotives on its roster, as well as several others in various stages of restoration. As of 2022,
Canadian National No. 89,
Norfolk & Western No. 475 and
Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal No. 15 (rebuilt as
Thomas the Tank Engine
Thomas the Tank Engine is an anthropomorphised fictional tank locomotive in the British ''Railway Series'' books by Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher, published from 1945. He became the most popular and famous character in the series, a ...
) are all in active service.
Canadian National No. 7312 (No. 31) is currently undergoing restoration while
Great Western No. 90 is undergoing its FRA inspection and overhaul. The other steam locomotive is 15” Gauge 4-4-0 built by Cagney in the early 1900s. They also have the nation's largest operating fleet of historic wooden passenger coaches. The Strasburg Rail Road is one of the few railroads in the
U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
to occasionally use steam locomotives to haul revenue freight trains. It hosts 300,000 visitors per year.
The nearby
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is a railroad museum in Strasburg, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
The museum is located on the east side of Strasburg along Pennsylvania Route 741. It is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Mus ...
occasionally uses Strasburg Rail Road tracks to connect to the
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg Main Line junction in
Paradise, Pennsylvania
Paradise is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, with a ZIP code of 17562. The population was 1,129 at the 2010 census.
Paradise, like Intercourse, is a popular site i ...
.
Description
![StrasburgRR 2004 0613Image002](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/StrasburgRR_2004_0613Image002.jpg)
Strasburg Rail Road is a
shortline railroad
:''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.''
A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...
that connects the town of Strasburg with Amtrak's
Keystone Corridor
The Keystone Corridor is a 349-mile (562 km) railroad corridor between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that consists of two rail lines: Amtrak and SEPTA's Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg main line, which hosts SEPTA's Paoli/Thorndale ...
mainline. Today, the line is used for excursion trains, that carry passengers on a 45-minute round-trip journey from East Strasburg to
Leaman Place Junction through nearly in southeastern Lancaster County.
The railroad includes the United States' only operational wooden dining car on which visitors may dine while riding. Attractions at the station include the fully operational gauge Pint-Sized Pufferbelly (
Cagney steam-powered
ridable miniature railway
A ridable miniature railway (US: riding railroad or grand scale railroad) is a large scale, usually ground-level railway that hauls passengers using locomotives that are often models of full-sized railway locomotives (powered by diesel or petrol ...
) a vintage pump car and several c.1930s "
cranky cars", along with several gift shops and a cafe.
A percentage of each train ticket is contributed to the Lancaster Farmland Trust.
The railroad's mechanical and car shops maintain and restore locomotives and rolling stock for the Strasburg Rail Road and a wide variety of public and private clients, including fellow railroads, steam locomotive operators, train museums, and other heavy industries. In 2016–17, the shops were enlarged to to accommodate demand for their services.
Its freight department provides shipping and transloading for local and regional clients. Since 2008, freight carloads have increased substantially, which resulted in development of a new $1.5 million transloading facility funded by the railroad and matching grants.
History
By the 1820s, the canal system had replaced the
Conestoga wagon as the primary method of overland transportation. When the
Susquehanna Canal opened, the majority of goods were directed through
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, rather than
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
.
[Hallock, p. 133.] The small amount of goods that were destined for Philadelphia traveled via a wagon road through Strasburg.
Philadelphia attempted to reclaim its position as a major port city by constructing the
Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad
Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (P&CR) (1834) was one of the earliest commercial railroads in the United States, running from Philadelphia to Columbia, Pennsylvania, it was built by the Pennsylvania Canal Commission in lieu of a canal from Colu ...
in 1831. A railroad was easier and more cost effective to build than a canal. Because the new railroad would bypass Strasburg and cause Strasburg to lose its livelihood, a group of businessmen petitioned the
state government
A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or ...
for the right to build their own railroad to connect Strasburg to the Philadelphia and Columbia.
[Hallock, p. 134.] A charter was issued by the Pennsylvania Legislature with the signature of Governor
George Wolf
George Wolf (August 12, 1777March 11, 1840) was the seventh governor of Pennsylvania from 1829 to 1835. On June 29, 1888, he was recognized as the "father of the public-school system" in Pennsylvania by the erection of a memorial gateway at E ...
on June 9, 1832 to "
incorporate
Incorporation may refer to:
* Incorporation (business), the creation of a corporation
* Incorporation of a place, creation of municipal corporation such as a city or county
* Incorporation (academic), awarding a degree based on the student having ...
the Strasburg ".
Although the pre-1852 history of the Strasburg Rail Road is sketchy, it is believed that the line was
graded in 1835 and was operational by 1837.
[Hallock, p. 135.] The railroad operated as a
horse-drawn railroad until it purchased a second-hand
Norris-built,
4-2-0 steam locomotive named the ''William Penn'' in 1851.
Controlling interest
A controlling interest is an ownership interest in a corporation with enough voting stock shares to prevail in any stockholders' motion. A majority of voting shares (over 50%) is always a controlling interest. When a party holds less than the majo ...
in the railroad was purchased by John F. and Cyrus N. Herr in 1863. The rails were replaced around the same time with heavier ones to accommodate the locomotive. In 1866, the Herrs were granted a charter to extend the Strasburg Rail Road to
Quarryville; surveys were carried out, but the extension was eventually canceled because of an
economic depression in 1867.
[Hallock, p. 140.] Isaac Groff managed The Strasburg Rail Road for about 20 years until the fire of January 16, 1871, which destroyed the depot, grist, and merchant-mill, planing-mill and machine-shop — in all, more than $50,000 worth of property. In 1878, the Strasburg Rail Road and the shops were sold. The railroad was eventually again sold in 1888 to Edward Musselman, with the Musselman family retaining control of it until 1918 when it was purchased by
State Senator John Homsher. By this time, the number of passengers had dropped off due to tracks for the
Conestoga Traction Company
Conestoga Traction, later Conestoga Transportation Company, was a classic American regional interurban trolley that operated seven routes 1899 to 1946 radiating spoke-like from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to numerous neighboring farm villages and to ...
's
streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
s reaching Strasburg in 1908, which offered a more direct route between Lancaster and Strasburg.
[Hallock, p. 141.]
In 1926, the Strasburg Rail Road purchased a , gasoline-powered,
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
switcher
A switcher, shunter, yard pilot, switch engine, yard goat, or shifter is a small railroad locomotive used for manoeuvring railroad cars inside a rail yard in a process known as ''switching'' (US) or ''shunting'' (UK). Switchers are not inten ...
—the only locomotive that was ever built specifically for the Strasburg Rail Road.
By 1958, the railroad fell on hard-times from cumulative effect of years of declining freight business and infrequent runs, damage caused by
Hurricane Hazel
Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, second costliest, and most intense hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed at least 469 people in Haiti before striking the United States near the border between North and Sout ...
and inspectors from the
Interstate Commerce Commission
The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...
's lack of approval for operation of the Plymouth locomotive.
Upon the death of Bryson Homsher, the Homsher estate filed for abandonment with the
Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission
Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) is the public utility commission in Pennsylvania. It is composed of five commissioners, appointed by the Governor with the consent of the state Senate. The PUC oversees public utility and services opera ...
. Hearing of the potential abandonment, an effort to purchase and save the railroad was organized by Henry K. Long and Donald E. L. Hallock, both
railfans
A railfan, rail buff or train buff (American English), railway enthusiast, railway buff or trainspotter (Australian/British English), or ferroequinologist is a person who is recreationally interested in trains and rail transport systems.
Rail ...
from Lancaster. They organized a small, non-profit group to purchase the railroad. After the better part of a year of hard work, the purchase was completed on November 1, 1958.
The following week, on November 8, the first carload of revenue freight was hauled to what was then the only customer, a mill in Strasburg.
Tourist
excursion service
A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...
began on January 4, 1959, and their first steam locomotive arrived the following year.
Equipment
Locomotives
"Thomas" is actually
Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal No. 15, originally built in March 1917 by the H.K. Porter Company. The engine was sold to the Strasburg Rail Road by Keith Brigode from the
Toledo, Lake Erie and Western Railway in March 1998 and rebuilt to resemble the character,
Thomas the Tank Engine
Thomas the Tank Engine is an anthropomorphised fictional tank locomotive in the British ''Railway Series'' books by Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher, published from 1945. He became the most popular and famous character in the series, a ...
for the Day Out With Thomas events.
In April 2014, Thomas's face was replaced with the
animatronic
Animatronics refers to mechatronic puppets. They are a modern variant of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films and in theme park attractions.
It is a multidisciplinary field integrating puppetry, anatomy a ...
CGI face with the mouth's ability to open and close, and a voice
speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** I ...
.
No. 89 operated for the
Green Mountain Railroad
The Green Mountain Railroad is a class III railroad operating in Vermont. GMRC operates on tracks that had been owned by the Rutland Railroad and Boston and Maine Railroad. The railroad operates on a rail line between North Walpole, New Hampsh ...
, in conjunction with
Steamtown, U.S.A.
Steamtown, U.S.A., was a steam locomotive museum that ran steam excursions out of North Walpole, New Hampshire, and Bellows Falls, Vermont, from the 1960s to 1983. The museum was founded by millionaire seafood industrialist F. Nelson Blount. T ...
It was purchased by the Strasburg in 1972, and while en route to Strasburg in June of that year, it was in
Penn Central
The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...
's
Buttonwood
Buttonwood or Buttonwoods may refer to:
* "Buttonwood", a finance column in ''The Economist''
* Buttonwood Agreement, 1792 effort to organize securities trading that created the predecessor of the New York Stock Exchange
Plants
* ''Conocarpus'' ...
, Pennsylvania yard when
Hurricane Agnes
Hurricane Agnes in 1972 was the costliest hurricane to hit the United States at the time, causing an estimated $2.1 billion in damage. The hurricane's death toll was 128. The effects of Agnes were widespread, from the Caribbean to Canada, ...
flooded the
Susquehanna River
The Susquehanna River (; Lenape: Siskëwahane) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, overlapping between the lower Northeast and the Upland South. At long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the ...
. The floodwaters entered the locomotive's stack, delaying its debut at Strasburg. No. 89 arrived at the railroad facing East, and it remained in that status until the
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is a railroad museum in Strasburg, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
The museum is located on the east side of Strasburg along Pennsylvania Route 741. It is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Mus ...
's turntable was installed across the street in 1975.
For several years, groups have scheduled photo charters when the railroad reletters locomotives in their heritage paint scheme. For the movie ''
Thomas and the Magic Railroad
''Thomas and the Magic Railroad'' is a 2000 children's fantasy adventure film written and directed by Britt Allcroft and produced by Allcroft and Phil Fehrle. It is the only theatrical live-action/animated ''Thomas & Friends'' film in the franc ...
'', No. 475 and three passenger cars (only two of which wound up being used) were re-lettered "Indian Valley".
No. 90 is occasionally repainted into different paint schemes for photo charters, such as the
Great Western Railway (Colorado) scheme in a 2013 charter.
No. 972 was acquired from Rail Tours Inc. of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania after the company could not afford the payments for mechanical repairs that Strasburg was performing on the locomotive at the time. It currently sits in storage until it can be repaired.
While there are many locomotives which have gone through the backshop for restoration, some have been established to be in the shop only on hearsay. Only locomotives that have been publicly displayed or have been given a press release are counted as restorations and re-builds.
SRC also has a collection of early internal combustion locomotives; all but No. 1235 are in operation.
No. 1 has operated on the Strasburg Rail Road ever since it was built in 1926. The engine is notable for being used to reconstruct the track and rails for the railroad between 1958 and 1959, after the railroad was purchased to become a tourist line.
No. 1235 was brought to the railroad in late 2018. It arrived in poor condition, painted in faded Santa Fe dark blue, and is currently under going restoration to operation. No. 1235 is an ex-ATSF SSB-1200, rebuilt from a 1953 EMD SW9. In 1984, it was sold by GE to Celanese Corp.
Former units
Both 1223 and 7002 were leased for operation. 1223 was leased from the PRR from 1965 to 1968, from
Penn Central
The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...
from 1968 to 1979 and from the
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is a railroad museum in Strasburg, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
The museum is located on the east side of Strasburg along Pennsylvania Route 741. It is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Mus ...
from 1979 to 1990. 7002 was also leased from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. After ultra-sonic testing both engines were found to have thin spots in their fireboxes, which are a part of their
boiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central h ...
s, thus the engines were taken out of service. The railroad stated they could have done the repairs but the lessor, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, wanted to preserve the historical fabric of each locomotive and did not renew their leases the following year. 1223's last day of service for SRC was Thursday, October 26, 1989, while 7002's was earlier that year in January right after filming a Prudential Insurance commercial in Harrisburg Train Station. They have both remained on static display since being removed from service.
SRC 4 is a
camelback-type locomotive originally built as Reading Railroad A4b 1187 by The Baldwin Locomotive Works. The locomotive has the distinction of being the only SRC locomotive to arrive under its own power, doing so in 1962 from E&G Brooke Iron Company of Birdsboro, PA. It had inadequate strength for SRC's heavy trains. As such, it ran as a switcher during the summer months from 1963 to 1967. After a loan to the
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is a railroad museum in Strasburg, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
The museum is located on the east side of Strasburg along Pennsylvania Route 741. It is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Mus ...
, it long sat dismantled pending long-term future restoration. It was acquired by the
Age of Steam Roundhouse
The Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum, Sugarcreek, Ohio, United States, is a museum roundhouse housing steam and diesel locomotives, passenger cars and other railroad equipment.
History
The roundhouse was built by Jerry Joe Jacobson, former CEO of ...
in
Sugarcreek, Ohio during a July 15, 2020
auction and left the Strasburg yard on July 31, 2020.
Visiting units
Locomotives that visited Strasburg either for events, to undergo a rebuild or, under a lease agreement.
Pre-1958
Strasburg rostered at least six steam locomotives prior to 1958. Evidence suggests that Strasburg only rostered one locomotive at a time, operating it until it was no longer economically viable to run it anymore and would purchase a new locomotive to replace it.
Passenger car roster
Accidents and incidents
On November 2, 2022, while running around a passenger train at Leaman Place, Paradise, No. 475 collided head-on with an
excavator
Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, dipper (or stick), bucket and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. They are a natural progression fro ...
parked on a
siding.
The impact punched a hole in the
smokebox
A smokebox is one of the major basic parts of a steam locomotive exhaust system. Smoke and hot gases pass from the firebox through tubes where they pass heat to the surrounding water in the boiler. The smoke then enters the smokebox, and is e ...
door.
No crew or passengers were injured, and the damage done was deemed relatively minor. The collision was broadcast live via Virtual Railfan and was caught on video via
cellphone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
by one of the passengers on board the train that day.
The accident was caused by a misaligned
switch
In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type of ...
, and it is being investigated by the
Federal Railroad Administration
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). The agency was created by the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. The purpose of the FRA is to promulgate and enforce rail saf ...
(FRA).
Strasburg announced repairs on the locomotive had commenced immediately on November 3, the day after the accident. Repairs were completed with the locomotive returning to service on November 7, 2022.
In film and television
The Strasburg Rail Road and its locomotives have appeared in a number of films and television series, including ''
Thomas and the Magic Railroad
''Thomas and the Magic Railroad'' is a 2000 children's fantasy adventure film written and directed by Britt Allcroft and produced by Allcroft and Phil Fehrle. It is the only theatrical live-action/animated ''Thomas & Friends'' film in the franc ...
'' and ''
The Gilded Age''.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
*
*
HawkinsRails' Strasburg scrapbook
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strasburg Railroad
Heritage railroads in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania railroads
Railroad museums in Pennsylvania
Railway companies established in 1832
Switching and terminal railroads
Tourist attractions in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Horse-drawn railways
1832 establishments in Pennsylvania
American companies established in 1832