Nobody thinks it's a "money making machine". And sorry, it's a GOVERNMENT operation. I don't know how anybody could imply that you can critique an operation without critiquing the operator.



Nice digging. This is the sort of post that one can say, "hey that person is looking at the facts and documents and making reasoned assertions, given what they found." Nicely done.

However, far be it from me to defend the (this) Superintendent; but in fairness, I must.

This sort of expenditure-the sort of long-lived asset the private sector calls capital expenditures or "capex" must be its nature be handled at higher levels because of competing priorities at other parks throughout the system. This is handled at the regional and national level. Moreover, there is an enormous backlog, system wide.

(No doubt the usual suspects will make one of their usual ad hominems about one of these links, but I don't care)

https://www.heritage.org/environment/re ... onal-parks

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2 ... ce-backlog

The reality is that Steamtown very likely has one of, if not the most capital intense physical plants in the system. In most places, you either have a few historic structures which need occasional evaluation, repair or restoration or acres of self-regenerating natural resources. Bureaucracies being what they are, other Superintendents have wants and needs for their facility, and no regional or national staff is going to want to hear the same complaints about being unable to fill positions or do some project because one park is drawing a disproportionate share of the available money-especially when it's visitation-which also plays a critical role in capital allocation-is dropping. An example is warranted

About the time I realized former Superintendent Conway was probably looking for the lifeboats; there was a discussion during an IHS Board Meeting about obtaining funding for locomotives. By that time, BLW 26 was running, and they were looking at a 2022-2024 time frame to have 3713 ready. Superintendent Conway said she was already looking at finding the next candidate, because from submission to release the funding cycle could be ten years.

Of course there's no guarantee what will happen in ten years, one Congress cannot bind another.

National Parks are creatures of politics because they require Congressional action to be created. That means your House Rep and Senator must be willing to take up the cause, trade some chips with cosponsors, get it through Committee and then bring it to a full vote and have the authorization slipped into some bill the President really wants to avoid a veto.

When you see your politicians as they are-you realize they get "paid" with media attention and the loyalty of a coherent constituency for sponsoring something that creates something, but supporting it after its creation really doesn't get them much bang for their buck. Joe McDade is long gone from Congress and dead. Pennsylvania is losing House seats. I have no idea whether Cartwright won his seat or not, but I have no doubt Biden's team used passenger rail to show WH interest in the seat.

When 2024 comes around (not sure, but I think that's when Casey's term ends), do you think Biden (or whoever replaces him) Casey or the 8th District candidates are going to run on a platform that says "and I voted to fix Steamtown's heating system"?

That's "poilitics without romance" or realpolitik take your choice.

I told you a while back, the place is slowly dying. There was no discernable progress made with the 3713 this year, multiple days where there was insufficient crews to field an excursion and the shuttle and now this.

It's hard to watch when you put in over twenty years and a lot of sweat and effort, but at a certain point, no matter how you want to believe otherwise, some entities require a "going concern" exception.

Understood. The greater point being that we can't possibly expect to see any strides in rolling stock restoration when they can't even keep the heat on. This does not appear to be a surprise to anyone, yet it was allowed to fester under the 'watchful eye' of someone who was positioned to be uniquely skilled to tackle it, until it failed spectacularly.

And I have it from reliable sources is looking for the exit.

Apart from a degrading physical plant; the next failure is going to be the loss of volunteers.

No trains, no volunteers getting trained and promoted, no volunteers getting trained and promoted.

No trains, no visitors asking "hey how do I get to do that".

Right now, I can't think of an active volunteer under 40. A few 20 and 30 somethings left in the past couple years; others are getting older. A couple are actively considering not coming back.

The final straw might be "mass superannuation".

Just in time to turn the park complex over to Amtrak.

You know a cynical person might just conclude that the whole Purpose of the place was to keep the road in tact from Gap to Bridge 60. I'm a skeptic, but cynicism is becoming appealing.

I have reported this post, but want to preserve it in case you delete it later, becasue it clearly violates the interchange guidelines found here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27206 "Insulting or inflammatory language; argument and debate for their own sake, challenging posters to “put up or shut up” attempts to chill discussions; and personal, ad hominem, attacks on other posters ("flaming") are all prohibited." No one mentioned you specifically, but you couldn't resist opening your mouth anyway.

Why don't you take your tedious, verbose posts somewhere else?

And here I thought this thread was going to be boring. I'll make the popcorn!

I think it's fair to say that I have been a vocal critic of Steamtown for many, many years primarily due to them not devoting any meaningful portion of their annual multi-million dollar federal grant towards the restoration to service of at least one of their mainline capable engines and to keeping at least 2 mainline capable steamers in service and offering mainline type excursions behind them.

I think it's also fair to say that I have repeatedly acknowledged that Steamtown has been a resounding success as a job maker for the greater Scranton area that can use all the good paying jobs it can find.

Another piece of the puzzle is that despite its abject failure to restore/operate mainline steam ( part of its stated mission statement) it was created by the late Cong. Joe McDade as a vehicle to give his district an economic shot in the arm and it has done that in spades.

Also, despite its failure to restore/operate mainline steam its displays do a good job of telling the very important story of the huge role steam played in the growth of the nation.

As the vast majority of its visitors come in the summer time it being closed in the dead of winter is no great loss.

Somehow let's hope it survives and by some miracle figures out how to really be " Steamtown".

Hope springs eternal. Ross Rowland

Politics aside, what equipment could be damaged when exposed to the low temperatures? Not to mention other equipment/plumbing in the buildings. Hopefully the 0-6-0 was properly winterized.

Bob

I am somebody who hasn't posted on here in months (for my own sanity) but remains a frequent lurker due to the sheer comedy, and it seems that complaining about ad hominem arguments here is throwing stones in glass houses. So its enough reason for me to point out the irony in this especially for this one member in particular being the cause of every thread taking a sudden left turn I can remember lurking here for the last few months.

* In this thread already a discussion that started about Steamtown immediately had Superheater making a comment on masking policy (or quote "face-diapers"). It has since concluded with the accusation that all liberals are totalitarians with a quote from a prominent Conservative author.

* An earlier thread of absurdity about the value of college degrees ended up spinning off into a second thread by Superheater about how pumpkins were perceived by the left to be racist, and that was proof of the failure of college to produce anything of value.

* Countless examples in the price of fuel thread about attempting every argument possible to pin the issue on the left.

Usually all the timbres, tones, words and statements of each of these arguments ends up reducing to just this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fce9zXoAPmc

The last few months it has been clear that Superheater operates his posts on one central thesis, "Liberals Bad, Conservatives Good." It doesn't matter how appropriate to the conversation or not such an argument would be; if there is any sliver of opportunity Superheater will gladly slide in and fire off a round of salvos to prove "Left Bad" whenever he gets a chance. Unfortunately it seems that some of the site admins are sympathetic to this political cause, or just plain ignorant of how such blatant partisan arguing is causing RYPN to be perceived in the wider rail community as this is a place where old men gather to sling mud at each other. It ultimately degrades the purpose of this site as a gathering point for rail preservation, and speaks volumes as to why more and more actual preservationists are increasingly ignoring the words said here.

Or to put it bluntly:
RYPN (in theory) is a site to talk about old choo choo trains.

Of course while it is true that politics may not always be separated from rail preservation (the trail vote in Santa Cruz this year, or even Tom Rolt's statements about British government overreach back in 1953 in rail preservation's own Holy Book Railway Adventure). But it has to be recognized that somebody bringing politics constantly here has a theory to prove that isn't about trains but only a political agenda to their primarily espoused view.

I have seen this myself before on this site, I once entered an argument somebody started about COVID in 2020 with my stance only to get a direct message from them about "We'll see how this pandemic actually plays out, get your house's title ready and prepare to gamble that if you want to back up your words Liberal!" (Joke is on him, I am not a home owner). But regardless this effort to try and antagonize other members of this site is part of the reason people are sliding into inactivity and leaving the forum to become an increasingly echo-chamber fest of mud slinging. Its a big reason I haven't touched this site often other than to leave posts like this once in a blue moon is the knowledge that anything perceived to be slightly out of somebody's esteemed political viewpoint will cause a horde of site users to jump down their throat to attempt to prove their point.

Its not that such incidents of bad counterintuitive arguments mixed as both political and personal attack don't happen elsewhere nor are they limited to the right or left (I can't tell you how many times I have had to mute transit fan accounts I follow after seeing them starting to quote how Marxism solves mass transit). The point is though such arguing on this forum is facetious, creates no real solution, and only serves to increase this site's scorn from a wider web audience.

Many people flock to the railfan hobby to escape the daily grind, and that includes escaping from the 24/7 political & news cycle many people are feeling increasingly trapped by. If every prospective future rail preservationist looking from an escape from mundanity is assaulted by a partisan political opinion zealot every time they dare approach the preservation field, it will only ensure those would-be preservationists will decide to take their time and money elsewhere. Save the preservation field's strength on arguing on politics for causes we all share and not throwing stones over obscure journal articles about pumpkins.

Getting back to the heat issue, I don't know the cause but can add that if any of the work includes specialized equipment or additional equipment is needed once the work has begun, it has been very difficult to get those parts from the suppliers.

Any specifically designed mechanical building system equipment has extremely long lead times. I am waiting on replacement backup generators for a County nursing home and have been told it will be a one year wait because they can't get the computer components to run the system.

Roof top air handing units a minimum of six months as they are now made to order.

Elevator hydraulic pump parts - 3 months.

These are all items that used to be on the shelf or ready in 30 days or less.

Its especially difficult when it is a public agency that has to bid the work as that adds to the time to order the product. Throw in extra work that was unforeseen that may require a change order or additional funds that have to be appropriated and the time slips even further.

I just home Steamtown can get through the issue quickly, whatever it may be.

Hope all you want: Look up the saga of NKP 759.

Is this TrainOrders or RYPN? Starting to sound like the former.

There is no way whatsoever to discuss, succinctly, the micro- and macroeconomic pros and cons of a government-run museum or operation--be it Steamtown, Cass, the three official state RR museums, various official National Railway Museums in other countries, or even the local visitors center and museum in a depot owned by the local municipality--without addressing the political philosophies and machinations involved. Certainly, it would be nice to avoid the biased harping of certain individuals on whatever side of the political chasm exacerbated by the two wings of the Incumbent Party over the last forty or so years, but I've come to see the uncivil discussion as inevitable as a result of two generations of Americans brought up in "tribalism" and "us vs. them" rhetoric.

The fact remains that our current example of Steamtown NHS serves to quickly put the kibosh on many other such grandiose, overly-exuberant designs. Not far to the south of Steamtown/Scranton is the National Museum of Industrial History on the site of the former Bethlehem Steel works. It is NOT a National Historic Site run by the Department of the Interior, but a branch of the Smithsonian Institution.

If I were to propose that a site such as, oh, I don't know, Lima Loco Works, Eddystone, Silvis, Paducah, Cheyenne, or whatever be established as a true National Railroad Museum under the aegis of the National Park Service, given that we have the current problems of Steamtown and the state RR museums in Pa., N.C., and California, I should expect my body to fall to the crossfire of a hail of bullets fired at my proposal by people with long-term perspective. And with considerably good reason.

Imagine that the Department of the Interior, or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, had succeeded in taking over the East Broad Top in the 1980s.
Might we be now dealing with picking up the remains of the collapsed shop building by now? Trying to patch together open-air excursion cars just to keep offering a ride out to McMullen's Summit and back behind a Plymouth? Seeing the outer fringes sold off?

The Kovalchicks and Milton Friedman had a point.

As this thread takes off in yet another attempt to celebrate the absolute civility found in the deliberations of the British House of Commons, I would like to point out that I haven't a clue about the political leanings of one or two of the usual suspects but that the absence of such knowledge has never hampered my ability or willingness to point out the flaws in a project or a position. I hope that I have been able to do so with sufficient colour to make reading my comments worth the time regardless of whether or not you agree. One of the lessons I have learned from practising law for longer than many of you have been alive is that not only is everyone capable of absolutely monumental moments of ignorance and stupidity regardless of politics, religion, or any other discriminator and that these moments are often coupled with bouts of acute porcine cranium syndrome. This includes both yours truly (and, since she is not within coffee cup throwing range) my lovely granddaughter.

Wishing all of you who celebrate it a happy Thanksgiving and please remember that you are just as capable of being wrong as anyone else at the table.

GME