Reposted from the Museum's Facebook page:





Hmmmm. Only four stalls?

If you look closely, the illustration shows six tracks at the pit edge. The house is so close to the pit that the tracks must cross before reaching the pit. The doors must be arranged as bi-folds, making an opening larger than each individual door panel would indicate.

Great to see them moving forward and getting more equipment under cover.

It appears from the rendition that it is occupying the the northwest quadrant of the turntable circle from about West to Northwest with Bishop Road behind it. Looks like about 1/8 circle.

I hope they have designed it modularly so that additional stalls can bee added to the south. It looks like up to a 1/2 circle / 24 track house could fit between the lead track and the red and white building - perhaps 5/8ths circle / 30 track if the red and white building were moved. Certainly the railroad has need of more than six more indoor stalls.

Note that it says "6 historic Pennsylvania Steam Locomotives"....

That doesn't mean everything sitting outside was planned to enter this facility, though an expansion would be great, and I think they've already "planned" for that in terms of the current upcoming structure, but I wouldn't count on it happening. This building barely made it as is, and with the State cutting funding left and right, unless another private donation comes along, expansion of this building is way, way off.

It should be noted that as of right now, there are only 4 PRR Steam Loco's sitting outside. The rest are already within the Museum Building. Freeing up 2 spaces inside the main building will allow for other equipment sitting outside to be moved indoors, like possibly the 4800 and the DD1?...


Just sayin'

I am amazed at the work that has been done to this museum in the last decade. They have made great strides in shorter time than they have in their entire history.

Good job to the Staff and Volunteers! and THANK YOU!

Does this use the present turntable in its present location?

While I am thrilled to know that six more locomotives will eventually be housed in the proposed RR Museum of Pennsylvania roundhouse, as a Pennsylvania taxpayer, I have several questions about this project.

1. Why does it cost half a million dollars to design a roundhouse? The museum archives quite possibly contain drawings of standard roundhouse structures as built by the pennsylvania Railroad or the Reading Company. Such existing designs could be modified as necessary to accommodate ADA, climate control, etc.

2. $6.1 million for a six-stall roundhouse? Even throwing in rehabilitation of the Bridgeport turntable, that's an awful lot of money!

3. Did anyone think to visit Scranton or Sugarcreek or even Saucon Creek?

1. Architecture companies are expensive. Even to modify existing blueprints, you would still need someone knowledgeable in the area. And considering it's going to be a display roundhouse, those would be some heavy modifications which would probably end up cost just as much, if not more.

2. Brick work, window work, wood work, roofing, track laying, (if they intend for it to be a working roundhouse) safety features for visitors, heat, electricity, workforce and all the insurance that comes with that, restoration of the turntable and the table pit, etc etc. I'm actually surprised it won't cost more.

3. Scranton was already standing when they go there. The new stuff is mostly the museum portion. Sugercreek is off limits to everyone until it's done. Don't know anything about Saucon Creek.

Though I can't cite specifics about the Strasburg case, this is probably true.

I watched one recent historic-building renovation where a couple rather talented semi-pro architects set on the building with measurements, AutoCAD, etc. and presented their minimal-impact renovation plans to the local government, in one of those states rated high on the "corruption" scale. They were rejected time and time again, seemingly not because the old building was deficient but because the inspectors kept refusing to accept the figures presented. A planned one-year "buildout" turned into a three-year "nightmare," and I joke that the process turned a couple "bleeding-heart liberals" into "Tea Party members." At times they would do two days' work, then have to wait 2-3 days for an inspector to show up and sign off on the process before they'd repeat the cycle. As one crew member from another state told me, "You have to get an inspection before you can scratch your a** in this county!"

Now, this Strasburg "roundhouse" is an all-new building. At the same time, having witnessed firsthand how convoluted the process can be with even a new building in the "wrong" jurisdictions, I'm not as shocked as Brother Laepple.

Anyone got construction costs for the original building, extended "shed" hall, and the pole-barn "restoration shop" for comparison?

On the other hand, I am personally aware of one government-built/owned museum building elsewhere in the U.S. that the government fully admits would bring fines or a shutdown if built by a private firm today--such technical matters as inadequate numbers of exits, lack of ADA compliance, location, etc. But since the government built the building and leases it to the museum group, they don't seem in much of a hurry to correct those mistakes yet. . .

We are looking at what is likely to be a climate controlled, museum quality structure that likely represents a roundhouse in character, but not in function. I suspect a locomotive rebuild facility would be radically different.
Question: Is this where the E6s will be displayed on rollers, or will that be inside the current main hall?

$500k for design fees seems about right if it includes site engineering, storm water management, track layout/engineering, etc. We paid a pretty penny for design and construction of our new campus at NCTM. Rule of thumb is design is about 10 percent of the construction costs, so the $500k against a $6 million construction budget seems about right. Your mileage may vary.

Wesley

Is there any progress on the roundhouse at the Railroad Musuem of Pennsylvania? Their web site indicates it will be be built in 2015.

Work is due to begin soon. One of the biggest hurdles is finding places for the equipment while the construction is underway as several radius tracks will be out of service.