As a taxpayer and avid steam lover here's how I arrive at calling it an abject failure.

Go to the SNHS website. On the cover page is a large photo of a working steam locomotive with the following lead in caption in double sized letters;

" Steam locomotives excited the senses and Steamtown works to keep their stories alive"

Then click on the " Foundational Document" which is a very long winded federal version of a mission statement.

A key paragraph in that document states;

" Live steam experience....The multi-sensory experience of a real steam engine in operation cannot be replicated through other interpretive media. All senses are immersed in the experience, which is vital to understanding the purpose of the park"

Steamtown has burned through roughly $ 200 million dollars since its inception. That's approx. $ 80 Mn to get it opened and $ 130Mn in annual $ 5 Mn subsidies since its 1995 official opening.

It inherited two (2) running steam engines when it took over from the old Steamtown Foundation.

It has restored zero, yes zero mainline locomotives in its collection and one (1) little switcher that took them 15 years ( yes years) to get back into service. Now lame for some unidentified reason.

When it opened it at least made a half hearted attempt to operate steam excursions. I went on one of the early ones and that cured me for life between the smokies everywhere with their sidearms, the silly rules of staying in your seat, not even allowed to rest your arm on an open window sill and the best one of all was female smokie telling me at Moscow to " move away from that engine as it could blow up and kill you". It was so bad it really was laughable.

As the years have passed the steam offerings have dwindled and dwindled to where now there are none. Attendance has also dwindled to where it is now one of the most expensive per visitor parks in the NPS system.

Does spending $ 200 million dollars to supposedly champion the great story of the steam engine and its giant contribution to the growth of the nation and not keeping the running steamers you inherited running, nor restoring a single mainline engine in the collection to service sound like an " abject failure" to you?

If that ain't an abject failure I don't know what is.

Ross Rowland

Nelson Blount must be turning over in his grave! Who? Oh, you mean Ole' Pinwheel! R.I.P.

I’m a fan of seeing steam in action. But I’m not calling B&O Museum a failure for not operating steam so why would I call Steamtown a failure? Both are still very successful at being excellent museums.

Does the money they generate go back into the fund for running the park or does it go to the US Treasury General Fund? I have heard that one of the problems with government run railroad museums and parks is that they do not get to keep the money they generate. The money goes back to the general fund and is doled back out to them. So, is the 5 million they get per year truly a subsidy over and above the amount they bring in or is their budget 5 million?
Why does this matter? It's the big difference between an operation with incentive to make money vs one that gets the same money no matter what they do. Privately run tourist railroads and museums around the country run steam because there is money to be made by doing it (and it's fun). Government operations don't care very much about making money and are generally more risk adverse. It's much safer having a static display instead of actually operating something.
And speaking of risk aversion, Ross's comment about the ranger saying to "stay away from the steam loco because it could blow up and kill you" could be a clue into the mindset of the management there.

Considering he said that was on an early excursion after it opened it's safe to assume that trip was in the late 1980s. Let's not blame the current management based on a single comment from a worker 35ish years ago.

This isn't a fair comparison, as Ross mentioned, from its inception operations (of the steam variety in particular) were supposed to be a huge part of how they interpreted and educated the age of steam. Operating trains isn't explicitly the mission of B&O, and yet funnily enough they do offer more experiences to ride a train than steamtown has, especially over the last five years or so.

Exhibits all over the museum promote and advertise their ability and status offering steam excursions, and yet for how many years was that experience either not available or barely available? I'm hesitant to call it a failure because in the course of a few years site administration will change and so to will how they operate the site- that's just how the NPS structure works. But the track record over the last 10 years does not show they are living up to what they were founded for- or proclaim to be.

I've been to steamtown three times, the train was only running once, on my second trip, in 2019 right before Covid. 26 was so out of time I was surprised it was able to pull the couple coaches along behind it, and the last time I was there, I felt most unwelcome as if I was a bother to the rangers on site... to the point one was clearly following me and a friend around the site at a distance. We were followed all the way to to parking lot. I felt like a trespasser.

They have the nicest and best equipped shop I've seen. Even some of the guys at Strasburg wished they could have the chance to work out of it on some of the machines they have. How critical of a "component failure" could it be to sideline an engine, when they have one of the best shops behind them and the machines required to support steam locomotive operation? It's all an answer of how badly the bosses at steamtown want it done. To that matter it also doesn't surprise me, because with all the NPS/Federal government red tape, you can't just walk in there as an employee and get 'er done. You have to have safety reports, training on equipment, written aproval all the way up the chain of command- the old joke of one guy to dig the hole, and fifteen to manage it applies here. It doesn't surprise me they aren't capable of doing much effectively on their own- 3713 is an example, I haven't seen NPS staff or volunteers to any of the "meat and potatoes" work on that at all- except for basic needle scaling, painting, ect, everything has been outsourced to a contractor of some sort. The volunteer shortage that's been alluded to here is probably a contributing factor as well.. They aren't effective at executing their own mission, because at the end of the day it's the "nature of the beast", can we really say we're suprised??

They're paid the same if the steam engines run or not, and it's certainly easier to let them sit.

-Sam

I too cannot find anything corroborating OP’s claims.

Not that I don’t believe him. It checks out for Steamtown.

@Crescent Zephyr

While I don't agree with the entirety of CO614's post (only because of the sunk cost fallacy) he is definitely on the right track in citing "foundational documents"-it is supposed to be an operating museum. The B&O has no such mandate.

As a former government auditor and still actively licensed CPA, I think in terms of "findings" which are the statements of the results of an audit, in other words a structured reasoning process-not a visceral reaction based upon my emotional reaction.

Unlike most audits, government audits are not just examinations of financial statements, but reviews of government activities, expenditures, policies, programs-to see if they are effective (doing the right things, not doing the wrong things) and efficient (doing things right).

A finding has five elements:

Condition: (what is-you state the condition, clearly, concisely, and objectively with clear qualitative or quantitative terms)

Criteria: (what should be-the stated objectives, again which should be clear, concise and stated in qualitative terms)

Cause: Why the results achieved exist-this should be a simple statement; for example Management failed to properly protect assets, or funding isn't sufficient to achieve stated goals and objectives. You do want to avoid making grand statements inferring general incompetence or criminal behavior. It's worth noting that while audits generally find deficiencies or potential improvements, it is possible to have a finding where the cause is that "management is effectively and efficiently utilizing funds/assets/staff/resources to achieve stated program goals/objectives.

Effect: Why does this matter? In short, why should I care- why does this warrant attention? What information does this provide to the public, legislators, the executive branch that makes this significant in scope or magnitude. I don't for example care that somebody took home a pen from the office supplies, I do care if the pilfering is pervasive and/or significant in value.

Recommendation: This is the audit teams ideas as to what needs to happen to correct deficiencies or effect improvements, and are generally short and sweet.

"Management needs to improve/effect effective access controls"

If you are inclined to say this isn't applicable to a museum, my response would be that this is an incredibly flexible and useful framework. Seventeen years ago today, I was on the audit team that was finishing up a report on Medical Assistance expenditures for maternity care that as I recall produced a $1.3M dollar recovery for PA taxpayers.

Here's the cover page.

Here's a fundamental yet rhetorical question to the Steamtown issue in general....

1) If you joined the National Park service, imagining you would someday work in Yellowstone, or Yosemite, Gettysburg, or Washington DC, how would you feel about being assigned Steamtown in Scranton?

2) If you love steam locomotives, value the history, respect the technology, and always wanted to work on them ever since you were a kid, did you think that would be through the Federal Government and NPS?

That intersection, at least in my mind, is at the root of the problem. Also remember that NPS's mission since day 1 has been to prevent the public from destroying the very parks and monuments it is tended to protect; i.e. a uniformed, official presence to deter destruction. Tourism, PR, advertising, and sales are afterthoughts, revenue vs. expense is a relatively foreign concept. While any government operation has this conflict, it's particularly noticeable at NPS.

It's not entirely impossible; Cuyahoga Valley is equally NPS owned but has a nonprofit operating it, and turning in wonderful ridership numbers and hosting 765-again. NPS still protects their park, makes sure the track and structure holds up, but generally stands clear of operating and promoting the railroad itself. Hasn't been without debate, however. Electric City and the trolley project isn't to be dismissed either, offering a rather distinct contrast.

Zephyr clearly lives in an alternative universe. To compare Steamtown where us taxpayers have invested $ 200 million dollars to showcase the living, breathing steam engine in action ( and where none now runs) with a private sector,much smaller institution supported totally by donations is beyond invalid.

Talk about apples and oranges !!!

As I've previously posted the ONLY hope for Steamtown is for the NPS to hire a DO to run it, pay the DO a $ 2/3 million dollar management fee to do so and let them turn the place into the steam showplace it could be. The feds save $ 3/4 million a year and the place attracts the kind of attendance that will really help the Scranton area businesses.

Sadly, the chances of that ever happening are next to zero.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

@JMann

There was a time when fees were returned to the NPS; there was some change to that, but even if excursion fees were allowed to be kept at Steamtown; the amounts that could be generated would be wholly inadequate to keep even 1 excursion steam engine running, let alone allow for future restorations.



@mcgrath618

Note the last update:

So privatize a national park...



Good

Emmo what universe do you live in?? You'd rather keep plowing now $ 6 million a year into the place where they can't even keep a little 0-4-0 switcher running vs. letting a competent private sector DO like Strasburg run it correctly and save $ 3/4 million a year in taxpayer dollars ???

You can't be serious, can you???

Ross Rowland

@Randy

"Here's a fundamental yet rhetorical question to the Steamtown issue in general....

1) If you joined the National Park service, imagining you would someday work in Yellowstone, or Yosemite, Gettysburg, or Washington DC, how would you feel about being assigned Steamtown in Scranton?"

That depends. A lot of the staff, especially the interpreters were "locals" who joined the NPS because of Steamtown and many were involved in the "Foundation Days". For some staff, (administrative, custodial), it doesn't matter where you fix and clean or configure servers. It's been mostly at the Division Chief level and up where you have people holding their nose to take a promotion. Anybody who wants to leave has access to usajobs.gov-the park service has a lot of militaristic attitudes, but it's not like being in the military, where you get sent.

And there is a basic problem for maintenance and operations in that running trains requires people with railroad experience; but Steamtown is unique. If there's an opening at Gettysburg, well there's other Civil War units where the drill is the same, battlefields, antebellum structures and monuments. And here's an ugly truth-government bureaucracies are notoriously incestuous at the management level-they want people that have already been absorbed into the 'borg.

"2) If you love steam locomotives, value the history, respect the technology, and always wanted to work on them ever since you were a kid, did you think that would be through the Federal Government and NPS?

That intersection, at least in my mind, is at the root of the problem. Also remember that NPS's mission since day 1 has been to prevent the public from destroying the very parks and monuments it is tended to protect; i.e. a uniformed, official presence to deter destruction. Tourism, PR, advertising, and sales are afterthoughts, revenue vs. expense is a relatively foreign concept. While any government operation has this conflict, it's particularly noticeable at NPS."

Most installations in the NPS require only presence and sight for the "experience". You don't go to Gettysburg to crawl over monuments-there is no mandate that requires consumptive use-but with steam locomotives you start consumption the minute you throw a match in the firebox. There is a contingent of the Park Service that believes that the only way to preserve unimpaired for future generations is to throw up a theater rope and a do not touch sign. (Forget for a minute trees die, and structures and monuments are eroded by acidic rain and UV light).


"It's not entirely impossible; Cuyahoga Valley is equally NPS owned but has a nonprofit operating it, and turning in wonderful ridership numbers and hosting 765-again. NPS still protects their park, makes sure the track and structure holds up, but generally stands clear of operating and promoting the railroad itself. Hasn't been without debate, however. Electric City and the trolley project isn't to be dismissed either, offering a rather distinct contrast."

Apparently, it is. Keep in mind, that's the very park that former Superintendent Deborah Conway came from-so if there was some operating plan that could be adopted, she would have done it. Instead, she checked off some appraisal goal boxes (get steam running, establish a friends group) saw the water flooding the lower decks and split. Five years ago, I thought my efforts in getting an exemption letter from the IRS would "open source" Steamtown and secure funding for things that could improve the park. One of our early suggestions was to put QR codes near exhibits that would allow somebody with a phone to access interpretive video on demand. Instead, we were told that would have to be approved by some signage expert-I'm still trying to figure out why they haven't approved and deployed QR based interpretation all over the system, what's the difference between that and the self-guided phone app at Gettysburg.

I thought it ironic that the exemption was issued the very day the organization's champion, Tom Shore passed away-now I see that as ominous.

The difference between the ECTM is that it is a local thing-a county operation and, not a federal bureaucracy. It's government, but accountable and with far less bureaucracy.

Before the fecal matter begins to be splayed about far and wide, I'd like to present an alternative possibility regarding some of the short-term issues Superheater has reported such as no operations in 2021 and the stop-work on the B&M pacific.

My recollection is that current STEA Superintendent Cherie Shepherd was onboarded some time in June '19, which would be about a third of the way through the STEA operating season. Then COVID hit and there were no operations in '20 and now '21. So she really has not had much of an opportunity to manage the site under normal operations and with a full complement of employees and volunteers on site.

Now it is possible that in that time she has seen procedures and processes that give her cause for concern. She may want to make some changes and really want to make the place operate better as a living history museum. In a large organization, such as the Park Service, this means any proposed changes will entail her sticking her neck out and so she will want to run top cover for any new process or procedures she is proposing. This means that she will need to explain to her superiors at regional (such as ex-STEA Superintendent Conway) that her proposed changes are viable and get them to a very high comfort level before she acts. If it goes south and it blows back it will blow back on her. So change will take time because she is ultimately responsible to regional and my take is that since Kip passed regional is scrutinizing things in Scranton at a higher level.

So, what does this mean on the ground? The Park service is like the military or like any other large organization. I remember when I was a student-employee at IBM. My second line supervisor took a liking to me. One day he wandered in and we were discussing the coming downturn at IBM and he said, "Just remember, IBM is like a big ship. It's hard to steer quickly but it's also hard to stop." So maybe Superintendent Shepherd is trying to steer the site in a new direction but, because of organizational inertia, a strong CYA institutional mentality, and the exogenous event (COVID), some things have to stop or slow down dramatically before they can advance.