Editor of the New Era newspaper of Lancaster, Pennsylvania for
permission to reprint the following article and pictures.
In 1927, a massive 107-ton locomotive sped from Washington to
New York in the record-breaking time of three hours and eight
minutes, carrying with it a Pathe News film of Charles
Lindbergh’s return to the United States following his
celebrated solo flight to Paris.
That Lindbergh engine will be featured in a collection of
railroad paraphernalia to be on exhibit at the new Pennsylvania
Railroad Museum at Strasburg.
The museum buildings, in their last throes of construction,
include a rolling stock building, featuring four sets of tracks and
an observational pit, and an entrance building, housing the
offices, library, and rest rooms. The site is located along Route
741 opposite the Strasburg Railroad.
Flood Damage Construction was scheduled to be
completed by December of this year but, according to construction
officials, extensive flooding and water damage has pushed the
deadline back a few months.
Subsurface -water was discovered while workmen were blasting
shortly after construction began last September. That water and the
residue from heavy Spring rains have combined to put the mechanical
room and elevator shaft of the entrance building under several feet
of water. Construction is being slowed until the exact source of
the water has been located and the area is pumped dry.
Extensive Collection
Problems aside, George M. Hart, museum curator, says the museum
will be one of the largest of its kind and will house one of the
most extensive rail collections. An appraisal of the worth of the
rolling stock alone was just under $1 million.
The largest part of the museum’s collection is the rolling
stock, which will be exhibited both inside one building and outside
on a 100-foot operational turntable, donated to the Pennsylvania
Historical and Museum Commission by the Luria Bros. Co. of
Indiana.
More than 30 antique rail cars and locomotives are positioned on
the tracks, some freshly painted and polished, ready to show shiny
chrome to the first flash of the camera.
Unlike other exhibits, there are no ‘keep off’ signs on
the equipment, but the museum commission requests that visitors
refrain from boarding some of the equipment for safety reasons and
also to enhance the appearance of the exhibit. Some of the pieces,
which have been authentically restored from railroad sketches and
records, will be opened to allow the public a closer look at the
operation from the inside of the car.
‘Johnstown Flood’ The collection
initially began a few years ago, many of the pieces donated from
Penn Central.
Featured on the track is one of the oldest steam engines, an
1831 John Bull.
Not originally caught in the flood of 1889, another massive
piece, named the ‘Johnstown Flood Engine,’ stands on
display. Although it was the heaviest piece of equipment, on the
tracks at the time, the Johnstown flood waters proved a more
formidable foe, for several identical 62-1/2 ton engines were
reportedly washed a mile down stream.
The Johnstown engine is one of the five cars at the museum that
were on exhibit at the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair.
‘All of the cars are on their own wheels and can be moved
around if necessary,’ commented Hart. The rolling stock is
expected to remain at the site but is in condition to be
transported.
A forerunner of the modern combination car is also featured.
Called a ‘hermaphrodite,’ it was named after two Greek
gods, meaning ‘one body of two sexes,’ said Hart. One of
the oldest forms of passenger coaches, this 1895 car seats about 45
people in one half, and stores freight in the other section.
Hart notes that the museum will help represent three eras of
reail history. The early stage featured cars constructed of wood,
until steel cars came into focus about the turn of the century in a
heavyweight, non-streamlined model. The third stage includes the
more modern lightweight, streamlined coaches.
Former Grandeur Patiently awaiting its turn to
be refinished and returned to its former grandeur as a passenger
coach of the 1880’s is a 16-foot cross section of a 50-foot
car.
Hart and his associates discovered the car in 1969 just a few
days before it was scheduled to be burned, after it served a few
years as an off track railroad office in Jim Thorpe, Pa. Hart
wanted to save the entire coach but, because of the close proximity
to a neighboring engine house, only one section of it could be
salvaged and moved.
The coach will be restored and repainted, complete with seats,
vents, window casements an d the elaborate ornaments that adorned
the molding of the coach’s interior.
Wood, Coal Burners Among the remaining items in
the Penn Central collection are dining cars, a postal car, several
freight and passenger engines, both wood and coal burners, and a
barrage of day coaches and baggage cars.
As the visitor tours the site, the ground strewn with crushed
cinders from locomotive fires, and strolls along the tracks,
dwarfed by massive hulks that once drew breaths of smoke and
sparks, he can close his eyes and feel the ground tremble and hear
a barely audible whistle blast as the engine nears the station.
And from an engineer’s seat, perched atop the shoulder of an
engine, like the Lindbergh, he can imagine piloting the train
himself, breezing through country fields. ‘Yes, it was
romantic,’ added Hart. ‘But,’ he quipped, ‘there
was no fooling around.’
