A quick weekend jaunt to Amish Country, Pennsylvania. Steam Locomotives, Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Dutch Haven, Shady Maple Smorgasbord, and The Turkey Hill Experience.
My son has always had a huge passion for trains, particularly steam. At just about 20, he still hasn’t outgrown it, and I doubt he ever will. His summer plans include heading to Colorado to participate in NOAC 2024 in Boulder. He intends to ditch a day of the convention and visit two separate rail museums, the xxx and xxx. If he’s unable, he’s determined to head back out there later this summer.
We typically celebrate his birthday over the Memorial Day weekend, and this year was no different. None of us have ever visited the Strasburg Rail Road, and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, right across the street, so we decided to make this the year that we head to Lancaster County, PA and check it out.
Our plans were to leave Friday afternoon and drive all the way down there. It’s about 6 hours or so. It should have been super-easy, as the drive from MA to PA is one that I’ve made a hundred times before. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a nightmare. We had to abandon our car at a Subaru dealership in Union, NJ. We had a failed attempt at picking up a rental at the airport in Newark, so we had to Uber to my mother-in-law’s place in Pennsylvania. Ugh. But we arrived at our hotel around 2am, so all was not lost!
We stayed at The Carriage House at Strasburg, which was extremely close, very clean, and gave us vouchers for a very good breakfast right across the street at the Speckled Hen. This was a last-minute trip (as ours often-times are). The place I really wanted to stay at was booked. It’s the Red Caboose Motel at Paradise Station, where each room is a real caboose, remodeled for full accommodations. Even if the Red Caboose Motel had availability, my family didn’t want to stay there for reasons unknown, so it’s all good…
After breakfast on Saturday morning, we checked out of our hotel and ventured over to the Strasburg Rail Road. It was about 11:45am at this point, and the first train of the day was boarding. The locomotive (Canadian National 89, a 2-6-0 built in 1910) was all fired up, in position, and ready to go.
The train rides depart on the hour and last approximately 45 minutes. We were on the next ride, and we had chosen an air-conditioned Lounge Car 118 at $35 per ticket. It featured large, comfortable upholstered swivel chairs, had a small menu and waitstaff. It was very luxurious!
It was a pretty warm day, and it was nice to relax and get out of the sun and heat for this very scenic ride through the Amish farmlands of Lancaster County, PA. It’s a nine-mile roundtrip, and at the midway point, the locomotive uncouples and utilizes a second line to reposition itself at the opposite end of the train for the return to the station.
After our ride ended at 1:45pm, my son and I took a tour of the shop, where they work hard to keep much of the nation’s steam locomotives up and running. The Shop Tour was an additional $25 per person, and it was probably my favorite activity of the weekend. It was a small tour group of maybe 10 people and was incredibly informative. The guides did a great job of being making the tour great for kids and train experts alike. I was very impressed.
I had no idea that the Strasburg Rail Road’s Shop is one of the more extensive facilities in the nation, and many places that run steam have their locomotives serviced, repaired, rebuilt, or inspected there. Their shop has several million dollars’ worth of outside contracts each year. Unfortunately, photos/video aren’t allowed in the shop tour, so I wasn’t able to take any pics. They have an enormous lathe, where they are able to turn entire train axles. It was constructed to handle the world’s largest train axles and have even worked on Union Pacific’s Big Boy 4014’s wheels. It was amazing to see how shiny freshly machined wheels are.
One of the more interesting facts that I had learned on the Shop Tour was that the Strasburg Rail Road had an exclusive contract with Mattel to build and maintain the entire fleet of Thomas the Tank Engines for the Day Out With Thomas program that visits Heritage Railroads throughout North America. Originally, they created Thomas out of a real steam locomotive, but quickly realized that many heritage railroads don’t have the ability or infrastructure to run and maintain steam. They now have made many replicas of Thomas out of unpowered rolling stock that they’ve added smoke machines, speakers, and an animatronic face to. There are a few places (like Strasburg or the Henry Ford in Dearborn, MI) that are capable of running a true steam Thomas, but most don’t.
Fun fact that I probably shouldn’t divulge, but I will anyway… One of our tour guides, while explaining how advanced the Thomas replicas are, said that they have the ability to be hooked up to a cell phone. He explained that Thomas can play any music and mouth the words. Enter Sandman by Metallica is exceptionally amazing, especially with the smoke machine on. Apparently the smoke chugs out of the stack in perfect cadence to the beat. I asked him if we could see a demonstration of this, but he declined. It was a smart move on his part, even though I was very disappointed. While video wasn’t allowed on the tour, I can only imagine how many hits a YouTube video of Thomas performing Metallica could get. I think it could quite possibly break the internet! No doubt it would get the Strasburg Rail Road in a little hot water with Mattel, so I completely understand their reluctance. If I was in their shoes, I might not be able to keep such an amazing thing to myself. I think I’d have to share it with the world, my job be damned. LOL.
By the time the tour ended, we had a little time before the museum across the street closed, so we headed over. Admission is only $10, so even though we didn’t have much time left in the day, it was still worth it. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the place and how much they had in their collection. We decided that we had to revisit them the next day.
We closed the museum down and headed out to Dutch Haven for some of their famous Shoo-fly Pie. I was skeptical, but it was pretty darn good. Other items we picked up there were soft pretzels (disappointing), and a whoopie pie. I’ve always thought that whoopie pies were a Maine thing, but apparently their origins are Pennsylvania Dutch. Who knew? This one, while not as big as some I’ve had from Maine (where they can grow to gargantuan sizes), was every bit as delicious!
I’ve been to Lancaster County once before, and on that visit, we stopped for dinner at the Shady Maple Smorgasbord and I was blown away by the sheer size of the place. Billed as the largest smorgasbord in the world, it’s enormous. It seats 1200 people and is always packed. We decided to eat there again that Saturday night. Sadly, I wasn’t impressed. Yes, there was tons of food, but it was mostly mediocre fillers. The good news is that it was incredibly reasonable. …Far cheaper than hitting the nearby Texas Roadhouse. If it’s something that you’re interested in, the entire campus is worth spending some time at… There’s several buildings in the Shady Maple complex, including the huge gift shop downstairs, and several stores including a large grocery store and what I would best describe as an Amish Walmart.
We spent the next night at the Courtyard Lancaster. It was very pricey, but the pool was open late and we were looking forward to relaxing poolside. Unfortunately, the pool was closed. I think somebody pooped in it. While this was completely out of the hotel’s control, left us with the feeling that we grossly overpaid for our room.
We woke up, had breakfast at the hotel (which wasn’t included), and made the trip to the Turkey Hill Experience. We were lured by the unlimited ice cream and iced tea samples. We weren’t disappointed. We had a blast! I took some pictures, but my wife and son don’t really want to be featured on this blog, so I can’t include them. I highly recommend spending a few hours here if you’re ever in the area! It’s a great family activity, good for all ages (as long as you love ice cream)!
We then went back to the museum and spent more time there. We took a tour of the restoration shop, which was very different from the shop across the street at the railroad. This one focused primarily on restoring the physical appearance of each piece to the moment that it was removed from service and aren’t concerned at all about restoring them to working condition. Some of my favorite standouts of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania’s 16 different steam locomotives are #460, which has an interesting story regarding racing aircraft from D.C. to New York with newsreel footage from Charle’s Lindburgh’s famous flight across the Atlantic, and the Leetonia Shay #1, which has an offset boiler. The Shay is unique because it uses a series of vertical pistons and gears to operate the drive wheels. It was designed to haul lumber up steep grades and is lighter and more powerful than traditional locomotives of its time.
I also liked walking through their Conrail GP-30. I wasn’t around for steam, but I’ve seen about a million of these growing up.
Here’s an example of the amount of cosmetic restoration that the museum does. Here’s a photo of the same Conrail #2233, taken in 1979:
I was blown away by the sheer volume of books available for purchase in the museum’s gift shop. I unfortunately didn’t allow nearly enough time for the gift shop, as we spent the entire day at the museum. We didn’t close it down, however. We decided to head back across the street and take one more ride on the Strasburg Rail Road, this time in an open-air car. It was obviously a much more rustic ride than the previous day where we rode in an air conditioned lounge car, but it was simply amazing. My advice, if you’re a huge steam fan, is to purchase an open-air ride and board as soon as you possibly can. Choosing the last seats in the train allow you an up-close and personal view of the steam locomotive!
Once the train hits the end of their line and joins up with the Amtrak lines, it stops. The locomotive uncouples and heads to the front of the train for the return trip.
Since the train has switched directions, while you once were at the very front of the train, now you’re at the very back for the return trip. It’s incredibly peaceful, and the panoramic views are astounding!
That last ride pretty much ended our weekend. After a quick stop off at Dutch Haven for more shoo-fly pie, we headed home. Of course, our trip home was extended due to the fact that we had to pick up our car in Union NJ, then backtrack into PA to drop off my mother-in-law’s car, and then finally continue on home. The good news is that it was a small inconvenience for something that could have been a very, very expensive auto repair!
We didn’t get back home until around 2:30 in the morning. Memorial Day itself was a complete washout, but we slept the entire day away. I was due back in to work at my “real” job at 10pm, so it was much needed rest.
While this weekend was mainly for my train enthusiast son, I have to admit that I was thoroughly enjoyed it as well and am looking forward to visiting more vintage steam exhibits. None are currently planned, but I’m always open to suggestions!
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