Train Lore Includes Steam Ride
By Mike Shoup
Staten Island Sunday News

The whistle blew and my granddaughter, Carrie, and I climbed aboard our open-air train coach for what was billed as “The Trip to Paradise.”

Paradise, Pa, that is – a village just 4.5 miles east of our departure point on the Strasburg Rail Road, an old freight line rescued from oblivion in the 1960s to become one of Lancaster County’s most popular tourist attractions.

The 45-minute, round trip ride through the Pequea Valley is just long enough to provide a small glimpse of the beautiful Lancaster County countryside, while traveling aboard restored turn-of-the century railroad cars pulled by a steam locomotive.

The trip begins at the 1882 East Strasburg Depot, itself restored and now the center of a small complex that includes the ticket office, gift shop and a restaurant.

For true railroad buffs, the state-run Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is just across the road. Nearby, too, is the National Toy Train Museum, as well as the Choo Choo Barn, a collection of toy trains and miniatures.

As we traveled along, we saw an Amish man mowing alfalfa with a team of six mules, an Amish woman side her tidy white farmhouse, dairy pasture and fields of corn and soybeans. One cornfield has a large maze cut into it, where tourists paid to try their luck at getting through - an enterprise undoubtedly more profitable than just raising and selling the corn.

Our train, even with several brief stops, took all of 20 minutes to arrive in Paradise, where it paused for five minutes to permit another train to pass before heading west again. There was a brief stop at a picnic grove, where riders could get off to picnic and take the next train, or get on again, and before we knew it we were back in East Strasburg.

The trip was perfect for an 8-year-old’s attention span, but I felt a need for something more, so we crossed the road –Carrie reluctantly- to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, where the collection far surpasses the Strasburg Rail Road, with more than 100 locomotives and cars from the 19th and 20th centuries.

The core of this collection came from Pennsylvania Railroad rolling stock that was assembled by the Pennsy for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. As railroads in America declined after World War II and the Pennsy edged toward bankruptcy, the state of Pennsylvania began acquiring the collection and, between 1972 and 1975, built and opened the current facility. A 1995 expansion doubled the exhibit hall space.

Today the collection contains 19th century wooden coach stock, including an 1855 Cumberland Valley Railroad car, and various steam locomotives, including two full size replicas of 1825 and 1831 locomotives that were built in the Pennsy’s Altoona yards specifically for the 1939 World’s Fair.

By this time, Carrie had had enough. She was anxious to return to the farm bed-and-breakfast where we were staying, to play with their kittens. So that’s what we did.

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