Past Players visit local sites to share ‘their’ Civil War-era tales
By Larry Alexander
Lancaster Intelligencer Journal
July 20, 2007

STRASBURG, Pa. - Stepping out from behind the veil of time, Pennsylvania Past Players spent Thursday mingling with modern-day visitors at two county tourist attractions.

The Past Players, 18 actors and Civil War re-enactors dressed in period attire, spent Thursday afternoon in Strasburg, strolling the grounds of Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and riding the rails at Strasburg Railroad.

Each actor has adopted the persona of a mid-19th-century Pennsylvanian to educate modern Americans about the state’s past.

“We have come back and stepped out of the pages of history to walk the trails and to tell our stories and inform today’s people of life in our time,” said the group’s leader, “Mary Bennett.”

Three members of the Past Players took part in Thursday’s visit to Strasburg. They were “Bennett” and “Mary S. Beatty,” both of Harrisburg and dressed in hoop dresses and bonnets, and Hanover entrepreneur “J.W. Gitt,” in a low top hat and swallow-tailed coat.

Like the other members of the group, Bennett, Beatty and Gitt are not their real names. The Past Players do not step out of character to divulge their true identities.

The 18 members of the Pennsylvania Past Players, which includes several Lancaster County residents, were recruited earlier this summer and underwent extensive training to prepare for their roles as guides and interpreters of the state’s Civil War and Underground Railroad history.

They began their duties July 5.

Pennsylvania Past Players is part of the state’s Civil War Trails/Prelude to Gettysburg and Pennsylvania’s Quest for Freedom programs, all of which will lead up to the 150th anniversary commemoration of the Civil War, which begins in 2011.

The group is jointly sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development’s Cultural & Heritage Tourism program and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, which owns the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

“This is one example of two state agencies working together to improve the visitors’ experience at all of the different historical sites across the state,” said David W. Dunn, executive director at the Railroad Museum.

“It’s fun to see the people in character and the visitors’ reactions to them.”

The group, which includes Union soldiers and civilians, covers Lancaster, Dauphin, York, Adams, Franklin and Cumberland counties. Some days the group works together, such as Wednesdays at the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg and Saturdays in Gettysburg.

Other times the Players operate in teams and hold simultaneous programs in places such as York, Columbia, Mechanicsburg, Carlisle and center city Harrisburg.

The players will be at the Railroad Museum on Thursdays from 11 to 11:45 a.m. and from 2 to 3 p.m., through Sept. 13.

“In each of the locations, we share stories, just as we are doing here today,” Bennett said.

While the characters are supposed to be inhabitants of the 1860s, they are aware of their modern surroundings.

Bennett said what astounds her most about Pennsylvania in 2007, aside from women’s clothing which, in her day, would have been deemed highly immoral, is the role women play in modern society.

“The thing that fascinates me the most on coming back is seeing the power women have gained since our time,” she said, staving off Thursday’s humidity with a hand-held fan. “We have women who fight in wars. We have women who run for Congress and even run Congress. That is unheard of in our time. I am very pleased about that.”

Beatty said what surprised her most was the state of communication, a far cry from the telegraph system of her day.

“With what you call a cell phone, I can speak with anyone in the world,” she marveled.

Most of all, the two women were happy to see the state has prospered and grown since they walked the earth some 140 years ago.

“I am so happy to be in this time period, to see the progress of this wonderful state of Pennsylvania,” Bennett said.

To read the entire article please visit Lancaster Online.

Strasburg’s No. 10 a perfect ten to rail buffs
By James Buescher
Lancaster Intelligencer Journal
July 16, 2007

STRASBURG, Pa. — While the rest of Lancaster County celebrated the Fourth of July with fireworks and picnics, Strasburg Railroad engineer Steve Weaver was getting ready for a moment he had been anticipating for nearly a year: flipping the main electrical switch in the newly refurbished Reading Car No. 10.

“You’re always a little concerned, because you don’t always know what’s going to happen,” Weaver said. “But when we flipped that switch, the whole inside of the car lit up like Wanamakers on Christmas.

“It was such a beautiful moment for us here at the railroad,” he said. “We helped make the car come alive again.”

As part of the celebration for the 175th anniversary of its charter, Strasburg Railroad will unveil the refurbished Reading No. 10 President’s Car today. It was built before World War I for George F. Baer, then president of Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, and reportedly used on Harry Truman’s famous 1948 “whistle stop” presidential campaign.

The car will be hooked onto trains departing at 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 and 1:30 p.m. starting today and running through Labor Day. Because wine will be served on the car along with hors d’oeuvres, patrons must be age 21 and over to ride.

“We’re a great destination for families, of course, but we’re also always on the lookout for new ways to reach people traveling without children or couples who are looking for a fun experience,” Strasburg Railroad spokeswoman Hope Banner said.

“Having this car … allows folks to have a more intimate experience on the rails, to mix and mingle in a train car that, in the early part of the 20th Century, was the last word in prewar luxury,” Banner said.

Featuring settees with Victorian brocades, vermilion mahogany walls with rosewood inlay, Edwardian staterooms and even a crew and service area with an original nickel-plated anthracite range, efforts to refurbish the car took more than five months and $150,000 to complete.

“We wanted to make the car operable, but we did not want to disturb its historic fabric. The plumbing still worked, and we kept the original 32-volt Victorian light fixtures, for example. But we also outfitted the car with a state-of-the-art air conditioning system plus redid the brakes,” Weaver said.

As railroads in the United States began to decline in the early 1960s, Weaver said, the Reading Co. decided to mothball the luxurious railcar because of the costs involved with its operation. Eventually, though, the company put the car on the auction block, where Strasburg Railroad purchased it in May 1964.

“Our thinking here at the Railroad is that it’s important to bring visitors in, but it’s even more important to give people the kind of experience that will make them want to come back,” Banner said. “And a trip in an authentic refurbished antique railroading car is just the kind of experience that will help do that.

“This car was the Leer jet of its time,” Banner said. “And now, almost 50 years after its retirement, it’s going to be back riding the rails.”

Tickets to ride the car cost $45. For more information, call 687-7522 or visit www.strasburgrailroad.com.

To read the entire article, please visit Lancaster Online.

When July 4th falls on a Wednesday, where’s the holiday weekend?
By Chad Umble
Lancaster New Era
July 3, 2007

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa - The last of the local fireworks are set for tomorrow evening, but for some people they’ll only mark the beginning of the Fourth of July holiday.

With the Fourth falling on a Wednesday this year, people have the option of slicing their week to take a vacation before or after the actual holiday.

For local tourist sites, a mid-week break presents the risk of diluting business, but also a chance of multiplying visitors with two consecutive holiday weekends.

“All things being equal, it is possible to have a good opportunity,” said Chris Barrett, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Barrett added that this year visitors may be tempted to take a mini-vacation instead of just a long weekend.

“When people can swing it, they’ll definitely take a shorter-term vacation, which is good for us,” he said.

Strasburg Rail Road works under the assumption that the mid-week holiday creates two holiday weekends, according to spokeswoman Hope Banner.

“We knew some people were going to front-end their vacation and some people were going to back end it,” she said.

Last weekend, the tourist railroad braced for a holiday crowd by beginning to run trains every half hour instead of every hour, Banner said. They anticipated correctly and saw strong crowds, she said.

Nationally, an estimated 41.1 million Americans will leave home between June 29 and July 8, a slight increase over last year, according to AAA estimates.

Of those planning vacations, 70 percent said they planned to leave over the past weekend, with 16 percent saying they’ll leave Wednesday, according to AAA.

“Most of them have considered the weekend we just passed through as their July 4th weekend,” said Cindy Brough, spokeswoman for AAA Central Penn.

However, Brough added that many travelers who have already left are using a Wednesday off as an excuse to take a week’s vacation, helping push the average vacation to nearly five days.

Brough said travelers are helped by the fact that while average gas prices are higher than they were last year, they’ve dropped nearly 15 cents from the $3-range of late May.

The average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas today in the Lancaster area was $2.84, up 5 cents from a year ago, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

Locally, the weather is another plus.

Last weekend’s high temperatures were in the upper-70s under mostly clear skies. The forecast for this weekend calls for high temperatures in the low-80s, again under mostly clear skies, according to the Millersville University Weather Information Center Web site.

But for some, good weather and falling gas prices can’t totally compensate for the awkward Wednesday holiday.

“The Fourth of July, because it is in the middle of the week, seems to have diluted things a little bit here,” said Stephen Sikking, general manager of the Eden Resort Inn near Route 30.

Sikking said that while the hotel had a strong weekend, the overall number of Fourth of July guests would probably be down this year.

At Kitchen Kettle in Intercourse, the mid-week holiday will likely cancel out any holiday boost, according to spokeswoman Lisa Horn.

“Normally when it falls in the middle of the week, we don’t see a big effect,” she said.

However, Horn said Kitchen Kettle saw a holiday bump last year when the Tuesday Fourth of July made it easier for vacationers to take a long weekend.

This year, Horn said the two weekends sandwiching the Fourth would likely be “just two typical weekends.”

To read the entire article, please visit Lancaster Online.