As Strasburg Rail Road marks its 50th

By Cindy Stauffer
Lancaster New Era
August 2, 2008

Linn Moedinger started out cleaning the toilets and diesel parts for Strasburg Rail Road.

That was 40 years ago this month.

A “railroad brat” — his parents were among the founders of the attraction — and someone who has performed most of its jobs during its history, Moedinger now is the president of the whole shebang.

But that’s just one of his titles, and not the one that he loves best. He’s also the chief mechanical officer of the tourist railroad, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

So though he’s the prez, you won’t find Moedinger in a suit and tie. He wears a denim shirt, blue jeans and work boots while on the job.

That’s because when he’s not crafting budgets, overseeing about 100 employees or performing other administrative tasks, he is toiling on a boiler or some other contraption on contract work the shop does for railroads all over the country.

Moedinger, 57, is a man straddling two worlds: the historic world of steam locomotives and the modern world of tourism.

He’s a machinist and a marketer, a welder and a webcast launcher.

At heart, though, he’s really just a guy who loves trains.

“They just fascinate me,” he said as he stood in the machine shop, a dark, sulfury world, where workers are dwarfed by hulking pieces and parts of the fire-fed engines.

“Thoreau said the steam locomotive was as close to life as man would ever create. When you go into an engine house at night and they’re there, with their boilers full … that thing is sleeping. They make little noises, like they’re snoring. They seem to all have personalities,” he said.

Take Engine No. 1223. She — engines are always referred to as “she” — is a real prima donna. Other engines get attention, she gets jealous and has a breakdown.

But Engine No. 9331? She’s the Energizer Bunny. You ask her to do something and off she goes.

Moedinger, a thoughtful and rather quiet man, smiles broadly as he talks. He’s in his element here.

His love of the railroad was planted and nurtured when he was a child. His folks, William and Marian Weaver Moedinger, both purchased a share, costing about $450, of Strasburg Rail Road in 1958, when its line was rescued from abandonment and turned into a tourist attraction.

His dad, who worked for a time as a Pullman conductor and wrote for train magazines, was a vice president. His mom was appointed the secretary and started the gift shop at the railroad.

Moedinger grew up on the grounds and tracks of the railroad, which takes passengers for a trip through county farmland and allows visitors to view engines and rail cars.

“It was a fantastic place,” he said.

His first paying job started when he was 17, and he was doing grunt work. He was promoted to fireman, the person who shovels coal in the locomotive.

He enlisted in the Army in 1969 and spent several years as an electronics instructor at a base in New Jersey.

Moedinger returned to Strasburg, where his re-entry job was accompanying an engine from Vermont to Strasburg. This was in the summer of 1972, and Hurricane Agnes literally derailed him in Wilkes-Barre, when the floodwaters rose 3 feet above the engine’s stack.

He later was promoted to engineer, shop foreman and chief mechanical officer. When the railroad’s president left in 2000, Moedinger threw his hat into the ring and got that job, too.

His wife, Susan, operates the gift shop at the railroad. The couple, who have two grown children, live in a 1765 brick home on a West Lampeter Township farm his family has occupied since 1711.

The tourist business has dramatically changed since the 1960s, when Moedinger began at Strasburg. He jokes that it used to be so easy to run a tourism business back then that attraction owners could practically put out a five-gallon bucket with a sign, “Put money here,” and visitors would comply. Now, with a flagging economy, a shrinking world and increasing competition for the tourist’s dollar, attractions constantly must find ways to be fun and interactive.

The railroad is considering offering streaming video webcasts, which people could view on their cell phones, from locomotive cabs and its mechanical shop. It also is considering adding a tagline or slogan to its name.

As the future unfolds, Moedinger sees himself becoming more of a teacher for his younger counterparts.

“There are things I’ve seen they will never see,” he said, noting that can be both bad and good.

Railroading will always be in his blood.

“This,” he said, “is where I grew up.”