By Charles J. Adams III
Reading Eagle
August 7, 2008

Strasburg, PA - It’s been a long time since new steam train locomotives chugged out of shops in southeastern Pennsylvania.

But, in a cluster of buildings at a Lancaster County tourist railroad, they’ve been doing the next best thing.

For more than 60 years, mechanics, machinists, technicians, carpenters, chemists and experts in myriad more trades have been repairing, rebuilding, refurbishing and restoring railroad cars and locomotives at the Strasburg Rail Road’s extensive shop facilities.

And, when those workers break for lunch at noon each day, you can “hop aboard” a walking tour of those shops for a behind-the-scenes tour.

Tons of couplers, rods, springs, wheels and tanks wearing varying patinas of oil and rust and a pile of coal glistening in the midday sun flank the unremarkable barn door entrance of the shops.

They are at the eastern end of the railroad yards, far from the murmurs and giggles of eager passengers who crowd the platform, restaurants and retail shops of the attraction.

Entertainment becomes industry at the shops. Clanks, clunks, hisses and huffs are heard from idling steam engines at the real business end of the Strasburg Rail Road - the business of keeping the line up and running.

On the Mechanical Shop Tour, which the railroad has been offering for five years, you are not greeted by conductors in spiffy uniforms but by workers wearing bib overalls soaked with grit, grime and sweat.

Your guide on the tour might be Andy “Doc” Sellers, an engineer-turned-conductor who shared his vast knowledge with a group I joined for one of the one-hour long tours. All guides are well versed on the work done in the shops, and are able to answer any and all questions.

In technical terms, the Strasburg shops are among the nation’s elite.

They are among only three in the country to hold an “S” stamp, which means they are capable of building a pressure vessel from scratch as well as repairing any such equipment.

The “backstage” tour begins in the Engine House where locomotives await assignments. Perhaps you will see “Thomas the Tank Engine” or the 102-year old 4-8-0 Engine No. 475 biding their time there.

Between buildings are tracks on which passenger and freight cars are being repaired, painted and pampered. Some may be shrouded in wooden cocoons as they stand in various conditions.

The Passenger Car Restoration Shop reeks with the pungent aromas of paint and varnish. Using as much original material and equipment as possible, workers make the very old look very new.

While the antique coaches, locomotives and rolling stock may be restored to pristine museum quality, they are fully functional and called upon to serve the Strasburg line and other railroads around the country.

The shops there do much contract work and are actually the only such facilities capable of doing much of that work.

The unique needs of other tourism railroads and movie producers are assessed and addressed in the shops. Among the films in which Strasburg-modified equipment may be seen is “Wild, Wild West.”

A walk through the shops reveals heavy-duty equipment used to manufacture or remanufacture even heavier-duty equipment. And yet, what is most surprising about the tour of the mechanical shops is the amount of work done in the chemical labs and the regulatory details that must be tended to.

The hour of the tour seems to pass quickly, which is bad news not only for those on the tour but also the workers who may greet you, sandwiches in hands, while they take their breaks.