Through Chloe's Blue Eyes: Steamtown

September 24, 2022

Cozy Creek Family CG site 72

Tunkhannock, Pa

Can you believe it? A FREE National Historic Site manned by the National Park Service, that was even more charming and informative than museums that have charged dearly to be allowed to tour.

Steamtown is all about

railroading in the age of steam.

The center of the venue is the 90 foot turntable that loads a train engine and then turns it, lining the locomotive up with the tracks leading to the storage bay in the roundhouse where it will reside until it returns to the turntable to be turned to line up on the tracks leading away from the site.

The museum was loaded with information and impressively presented. It touched on communication around the trains. The train whistle speaks a language if you know what the long, short and repetitive blasts mean. Different colored lanterns carried and swung in various positions sign a silent message. And to keep the trains operating on the tracks without collision, the telegraph was used to communicate the train's location and proper train track switch positions. There was even a verbal slang language used around the trains.

Dad was enchanted with the exposed piping and movable parts that allowed the viewer to see how the system worked, Water, heated by coal...not just any coal....anthracite, a hard, clean-burning coal... turned to steam that in turn made the movable parts take motion under the control of the engineer who determined the amount of steam pressure through the use of levers.

For every type of load to be transported whether it was live animals, heavy minerals, items to be kept dry, needing to be kept cool, needing air, or confining liquids, there was a special train car designed for ease of loading, transporting safely and unloading.

And of course, let's not forget the necessary train tracks needed.