Steamtown National Historic Site

Steam locomotives excite the senses and Steamtown keeps their stories alive! Feel the heat from the firebox. Hear the bell and whistle. Smell the hot steam and oil. Feel the ground vibrate under your feet. See the one ton drive rods turn the wheels. Hear the chuff-chuff of the smokestack. Today, you can relive the era of steam as the engines come back to life. The cinders and grease, the oil and steam, the people and stories of railroading have returned. Steamtown NHS occupies about 40 acres of the Scranton railroad yard of the former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, one of the earliest rail lines in northeastern Pennsylvania. At the heart of the park is the large collection of standard-gauge steam locomotives and freight and passenger cars that New England seafood processor F. Nelson Blount assembed in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1984, 17 years after Blount's untimely death, the Steamtown Foundation for the Preservation of Steam and Railroad Americana, Inc., brought the collection to Scranton, where is occupied the former DL&W yard. When Steamtown National Historic Site was created, the yard and the collection became part of the National Park System.