Day 1. Scranton, Pa
McDade Park, Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum and Coal Mine tour
After dropping Sandra's friend Mik off at the metro station, we hit the road four minutes ahead of schedule bound for Scranton. Today's stop was McDade Park, for the Coal Mine and the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum.
Both museums come close to my ideal of the local technology museum. The Anthracite Museum has a bunch of stuff in display cases and a long, wordy exhibit on the 1902 mine workers' strike. What I learned about silk weaving (apparently the second industry in Scranton in the 19th century) was that most of the work involved unwinding the thread off of one spool and winding it onto another spool. Also that I would not have made it as a 10-year old coal miner.
The coal mine tour was complete value. It lasted more than an hour, and included descending about 250 feet vertically into what was last operating mine in Scranton. For those of you who grew up in Chicago, this coal mine tour far eclipsed the tour at the Museum of Science and Industry. Plus the tour guide was completely wired on coal mining and coal-mining history. This mine was the first real coal mine I'd ever been in. It looked amazingly like every 1950s Hollywood movie mine--in other words, completely fake. I never realized how accurate those movies really were!
Sandra at the entrance to the coal mine
The only disappointment of the day was that the coal-mine tour part of the museum closed as soon as the tour ended, so we missed those exhibits.
Personal Historical Note
I started two editions of the Moosic Mountains Road Race from McDade Park in the 1980s. The first year was my second race as a newly minted Cat 3, and was so excited that I went in the first attack, and was already counting my prize money when I got completely shelled on the first climb. The second year (1989?) I turned myself inside out for 19th place--got my entry fee back!
Amusing Note
While waiting for the coal-mine tour, the only other person in line looked me over and said, "How long have you raced?" Turned out his brother also lived in Gaithersburg.
Lodging and Dining
Our room at the Scranton Radisson overlooked the railroad tracks (after all, it's a former railroad station) and the soccer field of Scranton University. We got to watch the women's field hockey team practice. We had dinner at a little Italian Restaurant across the railroad tracks. Awesome garlic bread--probably an entire head of garlic on it. Disappointing espresso at City Lights afterwards.
Links
- McDade Park Anthracite Museum: http://www.anthracitemuseum.org/index.htm
- Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel: http://www.radisson.com/scranton-hotel-pa-18503/pascrant
- La Trattoria: http://www.thelatrattoria.com/
Day 2: Scranton Steamtown and Iron Works
Steamtown National Historic Park is an National Park Service-run railroad museum housed in the grounds of the former Delaware and Lackawanna Rail Road main yards. The rebuilt roundhouse contains a museum that covers mid-19th century railroading and railroad people, and the history of the DLWR. The layout of the museum is a little confusing, and exhibits don't flow easily into another.
Steamtown is not the finest train museum, even on the east coast. The former Pennsylvania RR collection in Strasburg (http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/) contains dozens more engines. The former B&O collection, maintained by the Smithsonian in Baltimore also has a comprehensive history of railroad locomotives. But Steamtown has a 4-8-8-4 on display. The walking tour of the restoration shop was informative. For fans of The Office, a bridge connects the site to the Steamtown Mall.
Sandra on the restoration shop, in front of a Baldwin switcher
At the other end of site is the Electric City Trolley Museum. Trolleys don't hold the same appeal to me that steam locomotives do, but it's still an interesting specialty museum.
The drive to Erie was longer than I anticiipated. We took NY17, (now US84), which allowed us to pass the site where the bottom fell out of my '77 Chevette Scooter in a snowstorm in 1986.
Lodging/Dining
- Lunch: La Tonalteca, Clarks Summit, PA. Pretty good, actually, with the requisite fancy carved and painted chairs. http://authenticmex.com/restaurant/la-tonalteca
- Dinner: Erie under the clock, Erie Pa http://erieundertheclock.com/
- The Boothby Inn.
Links
- Steamtown National Historic Park: http://www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm
- Boothby House: http://www.theboothbyinn.com/
- Trolley Museum: http://www.ectma.org/
Day 3: Erie: Maritime Museum and Titusville Drake Well
The Erie Maritime Museum has a single focus: Oliver Hazard Perry and the battle of lake Erie in the War of 1812. The fourth reconstruction of the Brig Niagara, which Perry won the Battle of Lake Erie, floats in a slip behind the museum. We tagged on to a tour of the ship, which sails regularly, but as soon as we went below deck, I got claustrophobic and fled for the quay. Too many elderly people in too small a volume...
The Drake Well Museum documents the history of the discovery of oil in NE Pennsylvania in 1859. Skip the "orientation" film. It's a mixture of Terry Gilliam/Monty Python animation that segues into a long piece on the importance of gasoline to NASCAR. Weird--smacked too much to me of a need to be "relevant to the kids." The pre-1900 exhibits seem pretty balanced, but after that the focus reveals the influence of the founder of the museum--the American Petroleum Institute. On the grounds, the museum has erected a replica oil well building over the actual well that Col. Drake drilled. Based on the pictures of Oil Creek in 1860, it seems impossible that anyone could have found the original well.
The focus on American Oil discovery is a little disingenuous. Drillers had already found oil and started producing in both Canada and Russia before Col. Drake even started drilling.
The focus on American Oil discovery is a little disingenuous. Drillers had already found oil and started producing in both Canada and Russia before Col. Drake even started drilling.
Sandra pointing out Col. Drake's toothbrush. Nothing better than artifacts in glass cases!
Erie was definitely the most prosperous of the three cities
Lodging/Dining
- Forgettable Hampton Inn out at the interstate. Did score the Government rate.
- Forgettable sports bar across the highway from the Hampton.
Links
- The Erie Maritime Museum: http://www.flagshipniagara.org/
- The Drake Well Museum: http://www.drakewell.org/
Day 4 Johnstown Flood and the Allegheny Portage Railroad
Of the four days, I was least sure of the schedule and attractions for Johnstown. Although I knew the basic outline of the Johnston Flood (fat-cat industrialists fail to maintain aging dam, which fails during heavy rain. The resulting flood killed 2200 people) I didn't realize that the dam was tied to our second destination, the Allegheny Portage. It had been build originally to supply water for the Johnstown side of the "Main Line" canal to Pittsburgh, serviced by the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
The Allegheny Portage Railroad was a short-lived absolutely amazing piece of technology. From 1835 until about 1850, it was possible to take a canal boat from Philadephia to Pittsburgh, over the eastern continental divide. When the canal reached its terminus near Altoona, the canalboats were split into thirds, loaded onto rail cars, and hauled over the mountains, pulled up steep rail inclines by stationary steam engines and cables. In the early days, the cables were manila ropes, but pretty soon John Roebling (of Brooklyn Bridge Fame) got his start supplying wire rope to replace manila ropes.
The run of the Allegheny Portage Railroad was amazingly brief--less than twenty years--before being eclipsed by the railroads.
The Johnstown Flood museum and National Memorial adequately describe the history of the flood and resulting outpouring of international support for the victims. Until 9/11, the flood was the structure failure that killed the most people. Interestingly, the disaster seems to have absolutely no effect on regulation of dam safety in the US.
We finished off the day with a walk to the Johnstown funicular, which I didn't know existed until we saw it from the hotel. The city built the funicular in 1891 to service the new neighborhoods built on high ground after the flood. It's even possible to have your car taken up it.
Sandra riding the funicular
Amusingly, we had to pay for parking at the Holiday Inn (which was really quite a nice hotel--much better than I expected). From the funicular overlook, we could see that most of downtown Johnstown is actually a parking lot. And we had to pay for parking for the flood museum because we couldn't find their parking lot.
Dining and Lodging
- Holiday Inn. Very spiffy for such a run-down city.
- Boulevard Grill. http://www.blvdgrill.com/ Completely acceptable. Waitress wasn't very knowledgeable about the menu or beer selection.
Links
- Johnstown Flood Museum: http://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/oklahoma.html
- Johnstown Flood National Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/jofl/index.htm
- Allegheny Portage National Historic Site: http://www.nps.gov/alpo/index.htm
- Johnstown Funicular: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Inclined_Plane (the wikipedia entry is more informative)
Day 5: Carrie Blast Furnace Tour and Paw Paw Tunnel
Carrie Blast Furnace
The entire trip was built around the final day tour of the Carrie Blast Furnace. In a word: amazing. Wonderfully unsafe. Don't skip it if you go to Pittsburgh.
We got off to a shaky start in Johnstown when I obeyed Serena, the GPS lady, instead of taking the road I knew was right. After starting late, going the wrong way, and then getting lost, we were thirty minutes behind behind schedule. We pulled in Rankin at 9:53 for a 10:00AM tour. Luckily we blundered on to some signs, and at 9:57 we were bouncing down a single lane dirt road into what looked like a superfund site.
The 1930s-technology Carrie furnaces last made iron for the Homestead works across the river in 1980. Only the really easy and high value parts had been scrapped. Our tour guide for the next 3 1/2 hours was a retired railroad worker who started his career shuttling the hot-metal and slag cars.
The highlight of the tour was being able to stand in the cast house.
In the cast house. During tapping, molten iron comes out that little hole in the center of the image. Slag goes left into waiting rail cars and molten iron goes to the right into other insulated rail cars. The big pipe around the furnace (the bustle) supplies the hot air to the bottom of the furnace.
The scale of everything in an operation like this defies description. So I won't bother...
Paw Paw Tunnel
On the way back to Falls Church we added one final 19th century stop--the Paw Paw tunnel on the C&O canal. Like the Allegheny Portage railroad, it was completed around 1850, and just in time for the railroad to make it obsolete. The 1-km long tunnel itself, part of the C&O canal towpath, cut off 10 km of winding canal. In the end, it's just a tunnel, but there's something odd about a tunnel built for boats.
Sandra at the west entrance to the Paw Paw tunnel.
Links
- Carrie Blast Furnace: http://www.riversofsteel.com/preservation/heritage-sites/carrie-furnaces/
- Blast furnaces in general http://www.steel.org/Making%20Steel/How%20Its%20Made/Processes/How%20A%20Blast%20Furnace%20Works%20larry%20says%20to%20delete.aspx
- Paw Paw tunnel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paw_Paw_Tunnel
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