Union Pacific #4012
We spent today in Scranton, seeing the house where Cathy’s great, great, uncle lived and the church where his family were members. We also found family graves in two cemeteries. The highlight for Cathy, I think, was finding the death certificate (on microfilm) of her great, great grandmother in the Albright Memorial Library, which is a pretty amazing building.
After that we went to the Steamtown National Historic Site, where we enjoyed looking at old locomotives and other train cars. This is the Union Pacific’s locomotive #4012, a 4-8-8-4 Big Boy, among the largest and most powerful steam locomotives in the world. It is 132 feet, 10 inches long and with a loaded tender weights 1,189,500 pounds, yet it was capable of reaching speeds of over eighty miles per hour.
If you or your kids like trains, you could do worse than spending a half day at this place. Lots of nice equipment in the remaining portions of an old roundhouse. Recommended.