Steamtown, U.S.A., was a steam locomotive museum that ran steam excursions out of North Walpole, New Hampshire, and Bellows Falls, Vermont, from 1963 to 1983.
The museum was founded by millionaire seafood industrialist F. Nelson Blount, then operated after his 1967 death by the non-profit Steamtown Foundation. Vermont's air-quality regulations limited steam excursions, visitor attendance declined, and disputes arose over the use of track. In the mid-1980s, some pieces of the collection were auctioned off and the rest moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Steamtown continued to operate but failed to attract the expected 200,000–400,000 visitors. Within two years, the tourist attraction was facing bankruptcy, and more pieces of the collection were sold to pay off debt.
In 1986, the United States House of Representatives, at the urging of Pennsylvania Representative Joseph M. McDade, approved $8 million to study the collection and to begin to make it a National Historic Site. The National Park Service (NPS) conducted historical research on the foundation’s equipment, producing a Scope of Collections Statement for the Steamtown National Historic Site, published in 1991 under the title Steamtown Special History Study. The report contained concise histories of each piece of equipment and made recommendations as to whether each piece belonged in the soon-to-be government-funded collection.
By 1995, Steamtown had been acquired and developed by the NPS with a $66 million allocation. Several more pieces have since been removed from the collection.
History Formation of the collection
F. Nelson Blount, the heir to the largest seafood processor in the United States, was an avid railroad enthusiast. When he was just seventeen years old he wrote a book on steam power. After he acquired the narrow-gauge Edaville Railroad in Carver, Massachusetts, in 1955, and began amassing one of the largest collections of antique steam locomotives in the United States. In addition to the Edaville Railroad, Blount also ran excursions at Pleasure Island in Wakefield, Massachusetts, and Freedomland U.S.A. in New York City. By 1964, another part of his collection housed at an engine facility purchased from the Boston & Maine at North Walpole, New Hampshire consisted of 25 steam locomotives from the United States and Canada, 10 other locomotives, and 25 pieces of rolling stock.
On April 26, 1961, Blount and his associates founded the Monadnock, Steamtown & Northern Railroad Amusement Corporation to be the separate tourist railroad operator for his planned museum, Steamtown U.S.A. Blount hoped to open Steamtown at his facility in North Walpole and run excursions with the MS&N over the Boston & Maine's Cheshire Branch to Keene. When B&M labor issues intervened, Blount negotiated with shortline railroad owner Sam Pinsly to operate on 18 miles of the Claremont & Concord Railway between Bradford, New Hampshire and Sunapee, New Hampshire. Starting on July 22, 1961, the MS&N operation at Lake Sunapee utilized a former Canadian National Railway 4-6-4T steam locomotive, #47, and several former Boston & Maine wooden coaches. The steam operation came to an early end on August 25 when the locomotive was removed from service on account of missing maintenance paperwork, which had been disposed of by the Canadian National when they retired #47 in 1958. Copies were ultimately found in Canada, but revealed that the locomotive was due for re-tubing (the paperwork is commonly misinterpreted as having been lost in a fire). A diesel replacement was used for an additional seven days until September 17, but was not popular. Despite common belief, the 1961 season was not the first operation of Steamtown U.S.A., but rather the separate excursion operator, Monadnock, Steamtown & Northern.
In 1962 the MS&N ran excursions between Keene and Gilboa on the Boston & Maine's Cheshire Branch. Blount came close to entering into an agreement with the state of New Hampshire in which he would donate 20 locomotives in return for a state-funded Steamtown USA, to be located in Keene. This plan was well-received locally in Keene, where support was fostered by Mayor Robert L. Mallat Jr. The plan was initially approved by New Hampshire governor Wesley Powell. It was determined that ownership of the Cheshire Branch by either Blount or the state of New Hampshire was essential, yet the B&M delayed a sale agreement while statewide pressure mounted. The Keene plans were later rejected in early 1963 by the new governor, John W. King. An advisory committee had said of the proposed plan, that it "does not take advantage of anything that is singularly and peculiarly New Hampshire."
In 1963, incorporation papers were filed for the "Steamtown Foundation for the Preservation of Steam and Railroad Americana". The non-profit charitable, educational organization was to have nine non-salaried directors, including Blount and the four other incorporators: Lane Dwinell, a former New Hampshire governor; Emile Bussiere; Robert L. Mallat Jr., mayor of Keene; and Bellows Falls Municipal Judge Thomas P. Salmon, who would later become governor of Vermont. Other directors included Blount Seafood vice president Fredrick Richardson and William B. Murphy, who was president of the Campbell Soup Company and had also served as national chairman of Radio Free Europe. Steamtown U.S.A. opened for the first time as a museum, and the MS&N ran excursions again over the Cheshire Branch, this time from North Walpole to Westmoreland. Blount entered into talks with the state of Vermont to operate on the former Rutland Railroad, which had just been approved for total abandonment. The Steamtown Foundation's first order of business was to acquire the Blount collection at North Walpole, and move it to a new property, "Riverside", once owned by the Rutland Railroad across the Connecticut River near Bellows Falls, Vermont.
In 1964, Blount founded the Green Mountain Railroad to assume freight duties on the former Rutland line between Bellows Falls and Rutland. The MS&N began operating excursions over that trackage in 1964, and Green Mountain freight service began on April 3, 1965. Meanwhile, pieces of the Steamtown collection began to make their way from North Walpole to Riverside.
Steamtown in Vermont By 1967, a good deal of Blount's collection was controlled by the Steamtown Foundation and had been moved to Riverside. The Green Mountain Railroad controlled the tracks that Steamtown was to use for its excursions between Walpole, Bellows Falls, and Chester, Vermont.
Blount was killed on August 31, 1967, when his private airplane collided with a tree during an emergency landing in Marlboro, New Hampshire. Most of the controlling stock of the GMRC was transferred to Robert W. Adams, president of the Green Mountain, which temporarily assumed passenger excursion operations. Now redundant, the Monadnock, Steamtown & Amusement Corporation ceased operations in December 1967; it would be dissolved in August 1971.
Throughout its tenure in Vermont, Steamtown provided several types of excursions, primarily in the summer and during the peak foliage season of the autumn. Occasionally, these trips would be lengthy, like one that ran from Boston to Montreal, or those that ran between Bellows Falls and Rutland, Vermont. Daily excursions ran from Riverside station in Bellows Falls to Chester depot. The cost of the trip, which in 1977 was $5.75 for an adult and $2.95 for a child, was combined with entrance into the museum, which was the grounds of Riverside station. The station was located about outside of town and on the bank of the Connecticut River. Newspaper travel writer Bill Rice described the trip from Riverside to Chester: "The trip to Chester affords a beautiful view of unspoiled Vermont countryside-covered bridges, vintage farms with grazing livestock and cornfield and a winding river with a deep gorge and picturesque waterfall." That was the Williams River, crossed by the railroad seven times. The waterfall was at Brockway Mills Gorge and was seen from a bridge above the gorge. Rice's article described Steamtown as the world's largest collection of steam locomotives.
In 1971, the Board of Health of Vermont issued an air-pollution waiver to the GMRC, enabling steam locomotives to pull excursions between Steamtown's Riverside station at Bellows Falls, and Chester depot. By 1976, Steamtown and GMRC were fighting over maintenance of the tracks, which were owned by the state of Vermont.
By 1978, the Steamtown Foundation had begun scouting for a new location for Steamtown, U.S.A. Orlando and perhaps other locations in Florida were under consideration. In 1980, Ray Holland, the chairman of the Board of Steamtown Foundation, resigned after accusing the board of incompetence. His resignation was followed by that of Robert Barbera, a long-time director of the board. In the year that followed, Steamtown did not run excursions. Don Ball Jr., had taken over direction of Steamtown by this time and discovered that the excursion train did not meet federal safety guidelines. In 1981, despite its vast holdings of vintage railroad stock, Steamtown, U.S.A. had only 17,000 visitors, while Connecticut's Essex Valley Railroad, which ran two small engines, had 139,000 visitors. Even in its best year, 1973, the Vermont location had attracted only 65,000 visitors.
Self-syndicated newspaper columnist Michael McManus once said that his goal in writing his weekly column was "to suggest answers to problems of the old industrial states." In March 1982 a substantial article by McManus appeared in the Bangor Daily News. In the article, McManus proposed several reasons why a city, like Chicago, Pittsburgh, or Scranton might find the addition of a tourist attraction like Steamtown beneficial. McManus went on to explain why the business was failing in Vermont. Among the reasons the article gave for poor attendance at the Vermont site were: past failed management, an isolated location and the lack of signs, owing to opposition by the state, on Interstate 91. In addition to these problems, the roof of the largest storage shed on the site collapsed under heavy snow the previous winter, damaging several pieces of equipment. Among the injured were the Canadian Pacific Railway No. 1293 and the Meadow River Lumber Company No. 1 Shay (shown in the infobox). When asked by McManus to describe the value of the Steamtown collection, Jim Boyd, editor of Railfan magazine said, "Everything there is no longer obtainable anywhere, whether it is the "Big Boy" Union Pacific No. 4012 or the Rahway Valley No. 15, a nice-sized locomotive any museum would give a right arm for. Most of the other large collections do not have any serviceable equipment." McManus closed his argument for moving Steamtown: "What is at stake is more than tourism and jobs. It is a significant part of America's past before the welder's torch is turned on the likes of the 1877 'Prince of Liege', the rare Union Pacific diamond stack, etc. The steel alone is worth $3 million."
In June 1983, McManus wrote about Steamtown again, this time announcing that Scranton had taken his suggestion. He said that other cities in contention were Springfield, Massachusetts, and Willimantic, Connecticut. "But on May 24, Scranton signed a contract to get it, pledging to raise $2 million to cover the cost of moving 40 ancient steam engines and 60 cars, few of which are operable, and to create a museum." Steamtown sponsored its last Vermont excursion on October 23, 1983, using Canadian Pacific 1246 to pull a "dozen or so cars" on a round trip from Riverside station to Ludlow, Vermont.
Steamtown in Scranton and nationalization