Steamtown open, but heating woes mean some buildings remain closed

Dec. 29—The Steamtown National Historic Site's museums and other buildings will remain off limits to the public for a lengthy period as site officials seek to restore heat there, the park superintendent said Wednesday.

Cherie Shepherd, the park superintendent, said a full restoration of Steamtown's heating system remains two to three years away, but she hopes to get heat to at least the history museum and a restoration shop with temporary boilers next year. Even then, the other buildings will remain closed because fire-suppression systems rely on the same collapsed pipes as the heating system, she said.

Shepherd said the park's heating boilers work, but officials believe collapsed, underground pipes prevent heat distribution.

She called the problem "unforeseen."

"We knew they were an issue and we were putting in to do the work because experts thought we had another two to three years of life," Shepherd said. "We didn't think it would happen this soon."

A shortage of temporary boilers may slow the history museum's reopening, she said.

The National Park Service temporarily closed Steamtown's visitor center, theater and history and technology museums Nov. 20 because the heating system failed.

"The failure was recently discovered when park staff began to fire the boilers and pressurize the system for winter use," a Nov. 18 park service news release said. "Efforts are underway to procure temporary boilers to bring the buildings back into service as quickly as possible."

The site's roundhouse, railyard and grounds remain open to visitors, and admission is free. The site is relying on portable toilets.

"We're still having visitors this week. The week between Christmas and New Year's tends to be a somewhat busy week," Shepherd said. "The numbers really haven't gone down much."

The system failure affected the Electric City Trolley Museum, which is heated by Steamtown. The park service installed a temporary heating system that allowed the trolley museum to reopen before Thanksgiving, but that system has had troubles, too.

The trolley museum had to close Monday because the temporary system wasn't working right, trolley museum and facilities manager Wayne Hiller said.

So far, the Steamtown closings haven't affected trolley museum attendance much, he added.

In November, the trolley museum had 3,065 visitors, including 2,168 for excursions, compared to 2,130, including 1,525 for excursions, in November 2021, he said.

The museum's holiday-related events — the Elf on the Shelf and Santa on the Trolley excursions — produced strong turnouts, he said.

Hiller mildly worries about Steamtown's troubles affecting trolley museum attendance the rest of the winter.

"It's a factor. We feed off of each other. That's what the mission was when they built this park — to bring people in and for both of our attractions, and hopefully, we would both feed off of it," Hiller said.

Dedicated to preserving and telling the nation's railroad history, Steamtown has struggled to attract visitors in the last decade and the COVID-19 pandemic didn't help.

In 2019, Steamtown had 105,403 recreational visitors, only the second time since 2012 attendance topped 100,000, according to online National Park Service data. The pandemic plunged attendance to 27,322 in 2020. As the nation reopened in 2021, Steamtown attracted 54,433 visitors. Through November, attendance was 66,200.

Before COVID-19, the trolley museum attracted about 40,000 visitors a year, Hiller said. Last year, the museum had 26,901 visitors. So far this year, it's 25,059.

Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9147; @BorysBlogTT on Twitter.