Strasburg, PA
Strasburg, Pennsylvania, grew along the Old Conestoga Road, an early route through Lancaster County. By the eighteenth century, taverns, stables, blacksmiths and wagon makers served the travelers passing through town. When the Strasburg Railroad was chartered in 1832, it connected the community to a new way of moving passengers and freight.
The railroad later became the town’s best-known attraction, but Strasburg’s history remains visible beyond the station. Its historic district preserves the character of its older streets, while the surrounding farmland places it within Pennsylvania Dutch Country, a region long associated with Amish communities. Today, Strasburg brings together its early road history, its railroad heritage, and the agricultural landscape of Lancaster County.
Recent Posts
The Coudersport & Port Allegany Railroad Snowplow
Winter could stop a railroad as surely as a damaged bridge. Snow buried the rails, ice collected where train wheels needed to run, and a blocked line interrupted both passengers and freight. Railroads needed to clear the track before ordinary trains could pass. At the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, the Coudersport & Port […]
A Collection Built to Last
In this photograph, Marty stands above rows of locomotives and railroad cars inside the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. From this elevated viewpoint, the size of the equipment, and the space needed to preserve it, becomes especially apparent. The museum holds more than 100 historic locomotives and railroad cars, many displayed within its approximately 100,000-square-foot exhibition […]
John Stevens and the First American Steam Locomotive
Among the large locomotives at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania stands a machine that looks almost too small to belong beside them. It has tall, exposed wheels, a boiler, and a narrow platform, with little of the enclosed form we now recognize as a locomotive. It represents an experiment made before Americans knew whether steam […]
The Red Caboose Motel
A row of cabooses stood beside the tracks; each painted for a different railroad. At first, it looked like a collection of cars waiting to be moved. Then we noticed the steps, the doors, and the air conditioner fitted into the yellow “Ma and Pa” caboose. People could spend the night here. A car once […]
“Rocket”
The locomotive called “Rocket” is small enough that it might be easy to pass on the way to a larger engine. Its four green driving wheels, tall smokestack, and exposed machinery invite a closer look. Built in England in 1838, it crossed the Atlantic to help launch passenger service on a new stretch of Pennsylvania […]
The Old Bank Building
Strasburg’s Main Street was once part of the Old Conestoga Road, a route used by travelers and wagons carrying goods through Lancaster County. The town grew into a place where people from the surrounding farms came to shop, trade, and conduct business. At Center Square, the building now known as the Old Bank Building became […]
Spring House Tavern
Strasburg grew along the Old Conestoga Road, where travelers stopped and residents of the surrounding farmland came to trade. Taverns were part of that early town. They offered a place to eat and rest while serving the traffic that passed along Main Street. The brick building at 8–10 East Main Street has a connection to […]
Rural Free Delivery Mail Wagon
A small horse-drawn wagon marked “U.S. Mail” and “Quarryville R.F.D. 5” recalls a time when delivering a letter to a farm could require the last miles of a long journey over country roads. The marking identifies a rural mail route associated with Quarryville, Pennsylvania. Its enclosed cab offered the carrier a place to work while […]
Reading Company No. 800 — Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
At the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, we stepped inside Reading Company No. 800 and found ourselves in a car built for an ordinary part of life: the daily commute. Rows of dark seats faced large windows, with overhead racks ready for the belongings passengers would bring aboard. Marty sat down for a moment, making it […]
Riding the Strasburg Railroad
We came to Strasburg to ride a historic train through Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and we chose a deluxe car for the journey. Inside, polished wood and deep green upholstered chairs made it feel as though we had stepped into another era of travel. We settled in together as the steam locomotive drew the train away […]
Alexander Johnston Cassatt
Among the objects preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is a bronze statue of Alexander Johnston Cassatt, the seventh president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Cassatt led the company from 1899 until his death in 1906, during a period when the railroad was one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the United States. […]
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
Last summer, Marty and I traveled through Lancaster County in our RV. One of our stops was the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, where an extensive collection of locomotives and railroad cars preserves the important role railroads played in the development of Pennsylvania and the nation. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, rail […]
