Steamtown National Historic Site — Attraction in Scranton

We visited early morning on a Saturday in late June 2025. We got there just a few minutes before opening since we were staying at the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel. Amazing hotel to stay in if you're in town for the Steamtown National Historic Site. It was a converted old train station.

There is a giant parking lot and you can kind of look around at the trains in the parking lot and in front of the visitor center while you wait for them to open. The ticket and information center is right at the front when you walk in. We picked up maps, junior ranger books and purchased our train tickets for the 10:30AM ride/tour. Sadly the Locomotive Shop Tour started at 11AM and there wasn't another one until 2PM. The train tour returned at 11:15AM so we wouldn't make it in time and we had a tightly packed itinerary for the day.

Next we walked to the left where the Bookstore museum shop is. It's in adjacent building to the Oil House. It's actually a fairly nice sized store with a bunch of neat stuff. This is also where the NPS Passport Cancellation Stamps are for this site. They are right behind the counter and there are 2 stamps.

We dropped all the stuff off at the car and went into the first building (Visitor Center). We went through it pretty quite because we noticed that they had a handcar Experience from 10-11AM and a line was starting to form. Never tried a handcar before and it was much harder to get started than you think. Momentum is your friend though. The ranger let all 5 of us get on. 2 on each handle and one opposite of him on the cart. You go out maybe 50 feet, stop and then turn around to go back. It was a lot of fun.

By the time we were done we went through the Technology museum to the other side where the train ride/tour was. We had to go fast to get in line since they are not assigned seats and first come first serve. We wanted to make sure we got seats next to each other. We were the second group in line. We decided to sit in the way back. There are 2 passenger cars next to each other and they are not the same. They do have rangers/staff on both trains as you're going. They were very strict about staying in your seat while the train was moving and there were a few kids on our train that the rangers/staff kept having to remind. Conductor will come by and punch your ticket as well. It's pretty cool because the hole punch is the shape of a train. The train doesn't go too far before it stops and turns around to head back to the station. it was a fun experience and for $6 per person it wasn't too bad. I think 5 and under were free. It was also a pretty full train. Not sure if it was sold out or what.

After we got off the train at the same place we got on the train, we continued round around the circle into the Roundhouse. Here there were a ton of parked trains with signs and you walk on like a high up platform to see them all. You can't really get super close to them unfortunately. The locomotive shop is also attached to this section of the building and where you would go if you had purchased that particular tour option.

We continued lastly into the History Museum portion and looked around a bit. This was the portion we walked through the fastest honestly. Kids weren't too interested in the history. They liked the technology and seeing the trains more.

The last building we came across was the theater but it was closed for renovations or something during our visit. So we were not able to watch the park film. I'm sure if we were able to watch the film, the kids would've been more interested in the history aspect.

Kids finished their Junior Ranger Booklets and we turned them back in at the front Ticket and Information Center and they got their badges. We ran into museum shop to get them stamped and then we were off to our next stop for the day.

Overall it was a great experience and we packed a lot in for just under 2 hrs. Since we had to run through everything so quickly we would 100% come back in the future. Take more time in the museums and also do the other tour. Maybe the theater will...

Steamtown National Historic Site, Scranton PA Great place to visit, even if only briefly as I did in May 2024. I'm not a train fanatic, but I do think the machines are interesting. I only had an hour before closing, but you should plan on 2-3 hours. It's free. The site & building construction is interesting and very practical as it's centered, literally, around a locomotive / rail car turntable. A rail car would roll onto the turntable, the table would turn to face one of the rail car garages ("Roundhouse" bays) surrounding the turntable, then drive in. Almost all buildings on the site appear to be formerly parts of the Roundhouse. The History Museum is nicely air conditioned, in case of hot or nasty weather. and has rest rooms. The Roundhouse is the part of the Roundhouse (railup car garage) that is still used for it's original purpose: maintenance & repair. It's definitely worth a walk-through to see all the locomotives and cars in there being worked on. The Technology Museum (closed as of May 2024) uses another section of the original Roundhouse.

One of the more interesting locomotives on display outside, on the right just as you enter the grounds, is the H.K. Porter fireless locomotive, made in Pittsburgh PA. It's basically battery operated (though it's not electrical, and strictly speaking a battery stores electrical energy). The "Public Service #6816" carried no fuel, no coal, and had no firebox or boiler to heat water and create steam. Instead it plugged into an external power supply, in this case an external steam boiler, and charged up it's "battery" pack (steam reservoir) with up to 190 PSI of steam. It then ran as a switching locomotive for ...it doesn't say how long. But, New Jersey residents take note, it was used by Public Service Electric (& Gas, PSE&G) at their Newark NJ coal-fired power plant...

It’s awesome that this is a national park, so it’s free. The exhibits are quite numerous and educational, but they could use a little life injected into them. Many of the displays are very plain and resembled the quality of a winning high school science fair display, and not that of a museum because there are few actual artifacts. Mostly there are just color copies of maps, train tickets, book covers, and similar items. There is a section with old bottles, toys, cans, and other items found during archaeological digs, and that’s where the majority of the actual historic artifacts are displayed.

The few trains on display are great to see up close, though. You can walk inside a postal car and a dining/sleeping car. In the postal car they show a nice video about the work of railroad postal clerks and it was fascinating to hear about how they gathered and sorted mail before modernization took over. It also covered the story of Owney, the unofficial mascot of the Railway Mail Service, who was a stray dog that found himself on a train one day. He became sort of a good luck charm because a train never crashed when he was on board.

Outside the interior exhibits are a few trains you can see up close and personal, and outside the museum there is a ramp that leads to The Marketplace at Steamtown, a small mall. It’s worth a trip over as you can see dozens of abandoned, rusted trains from the 1800s and 1900s, just sitting there dying a slow death from the elements. It’s a great spot if you are into photography and like shooting old, abandoned,...