Strasburg, Pennsylvania

Visiting Strasburg, Pennsylvania, in the Lancaster area, was an interesting study in contrasts.

We were lucky enough to get a behind the scenes tour of the Strasburg shops. This is a renoun facility--an active tourist excursion train enterprise, but they also contract with a variety of operations to do restoration work on both cars and locomotives. In their orderly workshops, we got to see several projects in progress.

Across the street is the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum, where we spent about 3 hours perusing the clean and sterile displays of a number of unique pieces of equipment.

I have to say, I enjoy the shops more. The smell of the grease, the noise, it just feels more alive and meaningful.

The kids were bored for most of the day. Sam said she like the smell of "ink and oil- it makes it seem cozy--like the smell of warmness". (I did not prompt her in any way, she apparently came up with that on her own).