Check-in begins at 3 p.m. at the Best Western Premier, The Central Hotel & Conference Center, 800 East Park Circle, Harrisburg, Pa. You may wish to meet up with old friends (and make new ones) at the hotel’s O’Reilly’s Taproom & Kitchen. You are on your own for the rest of the day and dinner. Board members will attend their annual meeting beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the hotel’s Central D function room. All members are welcome to attend. Those driving to Harrisburg will find abundant, free parking at the hotel. When parking, remove valuables from view and lock your vehicle.
Wednesday features visits to two Pennsylvania Railroad heritage sites maintained by the Harrisburg Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Standing just north of Amtrak’s Harrisburg station is Harris Tower, a fully restored 1930 brick two-story tower with interactive model-board and interlocking-machine simulation. Visitors can set switches and signals on the machine to simulate a train’s movement through the maze of switches on a typical day in 1943. Also included outside the tower is a working PRR position-light signal with visitor-directed (by smartphone) signal indications that can be set for either the PRR or Conrail eras.
Also on Wednesday, we will tour the former PRR Power Director’s Office, opened in 1938 in what is now Harrisburg’s Amtrak station to oversee and control distribution of catenary power for electric locomotives on the western end of PRR electrification (Paoli and Morrisville, Pa., to Harrisburg, including several freight-only main lines). After its decommissioning in 2013, the Chapter leased the space for historical displays and interpretation of how PRR channeled high-voltage A.C. current from its suppliers, stepped it down to 11,000 volts and fed it into overhead catenary wire for use by electric locomotives such as the widely known 139-member GG1 fleet. Since 2022, the Chapter has opened the office to the public by appointment and for special events.
Finally on Wednesday, we will visit the $75 million, 145,000-square-foot Pennsylvania State Archives center, opened in 2023. Presentations are scheduled to highlight its significant archival railroad holdings, which include those of Baldwin Locomotive Works, Delaware & Hudson, Erie Lackawanna, Fall Brook, Lehigh Coal & Navigation, Lehigh Valley, PRR, Pullman-Standard, South Pennsylvania, and Reading Co.
On Wednesday evening, the annual R&LHS members’ meeting and banquet will culminate with a speech by Amtrak board member (and R&LHS member) Rob Gleason of Johnstown, Pa., a longtime insurance-company executive, rail passenger service advocate, and model railroader. On September 18, 2025, the U.S. Senate confirmed Gleason to a seat on the Amtrak board of directors. He had been nominated for the post by President Donald Trump. Gleason served as chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania from 2006 to 2017. Early in his career, he served as secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1985 to 1987 and later was appointed to serve on the Commission of Presidential Scholars from 2006 to 2010, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission from 1993 to 1997, and the Pennsylvania State Transportation Commission. He also served on the board of the Pennsylvania High Speed Intercity Rail Passenger Commission, a feasibility study that worked from 1983 to 1988.
Thursday will begin early with an all-day chartered trip on the Reading & Northern Railroad, a 400-mile regional freight and passenger carrier in north-central Pennsylvania that is operated by 300 employees. Our party will board Rail Diesel Cars at R&N’s Reading Outer Station for a ride that includes freight-only trackage through anthracite coal country. Highlights will include photo stops at R&N’s Port Clinton steam shop and wheel shop, Hometown High Bridge, and Mahanoy Tunnel. The trip will also make a short jaunt on a branch of the former Lehigh & New England Railroad at Tamaqua, Pa.
On Friday, we’ll travel to the nearby Harrisburg, Lincoln & Lancaster Railroad for a charter behind a 2009-built Kloke Locomotive Works 4-4-0 steam engine, constructed to the same specifications as the 1868-design Central Pacific Jupiter locomotive at the Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promontory Summit, Utah. The train runs on a short portion of the 1837 right-of-way of a PRR predecessor, the Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mountjoy & Lancaster Railroad. President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train used this route in 1865. On hand for inspection will be a full-sized recreation of the presidential private car used on that train.
Following our visit to the Harrisburg, Lincoln & Lancaster, we will head back north to ride the Middletown & Hummelstown Railroad, a seven-mile-long former Reading branch that operates both freight and passenger trains, to see and photograph street running past the town’s iconic Kuppy’s Diner.
The day’s activities will conclude with an evening presentation on railroad art by J. Craig Thorpe of Bellevue, Washington. A native of Pittsburgh, he is an R&LHS member and has given a presentation to the Steel City Chapter. Besides accepting private commissions, he has done paintings and illustrations for Amtrak, General Electric, Union Tank Car Co., White Pass & Yukon Route, Cumbres & Toltec Scenic, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, Holland America, Alaska Marine Lines, East Broad Top, and many state, city, and regional departments of transportation. He is the author of the 2023 Indiana University Press book Railroads, Art and American Life: An Artist’s Memoir. View more of his work here.
Saturday will bring our week to a spectacular conclusion with an exclusive, all-day visit to Amtrak’s Wilmington, Del., locomotive shop and Bear, Del., passenger-car shop. Dating from 1903, the Wilmington shop became PRR’s main electric-locomotive maintenance facility after the road embarked on major electrification in the 1920s and 1930s. Situated adjacent to Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor main line, it now also services Amtrak’s diesel-electric switchers and maintenance-of-way locomotives. A few miles away, the Bear facility was converted from a private car-repair company, DelPro, which closed in 1982. Since 1984, Amtrak has handled general overhaul and capital rebuilds of passenger cars at the site, which is situated on a Norfolk Southern branch.
For safety reasons, all participants on the Amtrak shops tours MUST wear sturdy CLOSED-TOE shoes such as hiking boots or work shoes. NO sneakers, high heels, flip-flops, or Crocs. NO exceptions.
Attendees will attend mandatory safety briefings at both facilities and will be required to submit signed liability release forms in advance of the tours.
Attendees must arrive on the R&LHS coach. Private vehicles are prohibited.
