Visiting the Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona, Pennsylvania 

Thanks, Lesa, glad you enjoyed it! 🙂

I totally agree! Altoona is an absolute paradise for railfans!

Same, Their the owners of K4 1361 which is currently under restoration after several screwed up attempts which money went down the drain

Glad you've been able to see a few GG1's in the museums! I wish every railfan could be able to see them run, they were amazing!

Thanks, Leah! This was a fantastic museum, and I can't wait to visit it again on a day that I have more time and more energy. RJ is a riot, and always adds comedy to any adventures we have together. He will be in another video of mine soon. 🤣

Thank you for watching, Marilyn! Glad you enjoyed it.

Hello, David! I hope you are having a good evening and keeping cool in Texas! I'm hoping beyond hope that they fix up that GG1. They are magnificent engines when restored. I think I forgot to mention in the video but most GG1's (including that one) were actually built in Altoona very close to the spot it now sits on. So much great railroad history out there! Thanks for watching. 😊

Thanks!

Glad you enjoyed it!

That's cool, hope you enjoy your visit to the town and the museum!

Thanks, Dan! On my next visit I'll get over to Cresson and some other railfanning spots. I do want to go back to the museum to spend more time inside too, but railfanning outside is great. More trains went by when I was at the museum than at Horseshoe Curve earlier in the day.

That was such an awesome day with an awesome group of people! I've noticed a few of those giant flat cars on VRF recently, and it does seem like a lot of them are moving transformers or similar large equipment. Cool that you can enjoy one in your train garden.

Lol! What's funny is the other day someone told me about UP 4014 coming to Altoona. I got seriously excited, only to find out it was Altoona, WI not Altoona, PA! 😅

@@JamieMakin That's great synchronicity, love it. 🎯😁

@@JamieMakin I am going to tomorrow

That would be really cool to see! From what I've heard, they have the K4 #1361 in there to be restored, and that's why they weren't letting anyone in the day I was there. They made the official announcement about the restoration a few days after my visit.

I'd love to go see it, but I've heard you have to be a ticketed Amtrak passenger to go down to that platform. It would be especially cool to see that one since I have it in N scale.

Hi Jessie! For the most part I have not been to the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum in Strasburg! I've seen the stuff in the parking lot though, including the original GG1 "Old Rivets." Gosh that one needs a restoration badly! "Blackjack" inside is supposed to be really nice. I'm hoping to get inside the museum soon, possibly even this winter since there won't be as much to chase on the rails. I hope you get to the Altoona museum. It's definitely worth a visit. Happy New Year to you!🚂🥳🎆

It's a great museum, and I definitely hope you can visit it some day. I didn't get to see the entire inside, so I hope to get back too to go through it all.

@@JamieMakin agreed, I've been looking into the history of Altoona and surrounding areas more recently, since I live here, I just haven't gotten around to visiting in a while, and hopefully you get to visit again as well! It's impressive how much there is to go through here

Cool!

It's really sad that the K4's restoration is taking so long. And it doesn't sound like it's going to be back on the tracks any time soon. Yet Reading & Northern managed to rebuild #2102 in about 6 years. I've been hearing more about East Broad Top recently, I believe they just fired up one of their steamers for the first time in a long time the other day. I've got that on my list of places to check out. Thanks for the info! I'd love to see a Mikado run again, since sadly Steamtown's #3254 is no longer operational.

@@JamieMakin The first one to get under steam (as a test only) was 16. The mik's there are 12, 14, 15 (the smaller critters) -- 16, 17, 18. The last time 16 ran was back in the 1950's. Seeing it testing staybolts and the like with real steam is impressive. About a year on that work. The big problem with the K4 is that initially they went through the budget REAL quickly. I know several folk that were pounding on stay bolts and the like.. they were starting to put things back together when *someone* noticed a big issue, which set them back to the start, roughly. Seems to me that the K's engine's boiler was actually stored at the EBT in one of their sheds for a couple of years...(I have not been back to the EBT in about 9 years due to work, and then "the Vid"... In that time Larry Salone (if that is even close to his name) took over the EBT, did very well for a couple of years (Thomas is a big draw!) -- but then shut down the steam operation when the operating insurance went thru the roof (as I was told in email many years ago.)--- he was working on getting a car repair shop going up in Mt Union...and wanted to provide rail service to the industrial park just south of Mt Union. Just add a standard gauge rail and away you go.... I guess he hasn't been able to raise money for all of that.

@@JamieMakin Now it has been a couple of decades, but what I remember of the "Problem" was that the paperwork on the boiler and current regs didn't meet...and it is entirely possible that some of the original paperwork is missing. (I'm not in the Pennsy technical society, so don't know what is there..) --- Naturally, if they have to start over from scratch on the boiler, and upgrade it significantly, the pile of paper (with the nice green printing and pictures of dead presidents) gets a whole lot bigger... The Museum owns the steamer, and can operate it on the branch to the Everett Railroad, then on the Everett. The interesting part: The Everett got one of the steamers that used to do excursion work over the Kinzua Viaduct.. Damaged when vandals set the engine house on fire, but not heavily damaged. (Done a lot of exploring up there while I had 4 weeks of vacation per year... and was on the board of the Friends of the East Broad Top....)

Cool stuff, thanks for sharing all that info! I'll have to learn more about the East Broad Top.

Actually PRR 1361 is actually being restored to operating condition with the right team in place, including the museum volunteers and FMW Solutions. When 1361’s restoration is complete, it will tour the mid-Atlantic region to different short line and tourist railroads within the region, with a PRR passenger train set with baggage cars to carry Altoona artifacts, coaches, dining car and observation car (possibly).