At 9 a.m. Friday morning, Don Davis had the door to his little wooden booth propped open so the air could circulate as he counted the morning take. Business is always brisk here at the Lancaster Amtrak station's long-term parking lot, but Fridays are a little mellower, said Davis, who works......

A Smoketown man who was thrown off his motorcycle against the side of a moving train engine Thursday night remained in critical condition Friday night, a Lancaster General Hospital spokesman said.Robert Zimmerman, 38, of 2469 Old Philadelphia Pike, was injured at a railroad crossing on Dil......

A motorcyclist was injured Thursday night when he collided with a freight locomotive at a railroad crossing in New Holland, police said.According to Officer Mark Willwerth, New Holland police, Robert Zimmerman, of Smoketown, who was celebrating his 38th birthday, was heading south on Dille......

More than a decade after planning began, renovations to Lancaster's Amtrak station are finally on track. Additional parking, shops, a separate area for Trailways bus passengers and a station driveway realigned with North Duke Street are planned. Funding for the $12 million project w......

I'll admit it: I have mixed feelings about Kate Voegele. Her first and only album, "Don't Look Away," was released in May 2007 and re-released in January on MySpace Records, in addition to a special iTunes exclusive release in May. A PR company press release describes Voe......

The age of steam locomotives is just a memory to older Americans, while their children don't recall it at all.But now, visitors to Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg can see the golden years of railroading through the eyes of a well-known railroad artist."Railroad......

Doug Green had always planned to set up the old Lionel train again. But more than 30 years of good intentions ended recently, when the Millcreek Township man walked into Train City with boxes full of engines, cars and track. Green, who left the shop $150 richer, showed up just in time. Aft......

In life and in death, artist Ted Rose was rather a private man. Although his passion was painting specific landscapes — mainly the industrial landscape of depots, trains and grain elevators, but also the Southwestern desert beauty that he called home — Rose was never pigeon-hole......

Manheim Township police have announced several road closures near Lancaster Train Station in conjunction with today's visit by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.McGovern Avenue will be closed between North Duke and North Queen streets starting at 1 p.m. The closure wi......

Sen. Barack Obama is coming back to Lancaster. But this time, instead of a bus, he's ridin' a train.Obama's campaign released details Thursday of a Saturday train trip the Illinois senator will make starting in Wynnewood and ending with a rally at the state Capitol in Harrisbur......

Work on the final phase of the multi-year project to restore the Manheim Railroad Station to its 1881 exterior appearance began earlier this month. The building, at 210 S. Charlotte St., serves as the headquarters of the Manheim Historical Society. The project to restore the station began in 20......

People driving through rural Lancaster County expect to see rolling fields, silos, cows, horses.Chances are they're not expecting a county farm to be home to an 83-foot-long, 208,000-pound rail car.However, if you drive along Parkview Heights Road in Ephrata Township, that's......

With new plans in hand for renovations to its railroad station and platforms, Elizabethtown Borough needs only two more things.One is a stack of approvals from state and federal agencies that have oversight on the project.The other is about $4 million.Borough manager Pete Whi......

"When I was a kid on Christmas morning, I'd see the depressing assortment of gifts the adults got — shirts, socks, ties," said Strasburg Rail Road President Linn Moedinger. "And I'd think, if that's what it's like to grow up, I don't want to." ......

It started out with a few empty boxes, decorated brightly for Christmas and stacked on an antique baggage cart in a Lancaster train station corner. Then, Donna Carlson decided to add green garlands and red poinsettias at the windows of the Amtrak station, 53 McGovern Ave. And a tall evergr......

It was known as "the East Yard," or Manor Yard, and was one of Columbia's two rail centers at a time when railroad was king. Through the holiday season, a small version of "the Columbia of yesterday" is yours to see. In Ephrata, the year is 1953, and you can see a whole ......

When the Strasburg 275th Anniversary Committee began planning its New Year's Eve celebration, some thought dropping a train might be fitting — but completely impractical.True, the area is known for attractions like the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and the National Toy Train Mu......

Christmas and model trains go together like mistletoe and smooches. This year, the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg is kissing up to yuletide train enthusiasts big-time, showing "The Polar Express" at its IMAX theater and offering a collection of eight new model-train gardens in its Hars......

Santa's Paradise Express is about to pull out of the station.The popular holiday train ride features Christmas carolers, brass horns and a personal visit with Santa during its 45-minute journey through the Amish countryside.Festivities will begin as soon as the visitor reaches t......

The glass is broken in many of the windows that aren't already boarded up.Wooden door frames at the Elizabethtown train station are warped under peeling paint, and the concrete steps leading to the railroad platform are cracked and broken.Yet the deeply rutted mud-and-gravel par......

Most of you don't know this, but I am writing a new book.Like "Biggest Brother," my biography of Maj. Richard Winters of "Band Of Brothers" fame, this is set in World War II. It's about a group of soldiers called the 6th U.S. Army Special Reconnaissance Unit, or the Alamo Scouts, an elite ......

The sign at a vendor's table at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania read "Stop, Look, Listen." And that's exactly what enthusiasts do at model railroad shows."I can't explain it; there's something magical about it," John V. Luppino, operations manager of......

Ryan Kunkle, supervisor of visitor services at the Railroad Museum of Pa., can remember lying in bed as a little boy as the not-too distant echoes of train whistles lulled him to sleep. "The trains got in my mind and they never let up," he says. He's not alone. An est......

At the turn of the 20th century, the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad, the "standard of the world," linked all the great cities of America's East and Midwest except one: New York. Gotham-bound passengers in the Pennsy's fleet of plush Pullman cars disembarked not in the heart o......

Sen. Arlen Specter is doing his best to keep plans for the CorridorOne commuter rail line alive. Appearing at a press conference in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's senior senator said he is working to arrange for $11.2 million for the rail line from Lancaster to Harrisburg. The show of s......

World dance with Zita Angelo can be as simple or as much of a challenge as you can accept.For the beginner, the first dances on a Thursday evening at Mulberry Art Studios are slow; the music is flowing; and the steps are simple.Dancers hold hands as they grapevine to the right four ......

While the rest of Lancaster County celebrated the Fourth of July with fireworks and picnics, Strasburg Railroad engineer Steve Weaver was getting ready for a moment he had been anticipating for nearly a year: flipping the main electrical switch in the newly refurbished Reading Car No. 10.&......

Two area transportation projects are listed for major funding, but a few more hurdles must be cleared before the money rolls in.On Friday, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter announced $11.2 million has been earmarked for final design and construction of the Corridor One project, a proposed commuter r......

If you want to feel like a kid again, take your children to the National Toy Train Museum. Featuring five interactive, operating train layouts and housed in a building modeled after a Victorian-era train station, the museum brings the hobby of toy-train collecting to life. The museum, loca......

A decade after it was first proposed, renovation of Lancaster City's Amtrak station may be coming around the bend. Station improvements, expected to cost more than $12 million, are on track to go to bid by the end of this year. Construction could start in the spring. Under that schedule, A......

Patrick Riley has learned a thing or two after 12 years of taking the train from Lancaster to Philadelphia. The most important lesson? Have someone drop him off at the city's Amtrak station in the morning. Riley, of Manheim Township, said he's almost guaranteed to have a hard ......

A Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in Rapho Township early Thursday, causing delays for other trains using the rail line through the morning rush hour.Four empty rail cars overturned after the engine derailed on Amtrak's Keystone Quarter line at 1:10 a.m., investigators said.......

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg will use a federal grant to protect an important part of America's railroading past.A $42,912 Conservation Project Support grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services will help the museum create new photographic image......

A Norfolk Southern freight train struck a tractor-trailer at the Dart Container property in Leola on Friday night, and the impact sliced the trailer section in half, East Lampeter Township police said. No injuries were reported from the 6:22 crash, but it took about two hours for crews to pick ......

A tractor-trailer collided with a train Friday night at Dart Container in Upper Leacock Township, fire officials said.Upper Leacock Fire Company Chief Nelson Dagen said the tractor-trailer was crossing railroad tracks that run through Dart Container property, located along Route 23, when i......

The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad will visit The Old Line Museum in Delta, York County, on Sunday afternoons throughout June, presenting photos, memorabilia and drawings.This will be the 32nd consecutive year the museum has honored the M&P Railroad — affectionately called th......

Strasburg Rail Road president Linn Moedinger told a crowd of about 200 people on Wednesday that the railroad, "never did anything in a normal fashion." In a re-creation of a whistle stop tour of political campaigns gone by, Moedinger spoke from the back of an observation car after it ......

Bill Grager has been working as a conductor on the Strasburg Rail Road for a third of a century. Grager, now an assistant principal of Lampeter-Strasburg High School, also served as music conductor at the district's Martin Meylin Middle School for more than 20 years. In 1986, his du......

Some Landis Homes residents are sharing their passion for model railroading by operating a garden railroad in one of the courtyards on the retirement community's campus near Lititz. Luke Bomberger, a member of the Landis Homes courtyard railroad club, said he and other model railroad en......

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has a new look.The museum officially dedicated its $1.4 million face-lift during a ceremony Friday.About 100 people, including some in Victorian garb, 1940s fashions and railroad conductor and train personnel outfits, crammed into the lobby for th......

The second edition of a book about a local narrow-gauge rail line, out of print for more than two decades, has been published by the Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania at Strasburg. "Little, Old & Slow: The Life and Trials of the Peach Bottom and Lancaster, Oxford & Southern......

The 45th Long's Park Summer Entertainment Series is gearing up to bring live music to local audiences beginning the first Sunday in June and running for 13 weeks.The series offers a multitude of musical styles, from Creole to classic rock. The Long's Park Amphitheater Foundation wi......

Authorities hope they will be able to identify today a man killed by a train Wednesday night in East Lampeter Township and notify his family. The man has only been described as a white male in his 40s. Sometime Wednesday night, the man was struck by an Amtrak passenger train near the 2200 ......

A man walking on railroad tracks was struck and killed by a passenger train overnight Wednesday in East Lampeter Township, investigators said.They described the victim as a white man in his 40s.As of Thursday night, East Lampeter Township police had not released his name.The ......

10 Years AgoThursday's Record Express April 3, 1997
• Model Community — Is Lititz a model community? The Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs believes so. Last month, a crew of professors and research assistants from Penn State ......

A railroad experience aimed at adults will head down the Strasburg Rail Road tracks at full speed beginning April 7. The wine and cheese train is returning, after a successful experiment last summer. People purchased tickets for last year's train faster than anticipated, recalled manag......

Now arriving on eastbound track No. 2, Train 48, the Broadway Limited, making stops at Coatesville, Downingtown, Paoli, 30th Street Philadelphia, Trenton, Newark and New York. All aboard!" How many times in the early years of my life did I hear those familiar words? Particular train nam......

A federal agency has rejected a $2.4 million Amtrak railroad station proposed for Paradise Township because of concerns the site would limit access for people with disabilities.Officials have hired an engineering firm to consider alternative sites in the township for the long-awaited stati......

A 26-year-old Denver man escaped injury Monday afternoon when his car was struck by a train in West Cocalico Township, police said.David Yang was driving a Subaru Forester about 4:35 p.m. when he failed to notice a railroad crossing on Creamery Road, East Cocalico Township police Officer M......

A Norfolk Southern freight train struck a tractor-trailer Monday morning after the rig stalled on railroad tracks in Columbia Borough, investigators said.The driver of the tractor-trailer exited the rig before the train collided with it about 8:15 a.m., slicing the trailer in half, investi......

It's the little engine that could.

Weighing in at just 12 tons, the small Vulcan switch engine, a new addition to Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania's collection, and its half-dozen or so siblings, were once the workhorses of some of the nation's largest rail yards.

In use for dec...

Starting Oct. 30, Amtrak will add three roundtrips weekdays between Philadelphia and Harrisburg to the nine currently offered. Amtrak also will add one roundtrip on Saturdays and one on Sundays. Each of the extra trains will stop in Lancaster. The improved service will include trains reachi......

The Christmas shop along Route 272 south of Willow Street looked different than the one the 60-somethings had visited for decades. The couple missed their annual fall pilgrimage last year, so they didn’t know a fire destroyed the landmark store on Aug. 11, 2004. Frey’s Gary Burger has seen the......

The Ephrata-based group of model train enthusiasts invites everyone to its 14th annual Great Train Show from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday and again Dec. 26. Visitors can enjoy the club’s historic depiction of the heyday of railroading in eastern Pennsylvania, including the shipment of anthracite coal and l......