SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE\/WYOU) \u2014 The sounds of trains will blare through Scranton this weekend as Railfest returns to Steamtown National Historic Site.<\/p>\n
The annual celebration of all things trains comes at a time when Steamtown has seen record crowds visit the park over the past year.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, this is just something that we couldn’t have imagined. So, we had 4 anniversaries, a lot going on, and then the Big Boy reunion happened on top of that; then we throw in Railfest and all of our A250 equipment, and it’s going to be a really exciting time to continue and kind of close out the summer,” said Jeremy Komsaz, Superintendent of Steamtown.<\/p>\n
To have engines like Big Boy and others throughout the park takes a lot of work from the restoration team, something many visitors will get a chance to see up close during Railfest.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Exploring connections to first days of Little League\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n In the shop, crews spend their time restoring and rebuilding engines, bringing them back to what many fans remember.<\/p>\n “It’s imperative to what we do here at Steamtown. In order to keep the steam in Steamtown, we need to have a restoration shop, or a loco shop as we call it, fully functional and ready to go. We have a bunch of hard-working staff back there,” said Komsaz.<\/p>\n For Railfest this year, Steamtown is highlighting its Baldwin 26 engine. The engine is almost a century old, built in 1929.<\/p>\n Railfest has welcomed growing crowds year after year in Scranton, and Komsaz hopes that trend continues this Labor Day weekend, helping cap off what has been a banner year for the national park.<\/p>\n “We had a couple thousand the first year, had 2500 the second year, had 5000 last year, so you see where I’m going with this. We are hoping for at least 10000 this year.”<\/p>\n For more information about Railfest, please visit the link here.<\/a><\/p>\n