To Plan A Trip

There are dozens of live-steam operations around the country. All of them run during the summer months, and many have special Thanksgiving and Christmastime excursions and offer other blandishments (at Strasburg, for instance, you can spend the night in an honest-to-God caboose, gutted inside and turned into a comfortable motel unit, complete with a small color television hidden in a cast-iron stove). The ones in this article: Strasburg Rail Road, P.O. Box 96, Strasburg, PA 17579 (717-687-7522); East Broad Top Railroad, Rockhill Furnace, PA 17249 (814-447-3011); Valley Railroad Com- j pany, P.O. Box 452, Essex, CT 06426 (203-767-0103); Durango & Silverton Narrow-Gauge Railroad, 479 Main Avenue, Durango, CO 81301 (303-247-2733); Cass Scenic Railroad State Park, P.O. Box 107, Cass, WV 24927 (304-456-4300). If the lines I’ve mentioned are too far away to merit a special detour to your vacation f route, consult the Steam Passenger Service Directory (Great Eastern Publishing) or The Guide to Tourist Railroads and Railroad Museums (Kalmbach Books); both books list tourist railroads, train museums, and trolley facilities in the United States and Canada. They’re everywhere, and you might be surprised to find one very close by—some, indeed, maybe near enough for a day trip.