USA: Steamtown Railfest 2026 is scheduled for Sept. 4–6 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where three anniversaries at once are due to be hauled around the yard by a 1929 switcher, the park’s main steam locomotive.

Steamtown’s Baldwin Locomotive Works No. 26 under steam on the turntable in Scranton
Steamtown’s Baldwin Locomotive Works No. 26 under steam on the park turntable in Scranton. Illustrative photo. Photo: National Park Service.

The park says the weekend honors its own 40th anniversary as a unit of the National Park Service, the 200th anniversary of the start of railroading in the United States, and the country’s 250th, according to Steamtown National Historic Site. The Lackawanna County Convention and Visitors Bureau lists a fourth, the 110th anniversary of the Park Service itself. Trains Magazine, reporting the same announcement, instead tied the milestone to the 2027 bicentennial of the Baltimore & Ohio. Admission and parking are free. Yard rides cost $6 for visitors ages 6 and older and $1 for children ages 0–5. Some advance tickets are due to go on sale online on Aug. 26, while the opening ceremony is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 4.

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Steamtown Railfest 2026 puts No. 26 on a 1,472-service-day deadline

The feature engine is Baldwin Locomotive Works No. 26, a 0-6-0 switcher built in 1929 and billed as “No. 26 in ’26.” It is assigned to Railfest yard shuttles across all three days.

That assignment has a clock on it. Superintendent Jeremy Komasz said the park’s restoration of Meadow River Lumber Company Shay No. 1 matters because No. 26 comes due for a federally mandated 1,472-service-day inspection at the end of 2027, Railfan & Railroad reported. Shop crews began the Shay work quietly in 2024 and expect it under steam by the end of 2027 — an engine a 1991 study commissioned by the Park Service had written off for static display.

Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4012, the park’s best-known machine, has stood as a static exhibit for decades and is listed for cab tours rather than operating service during Railfest.

Steamtown Railfest 2026 brings in other operators’ equipment

Coming from Equipment Note
Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad Nickel Plate PA No. 190 With City of Lima sleeper and three diesels
Norfolk Southern Delaware & Hudson heritage unit No. 1080 More equipment still in the works
Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley Railroad Plymouth 10-ton switcher, US Army No. 1050 Running demonstrations
Port Jervis Railroad Museum and TOYX Conrail caboose No. 22130, boxcar No. 368191 Boxcar was here for the 1995 grand opening
Not named by the park Half-scale Union Pacific No. 119 replica First public debut

The Union Pacific Railroad Museum is sending its traveling exhibit All Set for the West, on the relationship between the railroads and the national parks. The park does not identify who built the No. 119 replica, and says further equipment is still being confirmed.

111,000 visitors set the bar Railfest 2026 has to clear

Steamtown counted more than 111,000 visitors between June 15 and the morning of July 1, when Big Boy No. 4014 stood alongside No. 4012 — against 60,844 for all of calendar 2025, park ranger Megan Stevens said, according to WVIA. The Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce put the regional economic effect at $16 million to $17 million.

No. 4014 has since finished its tour and gone home. What Railfest 2026 tests is whether the audience it drew returns for a festival centered on a single 0-6-0.

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