As women's history has gone mainstream, so have the
activities called attention to.
Andrea Biesecker worked as engineer and Shelley Hall as fireman for all five round-trips on the 189-year-old Strasburg Rail Road, the 4.5-mile-long tourist and freight carrier in southeastern Pennsylvania. The runs took place on a cold and blustery Saturday, March 6, with No. 475, the same Baldwin-built 1906 former Norfolk & Western Railway 4-8-0-type that Biesecker qualified on in 2014.
The Strasburg Rail Road is the oldest continuously operating under the same name railroad company in North America. The special crew, that's something new.
Hall suggested an all-women engine crew. “I just wanted to show girls that just because it’s mostly guys that do this job, women can do it too. For as long as the Strasburg has been running trains, there hasn’t been an all-female engine crew, so I figured it was about time.”
Both women are given high marks for their skills and work ethic by Dave Domitrovitch, formerly boiler shop supervisor at the Strasburg and now Chief Mechanical Officer at the newly revived narrow-gauge East Broad Top Railroad in south-central Pennsylvania.
The Rail Road has long been a
good neighbor for the community. Recently trains ran as a fund raiser for the town Fire Company, which is a worthy cause. The Fire Company make the firehouse available for quarterly O Scale shows, and the upcoming summer show might merit a road trip, and a look at the
East Broad Top along the way.
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