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June 16-20 for 2026 ‘Keystone Rails’ R&LHS annual meeting at Harrisburg, Pa.
The 2026 Railway & Locomotive Historical Society annual meeting will be held in Harrisburg, Pa., on June 16-20.
This year’s headquarters is the Best Western Premier – Central Hotel & Conference Center, 800 East Park Circle, Harrisburg, right off Exit 48 of Interstate 83 on the east side of the city. Our board meeting on June 16 and annual members’ meeting and banquet on June 17 both will be held at the hotel, and buses for all events and excursions will depart from the front entrance. Those driving to Harrisburg will find abundant free parking at the hotel. The hotel offers shuttle-bus service to Harrisburg International Airport and Harrisburg Transportation Center, Amtrak’s station in the city. For more hotel details, including rates for our group, click the above link to the registration website or go directly to the R&LHS booking site here.
Full details of the convention agenda are available at the link above or here and will be published again in the March issue of the Quarterly Newsletter.
Subject to change, the schedule is as follows:
• Tuesday, June 16: Arrive, register; R&LHS annual board meeting.
• Wednesday, June 17: A day in Harrisburg – visits to two Pennsylvania Railroad heritage sites maintained by the Harrisburg Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.
The former Pennsylvania Railroad Harris Tower, now owned and operated as an interactive museum by the Harrisburg Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Photo by Dan Cupper
Standing just north of Amtrak’s Harrisburg station is Harris Tower, a fully restored 1930 brick two-story tower with interactive model-board and interlocking-machine simulation. Visitors can set switches and signals on the machine to simulate a train’s movement through the maze of switches on a typical day in 1943.
Also included outside the tower is a working PRR position-light signal with visitor-directed (by smartphone) signal indications that can be set for either the PRR or Conrail eras.
Former Pennsylvania Railroad Power Director’s Office in Harrisburg Amtrak Station, now leased and operated by the Harrisburg Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society as an interpretive museum about the PRR’s electrification program of the 1930s. Photo by Dan Cupper
Located in the Amtrak station is the former PRR Power Director’s Office, opened in 1938 to oversee and control distribution of catenary power for electric locomotives on the western end of PRR electrification (Paoli and Morrisville, Pa., to Harrisburg, including several freight-only main lines). After its decommissioning in 2013, the Chapter leased the space for historical displays and interpretation of how PRR channeled high-voltage A.C. current from its suppliers, stepped it down to 11,000 volts and fed it into overhead catenary wire for use by electric locomotives such as the widely known 139-member GG1 fleet. Since 2022, the Chapter has opened the office to the public by appointment and for special events.
A look at the railroad holdings of the Pennsylvania State Archives is scheduled to be on the agenda of the 2026 R&LHS annual meeting in Harrisburg, Pa., June 16-20. Photo by Dan Cupper
Also planned for this day is a visit to the $75 million, 145,000-square-foot Pennsylvania State Archives center, opened in 2023. Presentations are scheduled to highlight its significant archival railroad holdings, which include those of Baldwin Locomotive Works, Delaware & Hudson, Erie Lackawanna, Fall Brook, Lehigh Coal & Navigation, Lehigh Valley, PRR, Pullman-Standard, South Pennsylvania, and Reading Co. In the evening, the annual R&LHS members’ meeting and banquet will take place.
Amtrak board member and R&LHS member Rob Gleason, invited keynote speaker for the 2026 Railway & Locomotive Historical Society annual meeting in Harrisburg, Pa., on June 16-20.
Our keynote speaker for the event is Amtrak board member (and R&LHS member) Rob Gleason of Johnstown, Pa., a longtime insurance-company executive, rail passenger service advocate, and model railroader. See story about his confirmation to the Amtrak board on the R&LHS home page news.
A Reading & Northern chartered Rail Diesel Car trip is planned for the R&LHS 2026 annual meeting. On a previous excursion, R&N cars stop at the west end of Buck Mountain Tunnel near Mahanoy City, Pa. Photo by Dan Cupper
• Thursday, June 18: A chartered trip on the Reading & Northern Railroad, a 400-mile regional freight and passenger carrier in north-central Pennsylvania that is operated by 300 employees. Our party will board Rail Diesel Cars at R&N’s Outer Station in Reading, Pa., for an all-day ride that includes freight-only trackage through anthracite coal country. Highlights will include photo stops at R&N’s Port Clinton steam shop and wheel shop, Hometown High Bridge, and Mahanoy Tunnel. The trip will also make a short jaunt on a branch of the former Lehigh & New England Railroad at Tamaqua, Pa.
Middletown & Hummelstown Railroad Alco S-6 switcher No. 151 eases down Brown Street in Middletown, Pa., on Sept. 12, 2023. Photo by Dan Cupper
Harrisburg, Lincoln & Lancaster Railroad 4-4-0 engine No. 331 with three-car eastbound train crosses trestle after leaving Star Barn station at Stone Gable Estates, Elizabethtown, Pa, on Jan. 3, 2026. Photo by Dan Cupper
• Friday, June 19: Charter trips on two nearby short lines, the Middletown & Hummelstown Railroad, with street running, and the Harrisburg, Lincoln & Lancaster Railroad, with a 2009-built Kloke Locomotive Works 4-4-0 steam engine, constructed to the same specifications as the 1868-design Central Pacific Jupiter locomotive at the Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promontory Summit, Utah. It runs on a short portion of the 1837 right-of-way of a PRR predecessor, the Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mountjoy & Lancaster Railroad. President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train used this route in 1865. On hand for inspection will be a full-sized recreation of the presidential private car used on that train.
Craig Thorpe with his painting of Alaska Railroad 2-8-0 engine No. 557, titled Extra 557 Returning, oil on canvas 18 x 24 in.., 2017. Photo by Cathy Thorpe
The day’s activities will conclude with an evening presentation on railroad art by J. Craig Thorpe of Bellevue, Washington. A native of Pittsburgh, he is an R&LHS member and has given a presentation to the Steel City Chapter. Besides accepting private commissions, he has done paintings and illustrations for Amtrak, General Electric, Union Tank Car Co., White Pass & Yukon Route, Cumbres & Toltec Scenic, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, Holland America, Alaska Marine Lines, East Broad Top, and many state, city, and regional departments of transportation. He is the author of the 2023 Indiana University Press book Railroads, Art and American Life: An Artist’s Memoir
. View more of his work here.
Amtrak ACS-64 electric locomotive No. 639 in Amtrak’s Wilmington (Del.) locomotive shop on August 2, 2018. Photo by Christopher Guenzler
• Saturday, June 20: An all-day visit to Amtrak’s Wilmington, Del., locomotive shop and Bear, Del., passenger-car shop. Dating from 1903, the Wilmington shop became PRR’s main electric-locomotive maintenance facility after the road embarked on major electrification in the 1920s and 1930s. Situated adjacent to Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor main line, it now also services Amtrak’s diesel-electric switchers and maintenance-of-way locomotives.
A few miles away, the Bear facility was converted from a private car-repair company, DelPro, which closed in 1982. Since 1984, Amtrak has handled general overhaul and capital rebuilds of passenger cars at the site, which is situated on a Norfolk Southern Branch Line.