The Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton offers a 30-minute ride in an early 20th-century commuter car for $3 as of 2010, and, for an extra $30, one adult per trip can ride in the steam engine with the engineers. Longer excursions include a 50-mile round trip to Tobyhanna on the Pocono Plateau. Adult fare is $31.
The narrow-gauge steam locomotive Henry Clay runs less than a mile in Ashland in central Pennsylvania, but it tells a story of anthracite coal mining as it runs to a strip mine with views of the famous Centralia mine fire, still burning underground after nearly 50 years.
Also in central Pennsylvania is the last narrow-gauge railroad to operate east of the Mississippi River, the East Broadtop. Adult fares, as of 2010, for a round trip of more than an hour (although you can stay out and return on a later train) run from $13 to $20, depending on the elegance of accommodations in cars dating back to the 1880s.
One of the best-known steam-train rides in Pennsylvania is the Strasburg Railroad, a 45-minute excursion in Lancaster County. Variables include accommodations and dining aboard, in addition to the usual fall-color and Christmas-season excursions, for adult fares from $14 to $35.
Three Pennsylvania museums preserve and run examples of interurban railways. The Electric City Trolley Museum, adjacent to the Steamtown National Historical Site in Scranton, celebrates the first trolley system in the United States expressly designed to run on electricity. The trolley ride includes one of the longest interurban tunnels ever built and costs $8 for adults, $10 with museum admission, as of 2010.
The East Broadtop Railroad also has a sister interurban ride at the Rockhill Trolley Museum. This 3-mile ride is $7 for adults as of 2010.
In southwestern Washington, Pennsylvania, in addition to a 4-mile ride at an adult fare of $9, the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum offers licensed automobile drivers the chance to be "Operator for an Hour" on eight days a year.
Kiski Junction Railroad is a working, freight-carrying short line that takes passengers three afternoons a week from June to October along and across the Kiski River, south of Pittsburgh. The fare is $9 or less for a round trip of 60 to 90 minutes.
Tourist excursion railroads are operated in West Chester in the southeast, Wayne County in the northeast as the Stourbridge Line, by the Fayette Central Railroad near Pittsburgh, and the Tioga Central Railroad, which features dining service in the north-central part of Pennsylvania. All of these railroads are drawn by diesel or electric locomotives.
Two routes of passenger train service enter at Philadelphia from New York City. The Keystone runs several trains a day with coach seating to Harrisburg. The Pennsylvanian continues on to Pittsburgh, where it connects to the Capitol Limited running west to Chicago or east to Toledo and Cleveland.
The Pennsylvanian runs once a day, but offers the option of upgrading to business-class seating. One of the best reasons to ride the Pennsylvanian is the opportunity to round the famous and historic horseshoe curve at Altoona.
