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SCRANTON — The steam will be put back into Steamtown National Historic Site as a 1929 Baldwin Locomotive is slated for re-dedication Sunday.
The ribbon cutting ceremony coincides with National Parks Week, which waives the $7 admission fee allowing guests to attend for free, Dawn Mach, assistant superintendent at Steamtown National Historic Site, said.
National Parks Week is an annual event that provides free admission to all 58 national parks from April 16 to 24. This year, the week will also celebrate the centennial of the National Parks Service, Mach said.
Visitors to Steamtown National Historic Site will have free access to the History Museum, Technology Museum, the roundhouse and a movie theater showing, “Steel to Steam,” she said. Train rides will cost $5.
The star of the week, the Baldwin Locomotive Works No. 26, will roll out of the roundhouse and onto the turntable for a ribbon cutting ceremony at 11 a.m. Sunday.
“She was built in 1929 in Philadelphia,” said Dan Kahl, a park ranger at Steamtown. “She was not operational for the past 15 years.”
The 124,000-ton steam engine was restored from the inside out, Mach said.
“During the engine’s time in service it was painted black,” Mach said. “But research shows the original color was olive green.”
The olive green color could have been a surplus left over from World War I, Mach said.
“She was a ‘shop goat’ or a workhorse of the (train) yard,” she said.
Once recommissioned the locomotive will shuttle train cars around the Steamtown yard, Mach said.
Bethlehem residents Jonathan and Jennifer Davies and their three daughters — Sarah, 12, Josephine, 6, and Bethany, 4 — to visited Steamtown for the first time due to National Parks Week on Saturday.
As her daughters and husband explored the inside of a large black engine, Jennifer said the family was going to go on a tour and were eager to explore the rest of the facility.
“This is really nice,” Jennifer said.