Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton offers virtual visits from Santa on Nov. 27-Dec. 20
From a press release:
The Steamtown National Historic Site may have canceled the annual Santa Train this year, but Santa Claus is still coming to town this year – just electronically.
The Electric City Trolley Museum in downtown Scranton is offering “A Virtual Visit with Santa from the North Pole,” an interactive children’s show on the trolley in an effort to provide a safe environment for the public during the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen a recent spike in local cases.
The dates of the virtual visit are Nov. 27, 28, and 29 and Dec. 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, and 20. Five rides a day will be available at 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:45 p.m., 2 p.m., and 3:15 p.m. Due to COVID-19, there will be limited seating on each ride. Reservations must be prepaid, and masks are required.
Tickets for adults are $12, seniors (62+) are $11, and children (3-17) are $10. There is a $2 additional charge for touring the museum. Children two and under are free.
The Trolley Museum (300 Cliff St., Scranton) will be open from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. daily. Contact the museum at 570-963-6590 for further information and/or to make a reservation.
The museum and the Steamtown National Historic Site reopened to the public on July 8 with health and safety guidelines in place. However, the Steamtown NHS and and the Lackawanna Heritage Valley Authority announced the cancellation of the annual Santa Train on Nov. 2.
The much-anticipated Santa Train has been a popular annual event in the Lackawanna Valley for a quarter century. Making stops in Carbondale, Archbald, Jessup, Olyphant, Dickson City, and Scranton, the “Christmas in a Small Town” Santa Train brings holiday cheer to thousands of local children and their families.
After meeting with the community partners on possible changes to the train’s traditional format, the communities as well as the Steamtown NHS and LHVA made the difficult decision to cancel the event for 2020, though they look forward to the return of the train in early December of 2021.
The Electric City Trolley Museum is a collaborative effort involving many partners. Together, they have created a premier electric railway museum. In 1887, Scranton was Pennsylvania’s first city with a successful pioneer trolley line and became known as the “Electric City.” The museum collection provides a highly representative picture of the electric railway history of Eastern Pennsylvania, from the Philadelphia region to the Northeast.
The museum was created by the Lackawanna Heritage Valley Authority, and Lackawanna County manages the museum day-to-day. The facility itself, located on the Steamtown National Historic Site, is on long-term lease from the National Park Service. The trolleys operate over tracks owned by both Steamtown and the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority, including a portion of the historic Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Laurel Line third-rail interurban right-of-way.
