Many are looking forward to seeing the Big Boy steam locomotive stopping in North East across from the Lake Shore Railway museum, but something is missing. Parking. It was disappointing to see the long and explicit list of all of the places where no one is allowed to park, but no suggestions to point out where visitors CAN park, or should. There are likely to be many visitors from out of town who are not familiar with North East and who will have no idea where they might park their cars and they might get creative.
Parking suggestions
Since school is now closed, perhaps their parking lot would work if a bus was made available as a shuttle service. There is a very large church parking lot on Route 89 that would work, if a shuttle was available and they could charge for parking and make a few dollars, too. Has anyone in the Borough or Township thought about parking for the event?
There are a lot of videos of the crowds showing up as 4014 travels through towns along the way and there are likely to be quite a few rail fans from some distance coming to North East. Focusing on what people CAN’T do and where they can’t go isn’t very inviting and it doesn’t take into account all of those who are not from the local area who might like to enjoy their visit to our town while coming here to see the Big Boy.
This is a rare opportunity to see this locomotive and a wonderful opportunity to show visitors what we have to offer. Let’s at least provide visitors with some place to park while they’re here.
If you have parking available, send a contact and we’ll get the word out.
PARKING UPDATE
There is a new parking map available – click link for interactive full size map
Don’t forget the live train cams at the museum.
Ripley, NY planned ahead
As everyone knows, after leaving North East, the Big Boy will travel to Ripley, NY where it will stop for 30 minutes. Ripley planned ahead and has a great map of parking and shuttle services available and public restrooms, too. They did an excellent job.
