One of the first things you notice when you roll into downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, from Interstate 81 and off the President Biden Expressway is a massive, gorgeous train station. Opened in 1908, it boasts all the hallmarks of other historic train stations dotting the East Coast: marble columns, stained glass, and a giant clock perched dozens of feet above the main entrance.
It’s a testament to Scranton’s industrial history. The city, now perhaps most well-known as the setting for the NBC sitcom The Office, was once an industrial powerhouse, firmly at the center of coal, iron, and steel country. But times changed, and so had the train station. It closed in 1970 and sat neglected until 13 years later, when it was renovated and turned into a hotel, which it remains to this day: the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel, with 146 rooms and 23,000 square feet of event spaces and ballrooms.
While the hotel these days is more likely to host wedding parties and business travelers than steam locomotives and weary workers headed for the nearby Pocono Mountains for the weekend, it still serves as a monument to the area’s deep and complex history and relationship with the railroad.
“As an 18-year-old, I rode the last passenger train out of Scranton in January 1970,” says Larry Malski, president of Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority. “I always ask the question: If it couldn’t run then, how is it going to run now?”
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