Reporter’s Notebook: Industry Vs. Tourism

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

July 7, 2011 | 9:58 AM

Scott Detrow / StateImpactPA/WITF

Silos peek above a Tioga Central Railroad car

Covering natural gas drilling, you come across countless examples of how Pennsylvania’s fracking boom is changing daily life in communities sitting on top of the Marcellus Shale.
There’s the way economies have reoriented themselves around drilling: the white pickup trucks flooding the lots of car dealerships along Route 6 in Bradford and Tioga Counties. Banks advertising special accounts for property owners who have just leased out land. A new barbecue joint catering to the Texas natives flooding Williamsport, and a woman selling drill bit jewelry in Towanda.

There’s also ample anecdotal evidence of cultural shifts. Yesterday’s came in Wellsboro, Tioga County, at

Scott Detrow / StateImpactPA/WITF

Sand silos in Wellsboro, Tioga County

the Tioga Central Railroad, a quaint, old fashioned train station tourists flock to every sommer. The company provides scenic train rides in antique cars, and offers specials like the “Ice Cream Express,” “Happy Hour Express” and dinner-themed trips, where people can roll through Tioga County’s green hills enjoying the views and the food.
These days, though, tourists have to navigate around industrial trucks and dodge freight cars to make it to the train station. They need to drive down a road warped by the heavy trucks that rumble over it every day. A few hundred yards away from the station, along the same rail line, a major sand depot has sprung up. Freight trains haul in the sand, which gets loaded into tall silos. Trucks drive underneath, fill their hauls up with sand, and bring it to drilling sites, where the sand goes into hydraulic fracturing fluid.

Scott Detrow / StateImpactPA/WITF

The silos behind a rail car in Tioga County

The scene captures Pennsylvania’s drilling boom in a nutshell: the freight line and sand silos are providing dozens of full-time jobs. They’re bringing a steady stream of business into the area, and making a lot of money. But they have also disrupted the regular way of life at the train station, and are causing inconveniences and headaches for the people trying to catch a scenic train ride.
We’ll have more from Tioga County, and how drilling has put a strain on its government services, in the coming days.