NORM Cancels Entire 2020 Season

The Northern Ohio Railway will not operate in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a news release, the museum located near Seville in Medina County has also canceled its annual dinner meeting in July and the members’ day picnic in August.

Media morning meeting have been cancelled until the November meeting but the fate of that and the December meeting will hinge on Ohio Department of Health directives and the pandemic situation.

In a statement the museum’s board of directors said they examined facilities, property, and the trolley ride experience with the pandemic in mind.

“We saw there were many challenges to overcome, some nearly impossible,” the board said in a statement. “The most vital factor is the health and safety of our volunteers and visitors, and we will not risk either to run trolley rides or conduct tours.”

Even had the state of Ohio cleared the museum to open this year the board said it has elected not to do that and to instead focus on the 2021 season.

The museum acknowledged that losing revenue from ticket and museum store merchandise sales will adversely affect its finances.

“On average, the museum has several hundred dollars of bills every month that cannot be eliminated, including utilities, insurance, and general maintenance expenses,” the statement said.

The museum issued an appeal for help by asking those interested to join the museum as members and to make cash donations.

Merchandise sales are still being conducted online.

In the meantime, the museum has resumed allowing its members and volunteers to come onto the museum property to do restoration and maintenance work.

Other work that continues, some of it from the homes of members, includes administrative, educational, and archive department work.

It had been several months since some volunteers had been able to work on the museum grounds.

The museum features displays of vintage transit equipment, including some cars that operated in Northeast Ohio.

Rides are given on about a mile of track on the museum’s property.

NORM Seeking Volunteers for 2020

The Northern Ohio Railway Museum is seeking volunteers for its 2020 season.

Volunteers conduct such tasks as painting the equipment; car moving; serving as docents, conductors, motormen; and touring old abandoned trolley lines turned rail-trail.

Those interested should express their interest on the museum’s Facebook page, by calling 330-769-5501, or sending an email to asknorm@northernohiorailwaymuseum.org<asknorm@northernohiorailwaymuseum.org>

The museum is located at 5515 Buffham Road, Seville, Ohio, near Chippewa Lake.

In recent news from the museum, the Youngstown & Southern short line railroad has donated a vintage iron railroad crossbuck to NORM.

The crossbuck has “Railroad Crossing” on one arm and “Look out for the Locomotive” on the other.

The crossbuck will be restored and used at the museum.

NORM also announced that it will offer for sale or trade in 2020 the trucks to former Reading No. 1088. They are now located under the car and will be available to would-be buyers for inspection.

A sister car of this type once operated on the Akron, Canton & Youngstown.

NORM Gets Grant for Substation

A former Shaker Rapid car runs on the NORM demonstration track last summer.

A San Diego Foundation has awarded a $110,000 grant to the Northern Ohio Railway Museum that will be used to build an electric substation .

The grant came from the 20th Century Electric Railway Foundation, which awards grants to trolley museums throughout the United States.

The substation will enable NORM to draw power for its overhead trolley wire system from Ohio Edison.

Currently, the museum is using gas generator to create electricity to power its trolley line, which is expected to be expanded this year. The generator, though, is limited in how much power it can provide and that limits how many cars can operate on the line at one time.

An existing maintenance building will be extended to house the new substation building, which will in part convert AC power to DC.

NORM, which is based near Chippewa Lake and Seville, hopes to have the substation operating in advance of the beginning of its operating season in May.

The museum has three buildings that house its collection of trolley, interurban and rapid transit cars, most of which once operated in Northeast Ohio. It is open on Saturdays between May and October.

NORM to get 3 Historic Cleveland Transit Cars

The Northern Ohio Railway Museum at Chippewa Lake will receive three historic transit cars from the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority.

The Cleveland RTA board authorized the donation after the museum agreed to accept the responsibility of stewardship of the cars. The fleet includes:

• Shaker Heights Rapid Transit center entrance car No 12

• Cleveland Transit System Rapid Transit car No. 109, restored in 1990 by RTA

• Cleveland Transit System Line car No. 024, rebuilt in 1960 from Shaker Heights Rapid Transit car No. 17.

The museum will also responsible for moving the cars, an operation expected to cost between $3,000 and $7,000 per car.

The museum is seeking donations to help pay for the moving expenses.

NORM owns 42 acres of land in southern Medina County, including two miles of the former Cleveland & Southwestern interurban railway.

It has built more than a mile of track and has three large buildings to house its collection of trolleys, interurbans, and rapid transit cars, most from northern Ohio.

Contributions can be made to the Northern Ohio Railway Museum noting “RTA Historical Rail Car Fund” on the check memo line and sent to the museum at P.O. Box 458, Chippewa Lake, OH 44215. For more information, go to www.trainweb.org/norm/index.html#trolley.