Vehicle Show Set for Bellevue Museum

A car and truck show on May 22 will be the first event of the year at the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum in Bellevue.

The event will be held between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Attendees must pay the museum’s regular admission fee.

Those who wish to display a car or truck must pay a $10 registration fee. All years, makes and models of cars and trucks are welcome.

The registration fee includes entry into the museum. Dash plaques will be presented to the first 100 registered vehicles.

There also will 50/50 raffles and co-sponsor Edward Jones Limited will have giveaways. Food will be provided by Miller’s Drive-In.

Another highlight of the event will be a static display of Nickel Plate Road steam locomotive 757.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions some parts of the museum may be inaccessible during the event.

Attendees must wear facial masks and frequent hand sanitizing is recommended as well as social distancing.

In a related development, the museum said it will open for the season on May 31.

It will be the first time the museum has been open since 2019. Hours will be noon to 4 p.m. through Labor Day.

AOS Selling Tickets for 2021 Tour Season

Tickets are now being sold for public tours of the Age of Steam Roundhouse and Museum in Sugarcreek.

Tours are offered on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays in May through October.

Prices are $20 for adults, $17 for seniors and veterans, and $12 for children (ages 3 to 16). There is no admission charge for children under age 3 or for active duty military members who present an identification card.

All tickets must be purchased in advance and can be ordered from the museum’s website https://www.ageofsteamroundhouse.org/events/

No walk up visitors will be allowed and the tour group sizes will be limited to 10 people.

Tour participants should wait in their vehicles or the parking lot until 10 minutes before their tour time.

Visitors and staff must adhere to social distancing requirements as determined by the State of Ohio with visitors encouraged to adhere to all state-mandated requirements, including the wearing of facial masks.

Public areas such as the gift shop and restrooms will be cleaned and disinfected multiple times a day. A deep clean is performed once a week by an outside, professional cleaning service.

AOS Honors 2 Volunteers

The Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum has honored two men by naming them to receive the Volunteer of the Year Award and Master Mechanic’s Award.

Akron Railroad Club member Mike Costill of Canal Fulton won the mechanic’s award while the volunteer award went to Matt Arnold of Bolivar.

Costill is a regular member of the back-shop team and was a longtime friend of museum the late Jerry J. Jacobson.

A news release issued by the museum said Costill is often at the roundhouse for regular hours and has helped with numerous projects.

Arnold was recognized for his work as a videographer and digital media volunteer.

He contributed to several short social media videos and other virtual media during the spring and summer when the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the museum’s focus away from on-site programming and events.

MRPS Reopens Cleveland Roundhouse

The Midwest Rail Preservation Society has reopened its roundhouse in Cleveland for limited visits.

The group said on its website that tours are available for groups of 10 or fewer on weekdays by appointment and on Saturdays and Sunday in June and July by ticket purchase.

No train rides are being offered during the weekday tours and access to the railroad rolling stock, locomotives and equipment at the former Baltimore & Ohio facility is limited.

Although there will be no admission charge, MRPS is asking weekday visitors to make a donation to the fund to restore former Grand Trunk Western 2-8-2 No. 4070 to operating condition.

Donations can also be made to the group’s general operating fund to offset losses incurred due to the cancellation of various planned events due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Visitors to the roundhouse must wear closed toe footwear and personal masks. They must also observe social distancing practices during their tour, which will be conducted by an MRPS staff member.

The conditions for the weekend tours are slightly different. Those will be limited to group of no more than six and require a group ticket costing $40.

Participants in weekend tours must observe the same conditions are those touring the facility on weekends. Temperatures of participants during weekend tours will be taken during check in.

However, weekend tours include a ride on a caboose pulled by an Alco diesel locomotive. Tours are available in one hour increments between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

For more information call MRPS at 216-781-3629.

Tickets can be purchased at https://www.etix.com/ticket/v/16741/midwest-railway-preservation-society

Age of Steam to Resume Tours on June 18

The Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum announced on Friday that it will reopen for public tours on June 18.

Tickets will go on sale next week and must be purchased in advance at the museum’s website.

The announcement also said that no walk-in visitors will be allowed and other rules have been implemented in consultation with the Ohio Department of Health.

This includes limiting tour sizes to no more than eight people. Visitors will be required to wait in their vehicles or on the parking lot until 10 minutes before tour time.

All visitors and staff will be expected to adhere to social distancing requirements as determined by the State of Ohio.

Although museum staff must wear masks at all times when interacting with visitors, mask wearing by visitors is encouraged but not required.

Cleaning protocols have been institutes for public areas, including restrooms and the gift shop with a deep cleaning conducted once a week by an outside professional cleaning service.

Upon completion of their tour, visitors are advised against re-entering the depot building unless there is a need to use the restroom facilities. This should be done one at a time.

The museum said it will reschedule cancelled special tour programs for later this summer.

J&LNG Seeking Volunteers to Help With Signal Work

The J&L Narrow Gauge Railroad in Youngstown is seeking volunteers who are interested in railway signaling to assist in the installation of a working signal system.

The work includes plans to install switch circuit controllers on the house track and eastern extension switches to operate signals directing movements over these tracks.

Thus far the railroad has completed installation of a searchlight dwarf signal for the house track.

It is now acquiring components for the main track signals and plans to install crossing gates at one of its road crossings.

The railroad said if there is sufficient interest it will schedule a J&LNG signaling weekend in the spring.

The J&LNG  is a part of the Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum and is a 24-inch gauge demonstration railroad that shows the type of narrow gauge railroad operations used by the steel industry.

It features a 93,000 pound 0-4-0T built by HK Porter for the Pittsburgh Works.

Recently the museum has received from CSX three more pieces of rolling stock to add to its collection.

The boxcars will be used for storage while a ballast hopper will become a coal dock for the J&L 58.

Previously, CSX has now donated to the museum a caboose, a tank car for water storage, a hopper for coal storage and boxcars for general storage.

Eagle Scout Project Improves Access at Museum

The Mahoning Valley Railroad Heritage Association now offers better access to some of its exhibits thanks to an Eagle Scout project.

Steven Vasko of Troop 60 of Boardman built four new stairs and platforms with the help of some volunteer that he recruited.

The stairs will provide better access to museum’s locomotives and cabooses.

NORM’s Final 2019 Operating Day is Oct. 12

The Northern Ohio Railway Museum will be offering streetcar rides one last time this year on Oct. 12 starting at 10 a.m.

It will be the final operating day of the season for former Cleveland Railway center-entrance car No. 12, which was built in 1914 by the G.C. Kuhlman Company.

Tickets are $2 and can be purchased in the former Pennsylvania Railroad boxcar inside Carbarn No. 2.

You might see a familiar face leading tours of the museum that day, Blaine Hayes.

He reports that the museum how has a fully operating substation that is supplied by First Energy.

Youngstown Group to Benefit from HO Model Sales

The Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation will benefit from a plan by Athearn Trains and two hobby shops to donate to the group part of the proceeds of the sale of an HO scale SDP45 locomotive.

The donations will be used to help the Youngstown group preserve an Erie Lackawanna SDP45 that it is acquiring from the Virginia Museum of Transportation. The ex-EL unit is now wearing a Conrail livery.

Athearn, the Maine Model Works of Yarmouth, Maine, and Hobby Express in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, will make a donation for every scale model of EL No. 3639 or Conrail No. 6670 that they sell.

The Youngstown group has raised more than $10,000 toward its $20,000 goal to purchase the locomotive.

It also has purchased new doors and windows for the locomotive, which it plans to move to the Marter Yard Railroad Museum operated by the Mahoning Valley Railroad Heritage Association, in Youngstown.

EMD built No. 3639 in 1969 and it is one of two six-axle EL EMD units that have been preserved. The other is No. 3607 at the National Museum of Transportation near St. Louis.

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.