Altoona Museum Received ex-PRR Baggage Car

A former Pennsylvania Railroad baggage car has been donated to the Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

The model B60b baggage car was built in the 1920s. Aside from working for the PRR, it also served Amtrak in maintenance of way service.

Amtrak sold the car in late 2022 to Railway Excursion Management Company, which donated it to the Altoona museum.

The car will be used in a planned exhibit train of PRR passenger cars to accompany K4s No. 1361, which is currently being restored.

A report on the website of Trains magazine said the history of the car is uncertain, but it may have had roster number 9004.

The car is being stored for the time being on the Everett Railroad in Holidaysburg, Pennsylvania, until it can be moved to Altoona.

N&W 611 Moves Short Distance in Pennsylvania

Norfolk & Western 4-8-4 No. 611 recently was moved a short distance in Pennsylvania.

Trains magazine reported on its website that the locomotive moved a short distance from the Strasburg Rail Road to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

The 611 is owned by the Virginia Museum of Transportation but has been in Pennsylvania since 2021. It pulled excursions on the Strasburg in 2019, 2021 and 2022.

A former New York Central SW8 was used to move the 611, and an auxiliary tender and tool car.

The Pennsylvania museum plans to display the 611 through late spring.

Pa. Rail Museum to Reopen on April 30

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg will reopen on April 30.

It has been closed for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Days and hours of operation will be Fridays through Sundays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.; and noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays.

The museum is limiting visitation to 50 percent of normal occupancy, or 125 people hourly, with a maximum per day cap of 750 on Fridays and Saturdays and 500 on Sundays.

Since closing on March 14, 2020, the museum has operated with a skeletal staff of no more than four at any one time, performing restoration work, doing research for library requests, conducting building and grounds maintenance, and handling cleaning and general upkeep.

Upon reopening the museum will have 20 full-time and six part-time staff members.

Steam Saturday: Reading 1251 in Strasburg

Today’s Saturday steam wayback machine takes us to Strasburg, Pennsylvania, in either the late 1960”s or 1970s.

Reading 0-6-0T No. 1251 was on display after having arrived at the museum in 1968.

The class B-4a steamer had been a shop switcher in Reading, Pennsylvania, until 1963, making it the the last Reading steamer still in regular use. In fact once source indicates it was the last steam locomotive still in use at the time by a Class 1 railroad.

It had been built in Reading in 1912 in the company shops, using components from a retired 2-8-0 Consolidation locomotive.

For a while in the 1960s No. 1251 pulled tourist trains in York, Pennsylvania, while paired with a former Reading tender to provide water.

After ending that work in 1966 it sat for two years before moving to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, where it still resides today on static display after receiving a cosmetic restoration

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Paying Tribute to the Pennsylvania Railroad

During his recent weekend trip to the Strasburg Rail Road to ride behind and photograph Norfolk & Western 611, Ed Ribinskas also ventured across Pennsylvania Route 741 to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

There you’ll find a larger than life tribute to the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose mainline across the state passed a few miles to the north of the museum.

Here is a gallery of former Pennsy locomotives that Ed captured. The display included steam, diesel and electric power.

The museum is also the home for now of the Solari board that operated in the PRR-built 30th Street Station in Philadelphia until early this year.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Bellevue Museum Gets Grant for Dome Car

The Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum in Bellevue has received a $10,000 grant from Trains magazine that will be used to restore the nation’s first dome car.

The money will be used to restore the dome section of the Silver Dome, a Chicago, Burlington & Quincy car that was modified from coach Silver Alchemy at the railroad’s shops in Aurora, Illinois, in 1945.

General Motors Vice President Cyrus Osborn is credited with coming up with the concept of a dome car while riding the head-end of a train through Colorado’s Glenwood Canyon in 1944.

The museum acquired Silver Dome from Amtrak in 1978. The Trains grant will be used to replace trim and Plexiglas that has become discolored. The museum also plans to restore the upholstery and carpets as well as do window sill work.

Trains received 40 applications for its 2017 Preservation Award. The grant program is now in its 18th year.

In another development, the Mad River museum said on its website recently that it has raised more than $70,000 toward its goal of $100,000 this year to use to acquire Nickel Plate Road steam locomotive 757.

The locomotive is currently at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.

The Mad River museum plans to place No. 757 on static display once it arrives in Bellevue.

No. 757 had been set aside by the Nickel Plate Road to donate to Bellevue, but the city lacked a museum at the time. It therefore wound up being sent to Pennsylvania.

Mad River has said its overall fundraising goal is $250,000 of which $150,000 will be used to move the 757 to Bellevue.

On its website, the museum said if it raises $150,000 by next spring it will be able to move the 757 to Bellevue as early as next summer.

In recent months, Mad River volunteers and contractors have traveled to Strasburg to prepare the locomotive for shipment.

More information, including how to donate to the cause, visit  https://www.madrivermuseum.org/news.html

NKP 757 to be Acquired by Bellevue Museum

Two museums have worked out an agreement that will result in a former Nickel Plate Road steam locomotive moving to Ohio.

The Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum said this week that the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has agreed to send it NKP No. 757.

In Bellevue, the 757 will be placed on static display. NKP 757 is a 2-8-4 Berkshire-type that was built by Lima Locomotives Works in 1944.

“We are very excited to be able to bring the 757 back to Bellevue,” said Made River museum President Chris Beamer. “The absence of a mainline steam locomotive in our collection has been something we have wanted to correct for a long time.”

No. 757 last operated on June 15, 1958. The Nickel Plate had intended to donate it to the city of Bellevue, but it lacked a suitable place to display it.

The locomotive was stored in Bellevue for several years before being donated to the Pennsylvania museum in 1966.

Moving the 757 will cost $250,000 and the Mad River museum is raising funds to pay for that. It has launched a website http://www.bringback757.org to provide further information about the fundraising campaign.

The Mad River museum has more than 50 pieces of equipment displayed or stored on 10 acres of property and five buildings. It describes itself as having the most extensive collection of NKP equipment and artifacts of any museum.

Negotiations to bring NKP 757 to Bellevue began earlier this year. The Mad River museum will own the 757 once it has been removed from its current site in Pennsylvania.

Pa. Excursion Trip Set for May 18

Three organizations are teaming up to offer a rare mileage excursion over the Pennsylvania Railroad and Reading Railroad’s Shamokin Valley Branch.

The May 18 trip will cover a 27-mile branch that is the third oldest railroad in the United States, having been chartered as the Danville & Pottsville Railroad in 1826.

The train will include a Pullman car, baggage car, three restored coaches and a PRR N8 cabin car.

The tracks are now used by the North Shore Railroad, which is operated by the SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority.

The train will depart from Sunbury, Pennsylvania, with bus transportation provided to the boarding site from Camp Hill, Wyomissing and Lancaster.

Tickets are $89 per person for those departing from one of the bus locations and $45 for those driving to Sunbury on their own.

The fare includes a bag lunch. Other sandwiches and drinks will be available for purchase on the train.

This trip is subject to cancellation due to insufficient and/or late registration.

Tickets can be purchased by sending a check made payable to the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society.

Send payments to Iron Ore Special, 1624 Suzanne Drive, West Chester, PA 19380-1573. Registration and payment are due by April 10,

For further information send a email query to ironorespecial@gmail.com.

Trip sponsors are the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society, the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society, and the Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

Pa. Museum Qualifies for Matching Grant.

Fundraising by the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania for a steam locomotive restoration project has reached the level where it qualifies for a matching grant of $50,000.

The museum has raised more than $60,000 in its “Ready for the Roundhouse” campaign, thus matching a 50-50 grant from the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society.

The museum plans to use the money to restore five former PRR steam locomotives. The project needs to raise a total of $250,000.

The five locomotives include Pennsy M1b 4-8-2 No. 6755, K4s 4-6-2 No. 3750, L1s 2-8-2 No. 520, H10s 2-8-0 No. 7688 and B6sb 0-6-0 No. 1670.

All of them will be cosmetically restored and placed on display in a roundhouse that the museum plans to build. Groundbreaking for the roundhouse is expected to done this year.

Groups Raising Money to Restore PRR Steamers

Two Pennsylvania organizations are seeking to preserve five Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotives so that they can be placed on display.

The locomotives will receive a cosmetic face lift and then be housed in a roundhouse being built by the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

All of the engines are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They are:

• M1b 4-8-2 No. 6755, built at Juniata Shops in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 1930,
• K4s 4-6-2 No. 3750, built at Juniata in 1920.
• L1s 2-8-2 No. 520, built by Baldwin in 1916.
• H10s 2-8-0 No. 7688 built by Lima in 1915.
• B6sb 0-6-0 No. 1670 built at Juniata in 1916.

The campaign is being spearheaded by the Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society.

The PRR historical society will match all donations up to $50,000.