ITM Plans to Move to Logansport

The Indiana Transportation Museum is moving to another city. The museum said last week that it has reached an agreement with the mayor of Logansport to set up shop there.

ITM is currently located in Noblesville in the far reaches of suburban Indianapolis.

No date was set for the move, which appears to be have been prompted in part by the museum’s on-going battle to be able to use a former Nickel Plate Road branch line that some want to convert into a hiking and biking trail.

Logansport was a hub city for the Pennsylvania Railroad with several lines radiating from it.

“Our mission preserves the great legacy of railroading tracks perfectly with Logansport’s history as an early Hoosier rail center,” ITM Board Chair John McNichols said in a statement. “Together we can not only preserve our shared history, but find ways to expand the vision of historic railroads in Indiana. The Logansport museum will be an expansion of our state-wide vision.”

For several years ITM has hosted excursion train service on the former NKP line, which at one time ran from Indianapolis to Michigan City.

The remnants of the line between Indianapolis and Tipton, Indiana, are owned by the Hoosier Heritage Port Authority, which has refused to allow ITM to use the line, citing safety concerns and the lack of adequate maintenance.

Harris Tower Gets Additions, Makeover

The Harris Tower Railroad Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, will have a slightly new look when it reopens on May 27.

The structure has been rehabilitated and expanded displays created.

The Harrisburg Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, which owns the tower, has restored 40 windows, power-washed the interior, upgraded one bathroom with period-appropriate fixtures, re-painted the second floor, and installed replica lighting fixtures. The tower’s electro-pneumatic switching machine is to have its covers sand blasted and re-painted.

On the tower’s ground floor are three new display cases showing recently-acquired memorabilia pertinent to the structure’s history.

The museum is open on Saturdays between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. There is no admission charge.

Chessie Loco Going to Lake Shore Museum

The Lake Shore Railway Museum has acknowledged that it will be receiving a locomotive painted at a CSX shop in the Chessie System colors.

Former Chesapeake & Ohio No. 8272 received the treatment in Huntington, West Virginia, so that is now resembles the appearance it had when the B30-7 was delivered by GE Transportation  in 1980

The Lake Shore museum in North East, Pennsylvania, specializes in collecting retired locomotives that were built at the nearby GE assembly plant in Erie.

No. 8272 will be the eighth locomotive to join that collection.

In a news release, the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society, which operates the museum, said  the locomotive is being donated by CSX to the museum. It was retired by CSX in 2009 as No. 5554.

The museum said that GE and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum assisted in the restoration of No. 8272 by contributing historic paint records, logo/lettering information and paint chips.

The museum said that plans to move No. 8272 to the museum are still being worked out.

B&O Museum to Have Railfan Event

The B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore plans to conduct a Railroad Society Days event on Oct. 1 and 2 that will feature a close look at some of the rail equipment at the museum.

Among the equipment that will be on display are B&O slumbercoach Dreamland, B&O office car John T. Collinson and various first-generation diesel equipment.

There will be a train ride to the museum’s new restoration shop. Admission will be $18 for adults, $16 for seniors, and $12 for children.

Planned for the event are interactions with tourist railroads, railroad historical societies, model train groups, and other organizations from across the Mid-Atlantic region.

North East, Pa., Museum Gets GE Switcher

The Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, has received a GE 80-ton switcher that was built in 1944 for the Genesee & Wyoming Railroad and also has an Ohio connection.

The locomotive was transported to the museum by flat car.

Once owned by a Lordstown steel company, the locomotive was later given to the Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation.

The Youngstown museum traded it to the Pennsylvania museum.

It was the first diesel-electric locomotive owned by G&W and also served as an industrial switcher for the Kinzua Dam project on the Allegheny River near Warren, Pennsylvania.

3 Ohio RR Museums Get Dailey Foundation Grants

Three Ohio railroad museums have been awarded railroad heritage grants by the Tom E. Dailey Foundation.

They were among seven grants totaling $16,000 that were awarded in the first quarter of 2016.

The Painesville Railroad Museum will receive $2,500 to restore and remodel its 1893 depot and museum. Built by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the station will receive running water, restrooms and heat.

The grant will also help pay for installing insulation in the roof, a project expected to take three months.

The Massillon Museum will receive $3,000 to develop a rail history exhibit on railroad moniker art.

The grant will be used to fund research for the exhibit. In its application, the 83-year museum noted that moniker art is a little studied and ephemeral art form of creating unique visual signatures, or monikers, on the sides of rail cars.

It has been perpetuated by a group of largely anonymous artists since the late 1800s.

The museum also plans to create an archive of oral histories and research.

The Bradford Railroad Museum was awarded $1,000 to help fund a permanent exhibit and video titled “Railway Y.M.C.A.”

Bradford was home to a 75-room YMCA that served railroaders and travelers in the early 1900s. It provided meals, lectures, entertainment and religious education for railroaders.

The exhibit will include sketches of the YMCA drawn by Columbus Dispatch cartoonist Billy Ireland. The exhibit also will feature illustrations, paintings, photographs, period newspapers, ephemera and artifacts.

The Dailey Foundation also awarded a grant of $7,500 to the Franklin County Historical Society in Columbus and a grant of $5,000 to the Jubilee Museum and Catholic Cultural Center of Columbus.

Those grants were not part of the railroad heritage grant program.

NYC Museum Building to Get Renovations

The city of Elkhart, Indiana, is about to embark on a nearly half-million renovation of the site of the National New York Central Museum.

The city owns the museum, which is housed in a freight house built in 1907 by Lake Shore & Michigan Southern. The site is across the tracks from the Amtrak station and adjacent to the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.

The first phase of renovation work will cost $244,020 and involve repairs to the building’s rafters, trusses, lateral supports improvements and brick work.

Subsequent work will involve repairs to the doors, windows, roof as well as insulation work.

The work is budgeted at $462,220, but could bump up to $500,000 if the museum receives a new entrance.

Funding is coming from a bond issue being used to improve downtown Elkhart. No construction schedule has yet been established.

Kentucky Museum Plans Photo Freights

GP8 and GP9 locomotives will pull freight cars on Oct. 10 during a photo freight event at the Bluegrass Scenic Railroad & Museum

A train will depart Versailles at 9 a.m. and head west to Tyrone, where historic Young’s High Bridge meets up with the west end of the museum tracks.

Photos runbys will start there and work back east with Norfolk & Western GP9 No. 675 in the lead, long hood forward.

Multiple photo runbys will occur along the way with a scheduled return to the Versailles yard at 12:30 p.m.

An afternoon trip will depart at 2 p.m. after the consist of the morning train is reconfigured. Photographers will be allowed to photograph these operations.

The afternoon trip will journey from Versailles to Tyrone. Participants are entitled to a seat on this excursion, or may chase and shoot the train.

N&W No. 675 will lead this excursion, this time running short hood forward. Most of the m Illinois Central Gulf No. 7738 will lead a late afternoon freight train that will travel to Tyrone with multiple photo/runby stops along the way.

That train will be staged for a night photo session in the Versailles Yard, featuring both N&W No. 675, ICG No. 7738 and other available diesel equipment.

The night photo session will conclude at 9 p.m. Tickets for the full day and night photo session are $120.
The museum’s track is easily photographed from Highway 62 that parallels the museum tracks.

Easily accessed legal photo locations will be provided to those who have purchased tickets and attended the day’s safety briefing. Dinner that evening will be served by a local caterer.

The museum owns 5.5 miles of a former Southern Railway line. For additional information and tickets, visit http://www.bluegrassrailroad.com/

Michigan RR Museum Names Executive Director

A Michigan railroad museum has named its first executive director. Kimberlee Beck Wendt took over at the New Buffalo Railroad Museum on March 2.

She will be the museum’s first executive director since it was established in 1989.
Wendt most recently served as the communications and events manager for Great Lakes Marketing Services Inc. in Kalamazoo, Mich.

She has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Michigan State University.

“Kimberlee brings a diverse experience skill-set which we anticipate will serve the New Buffalo Railroad Museum in a most effective manner,” said museum board President Katha Kissman.

“I am excited to be named as the first executive director of the New Buffalo Railroad Museum; to guide the energy of its growth thus far,” Wendt said.

The museum features a replica of the original Pere Marquette depot, built from the original blueprints; a Chessie System boxcar; and a World War II Pullman troop sleeper.

The collection also includes hundreds of photographs and memorabilia, and an extensive model train layout maintained by the Duneland Model Railroad Club.

The museum recently received a $10,000 grant from the Pokagon Fund board of directors. That followed receipt of a $30,000 grant in late 2014 from an anonymous donor.

For more information, go to new-buffalo-railroad-museum.org.

 

 

Altoona Museum Roundhouse Getting ‘Tenants’

The new roundhouse in Altoona, Pa., at the Railroaders’ Memorial Museum will soon get some “new” tenants.

Museum officials said they plan to move into the facility Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 electric locomotive No. 4913, Pullman solarium observation Loretto, Vulcan-built 0-4-0T Nancy, and Broadway Limited observation lounge Mountain View.

The tender from the museum’s Pennsylvania K-4s Pacific is now housed in the building. Museum volunteers are currently working to reassemble No. 1361, which was disassembled 18 years ago for restoration.

Construction of the roundhouse has been underway for more than two years.

The roundhouse will also have classroom space for Penn State’s railroad engineering and management classes.