Emery Trust Makes Awards, NYC Box Car Saved

The John H. Emery Rail Heritage Trust has announced its 2020 grant awards.

Although no grants were awarded to any organizations based in Ohio, the Kentucky Railway Museum received $43,000 for firebox and boiler work on Chesapeake & Ohio 2-8-4 No. 2716.

The Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society received a $25,000 award for restoring diner 469/470.

In an unrelated development, The Wabash Valley Railroad Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, said it will work with CSX to preserve a 98-year-old New York Central boxcar.

CSX will move the car, weather permitting, from Greencastle, Indiana, to the museum site next to CSX tracks in Terre Haute on March 31.

NYC No. 155524 was built by American Car & Foundry in 1922, rebuilt with steel sides in 1939, and placed near the NYC depot in Greencastle for storage use in 1965.

It had been ticketed to be scrapped until the Hailey Tower Historical & Technical Society, which owns the museum, was able to save it.

The Society is seeking donations to offset the $15,000 cost of moving the car and building a display track.

Donations can be made at the museum website or by mail to the Haley Tower Historical & Technical Society, P.O. Box 10291, Terre Haute, IN 47801.

2 Pa. Groups Receive NRHS Heritage Grants

Two Pennsylvania organizations were among the eight recipients of a National Railway Historical Society Heritage Grant. The awards are made to such organizations as historical societies, museums and NRHS Chapters.

The Harrisburg NRHS chapter will receive $2,500 while $3,000 is going to the narrow gauge Bucksgahuda & Western Railroad in St. Marys.

Other award winners included the Southeastern Railway Museum of Duluth, Georgia; the Wiscasset Waterville and Farmington Railway Museum of Alna, Maine; Central New York NRHS Chapter of Marcellus, New York; the South Park Rail Society of Denver; the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum of Nevada City, California’ and the Friends of the New York Transit Museum of Brooklyn, New York.

C&O 1309 Restoration Wins $10K ‘Trains’ Grant

The campaign to restore Chesapeake & Ohio No. 1309 has won a $10,000 preservation grant from Trains magazine.

The grant is awarded annually by the magazine and this year’s winner was named at the magazine’s 75^th anniversary banquet held Saturday night in Milwaukee.

In its application for the Trains preservation award, the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad said it would use the money to professionally paint the 2-6-6-2 Mallet-type locomotive, restore and install an appropriate bell and whistle on the locomotive, and restore in-cab gauges for operation.

However, the railroad said shortly after accepting the award that the money will instead be used to repair the rear tube sheet.

No. 1309 was the last steam locomotive built by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the U.S. market.

It pulled freight trains for the C&O between 1949 and 1956. Most recently, it has been on static display at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum.

The announcement of the awarding of the grant came just ahead of another announcement that boiler problems have delayed the completion date of the restoration of No. 1309 by several months.

WM Scenic General Superintendent Mike Gresham said the restoration will be completed by July 24, which is between three to four months later than previously announced.

Dennison Museum Gets $7,500 Dailey Grant

The Dennison Railroad Depot Museum landed the top grant of $7,500 from the Tom E. Dailey Foundation for the third quarter of 2015. The Dailey Foundation, based in Chicago, is awarding $22,500 in railroad heritage grants.

The money going to the Dennison museum will supplement an 80 percent Ohio Department of Transportation matching grant for the cosmetic restoration of a 1940s era Kanawha steam locomotive and the restoration of a former Pullman car.

No. 2700 is the one of the only remaining Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad engines of its kind.

The Pullman car is being transformed into a bed and breakfast that will bring in hotel tax revenues to the community, enable exhibit and tour opportunities, and house college interns for railroad research projects at the museum.

The Dennison museum is housed in a restored 1873 Pennsylvania Railroad station that is expected to be designated Ohio’s 70th National Historic Landmark.

Restoration of the depot began in 1984. The museum, which draws more than 65,000 visitors annually, was named 2011 Museum of the Year by the Ohio Museum Association.

Three Pennsylvania museums each received Dailey Foundation grants.

Railways To Yesterday in Rockhill Furnace will use its $2,000 grant to transport a 1937 Baldwin electric locomotive to its museum, the Rockhill Trolley Museum.

Originally constructed for the Niagara Junction Railway Company, No. 404 was overhauled in 1974 and is fully operational. The museum acquired the locomotive for the cost of its relocation.

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington will use its $2,000 grant to restore and interpret the historic Wexford trolley interurban passenger/freight station.

The depot has been moved to a new concrete foundation from its original home on Pennsylvania Route 910 in Wexford.

The museum has $203,000 of the estimated $220,000 needed to fully restore the building. The depot, which closed in 1931, was along the “Harmony Route.”

After closing it served as a post office, antique shop and delicatessen. Despite that, the structure has retained much of its original design.

The Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, will use a $1,000 grant to continue restoration of a 1920s heavyweight passenger car.

The car has already received a new roof; new Spanish cedar windows; exterior steel repair; new electrical, sound, light, and heating systems; a new floor, and a new restroom.

The grant will help fund the remainder of the interior work to include re-tiling the bathroom, replacing cloth with original mahogany paneling, a pantry, bar/buffet, and replicated Tiffany windows.

The Colebrookdale Railroad operates a tourist line that attracts 20,000-30,000 passengers annually.

The Taltree Arboretum and Gardens in Valparaiso, Indiana, received a $1,000 grant to make improvements to its outdoor G-scale train garden that tells the story of American’s steam engine history and its impact on the Civil War.

The grant will be used for an educational display inside the depot visitor center.

The display will include photo-representations of people from the steam engine era, including Civil War railway workers, Chinese immigrant workers from the Sierra Nevada range, and rail workers from the 1920s, who rebuilt sections of track and bridges.

The focus is to accentuate the hardships and danger that often accompanied early railway jobs. The Taltree Arboretum and Gardens served 4,700 students in 2014 and saw 48,000 visitors last year.

Other railroad organizations that received grants include:

• Rosenberg Railroad Museum, Rosenberg, Texas, $2,000
• Center for Railroad Photography and Art, Madison, Wisconsin., $2,000
• Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum, Rochester, New York, $1,000
• Southern Appalachia Railway Museum, Inc., Oak Ridge, Tennessee, $1,000
• Deltaville Community Association, Inc., Deltaville, Virginia, $1,000
• Hopewell Depot Restoration Corp., Hopewell Depot, New York, $1,000
• Colfax Railroad Museum, Inc., Colfax, Wisconsin, $1,000

Since its creation in 2013, the Dailey Foundation has awarded rail heritage grants totaling $414,300.