There was this car muchly desired for the collection. Despite the museum's best efforts for a direct acquisition, it wound up at auction, and out of further inattention a scrapper got it for $50. Complete. (granted this was real money back then.) So a railroad museum man abashedly went to the scrapper and asked for the car. The scrapper said $100. The museum man walked out saying "you trolling ninja" or period equivalent. Decades later the museum got the car, by that time the was a stripped chicken coop.

Lackawanna coaches. Back when mortgages were 18%, one of our members got a HELOC to get two Lackawanna trailers, aiming to lease to buy. He passed on his interest cost, which some members thought exploitive, and politicked return of the coaches. 27 years later, coaches are hard to come by at any price and we sorely need some!

The caboose, while largely intact when received in the early 1970's had a lot of rot in it even then which was covered by many layers of paint which soaked into the rot. It was used as a bunkhouse for about a decade until the focus of the museum turned to the new facilities installed at the other end of the property. There were about 6 of us who used the bunkhouse and there are some funny stories including the night a porcupine decided to chew on the underside of the van for a good part of the night.

A couple of attempts were made to protect the cars early on and the caboose was tarped again a couple of years ago but the elements took care of that pretty quickly. The sad truth is that there were lots of other more critical priorities for limited manpower and money. The bottom line was that while there was interest in doing something with the cars by some members, those that would have ended up doing the actual work were either too busy with other projects or not interested.

In fairness, both cars have been officially offered to other museums over the past 15 years but were declined due to advanced deterioration.

Other regrets from my personal list?
-we didn't get a car that actually ran on our Toronto Suburban Ry. line, they tried to get NS&T 83 after it was retired in March of '59 as it was TSubR #107, no luck
-we didn't get an NS&T passenger car of any kind
-the fine steel cars of the LE&N / GRR were scrapped just after the museum was formed
-we didn't get a Montreal Golden Chariot
-we didn't get a Brill Witt
-we didn't acquire another mile or two of right of way

Some members of the Branford Electric Rwy Ass'n. lament the cars, track, and wire that were scrapped about 1950 to resolve outstanding loans.
Personally, I regret that I didn't have the amount of money I own today when I was much younger long ago.

Personally, the greatest regret with the group I volunteer at is its questionable luck with passenger equipment.

When it opened, it was using wooden coaches from the BAR and DLW. These were shortly supplemented by DLW Boontons, a pair of Erie Stillwells, and at least five CNJ coaches. The wooden cars did not last long and the Boontons and CNJ cars became the primary means of carrying visitors. One of the Stillwells was converted into an open-air car by removing its windows and most of its roof. This took away half the car's structural integrity and weakened it to the point that a new roof had to be put in place; it didn't last long and was scrapped in the early 70s with two of the Boontons being converted to replace it.

The CNJ cars and Boontons were used interchangeably throughout the 70s, 80s and into the early 90s. Of the five CNJ cars, one was sold off in the mid 70s, another was converted into a Parlor car and is still in use, one was converted into a push-pull trailer car for the railroad's doodlebug and was scrapped around 2006, the only CNJ car to not be extensively modified is the railroad's combine, which like the parlor car, is still in use. The fifth car was used as a source of parts and was sold some time ago, but remains on the property.

The DLW cars didn't receive much in the way of maintenance and by the mid 90s were in need of truck, roof, and draft gear repairs. Four of them remain on the railroad awaiting their fate's.

The railroad purchased four ex CN wood framed commuter coaches in the early 90s. One of these cars was given to another local tourist line as payment for some work done and was arguably in the best condition of the four. Another of the cars was stripped down for restoration which never happened and was scrapped as a result. The final two cars, remain on the railroad. One of them was recently retired with frame issues and the other is used as an overflow car.

It does seem as though this group's luck with passenger equipment is beginning to make a turn for the better. An additional CNJ car was purchased a number of years ago and recently returned to service after a very thorough interior restoration.