http://www.wect.com/Global/story.asp?S=3016097&nav=2gQcWz1I

From the WECT 6 website.

Museum being derailed?
Mar 2, 2005, 11:31 AM

Thousands of train buffs tour the railroad museum in Downtown Wilmington and ring the bell on its big locomotive every year. Now, the people who run that museum fear it could be sent down the tracks, destination unknown.

A recorded conductor's voice makes a last call, as a 1910 steam engine fires up. The sound effects are part of an expansion for the Wilmington Railroad Museum at a time when its own future is in question.

The museum's lease on the old freight office is up next June. The promise of the convention center is increasing the property's selling value. That, along with the city's talk about widening roads through the property, may jeopardize the museum's location.

Executive director Sadie Hood is optimistic about the situation, but says a move would sabotage what the museum has worked so hard to create.

Outside, you can play in the train, and ring the bell like a real engineer. Inside, model trains circle nearly 600 square feet of tracks. The locomotives weave through a mini-Wilmington that's been 20 years in the making.

There are toys for kids and artifacts for adults. The Star News, whose old building is replicated in a model train set, printed a column justifying the museum's downtown location.

The old Atlantic Coast Line headquarters is one of the last railway buildings left in the area. That's why many people are getting aboard to make sure this train doesn't disappear like the passenger trains that left so long ago.

Reported by Ashley Hayes

To clarify for those not familiar, this is Wilmington, NC. The museum is located in the office wing of a venerable ACL freight house. The freight house and another one across the aprking lot are two of the last physical remnants of what was once a huge ACL presence in its headquarters city. THe rest of the headquarters buildings, station, and other downtown facilities were wiped off the map in a fit of downtown urban renewal/civic pique after ACL decamped to Jacksonville in the 60s.