Just saw a interesting news share AOTT on facebook. I don't think now is a great time to start a new museum, but it would be a excellent idea to get the Ts crossed and I dotted so when things improve they can start a nice museum on a solid footing. IDK what do you guys think? https://www.recordonline.com/story/news ... 0FvooVVBFU

Rudy is on the forum and started the Conrail topic listed above;

http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=44663

He and Carolyn are great people and the both of them together make an amazing team. Its a very good location for a museum and would be a much needed additional draw to that area of Port Jervis.

Agreed! Rudy and Carolyn are two great people to have guiding the spear point for such a museum.

When the Erie passenger station in Port Jervis was restored in the 1980's there was an intention to use part of the space for a railroad museum. However as the restoration was completed the city was able to lease out 100% of the space and the museum was put "on hold". There were a number of items donated for this planned museum - I wonder if they survived in storage somewhere after all these years.

They have a dedicated website about it now..
https://www.pjmuseum.org/

Update from Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pjmuseum/posts/102651758219538



From a post in a different group by the aforementioned Rudy:

Is the former owner of the NYGL equipment still around? As I understood his equipment in Port Jervis was retained and the stuff at the Railroad went with it when it was sold some time back, and hence became available after that operation closed. If he still owns the stuff in Port Jervis, why the push to relieve him of his ownership?

I don't know about the Port Jervis equipment.

However the owner is still around and still involved with the equipment left behind in Passaic, NJ. A newspaper article a few weeks ago mentioned he was having health issues which prevented him from responding to some legal actions on that Passaic equipment.

The equipment owner also is an owner of a brewery in Callicoon, NY.

My recent reading of news updates indicated that some/all of the equipment in Passaic had been turned over to the Toys For Tots operation that had used the equipment in recent years for fundraising/toy-gathering trains around the winter holidays.

How that is going to transpire or work out, I have no clue.

If you take a look at the Operation Toy train website https://www.operationtoytrain.org/ you'll see two very familiar names. Both Carolyn and Rudy also have long time association with the URHS.

I don't think any of the NY&GL equipment has been used on the the collection train to date. If I understand it it correctly the PRR B-60, NYC 43, and Hickory Creek along with a Jersey Builder coach are owned by the UHRS. the green boxcar is owned by the Military Transport Association, the blue boxcar and the ex-CSX cabin are owned by OTT. I think the M&E provided two passenger cars for the Morris County events the last year they operated the cluster around Dover. The NS and M&NJ cabins which have been used were provided by the host roads as has the power.

Hi all! Somehow I missed this thread, but I'm following it now and will post updates to any questions you may have.

First off, thank you all for the various votes of confidence in myself and my wife (Carolyn). We have a daunting task, but we have been met with nothing but support, and we've got a growing team of people working on this alongside us.

The only major update as of right now is that we've filed the official incorporation papers for the "Port Jervis Transportation Museum, Inc." with the State of New York. While Operation Toy Train will obviously be an integral part of the museum's rolling stock collection and, frankly, its operations, we decided that the day-to-day and overall management of the museum should be separate from that of the Toys for Tots train. OTT is a charitable 501(c)(3) organization in New Jersey, while PJTM will be an educational 501(c)(3) in New York.

We're assembling a diverse, experienced, and relatively young Board of Directors for PJTM to start things off - while we're certainly spearheading the effort, Carolyn and I have no desire to do this all by ourselves! Once the incorporation papers come back from the State and we can hold our first meeting as a corporation, we'll have some more announcements as to who's going to be involved managerially in getting this thing off the ground. Then we'll be sending in our paperwork to the IRS to be recognized as a 501(c)(3), getting bank accounts opened, applying for sales tax certificates and exemptions, etc. We hope to have everything in order to begin offering museum memberships by roughly October so we can start raising some money for this venture.

We're also currently negotiating with the City's lawyers for a contract to use the property - they are being extremely cautious, given the 14-year situation of deteriorating privately owned equipment currently on the property, and we are being similarly cautious that we have proper safeguards in place to combat any changing political tides in the future. One of our primary goals with the contract is including a way for the City property to eventually transfer to museum ownership (via an option to acquire/purchase/donate) once some metric of success is met (XX number of visitors in a year, or something like that).

Other than that, I don't have much more to report at the moment beyond what you've already found online - we've tried to be as transparent as we can with our plans. Keep checking our website (http://www.pjmuseum.org) and we'll keep posting updates as we have them. A couple more specific responses below:


The museum idea was already underway before the pandemic hit. We had tried to bring our Toys for Tots train to Port Jervis last year, but couldn't fit it in amongst Metro-North's weekend schedule. However, our contacts from that negotiation started the museum project in motion. In fact, it was delayed because the Mayor of Port Jervis was stricken with (and luckily recovered from) the virus. This whole thing has been a wild ride from the beginning!


Yup, that's me too. Another project that I've been working on since the end of last year. It's purely coincidental that both timelines intersected in mid-July, since they're entirely separate projects for separate organizations.


We do not own any of the NY&GL equipment... yet. The property owner in Passaic is in the midst of a legal battle with the equipment owner - the equipment did NOT come with the property sale. The news articles quoted a contractor for the equipment owner, who claimed that the equipment is supposed to be donated to us, but this has not happened to date. The property owner has also verbally promised that the equipment will be donated to OTT depending on the outcome of the court's decision. We're in a holding pattern at the moment, but if we do get possession of it, we certainly have plans for it!


Because the City had a one-year storage contract signed in 2006 and have asked the owner repeatedly to remove the equipment since 2007. It has since deteriorated and become a hazard, an eyesore, and an attraction to vandals that requires extra resources from the City's police force to patrol and protect. The City is the one pushing for the ownership change; we just want to use the property one way or the other.


Correct, we have never used any NY&GL equipment on our Toys for Tots trains. The URHS's PRR B-60, NYC 43, and Hickory Creek have all been graciously loaned to us in past years, although the B-60 has been sidelined with some truck spring issues. We borrowed a Jersey Builder coach one year when the Hickory Creek was out on another charter. The M&E did provide equipment throughout the years, both on some of the early runs starting in 2009 and on some of the mid-2010s runs.

OTT currently owns six pieces of equipment. There are three boxcars, including the green camo ex-CR/PRR X58 boxcar that was formerly owned by the MTA (this car was transferred to us when we formally incorporated in late 2017). We also own the blue ex-BAR reefer and white camo ex-MD&W boxcar that were on our train in 2018 and 2019. We have two cabooses (an ex-CSX/Chessie C-27A, currently at the M&E for some repairs) and an ex-Conrail N21 that should be heading north from Harrington, DE shortly. Both cabooses will be restored to their Chessie/Conrail schemes, respectively. And finally, we own a former ACL baggage car that's currently sitting in Beech Grove, IN waiting for us to have some fairly significant resources to put brake cylinders, a coupler and yoke, and other miscellaneous parts back on it that were scavenged by Amtrak mechanics before we came to possess it.

OTT has announced the acquisition of this equipment. See this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42163&p=306452#wrapheader