I was talking to a person who said that the Western Pacific Railroad Museum was the only museum in the United states devoted to a specific railroad.

I can think of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum and the New York Central Museum.
As well as a number of traction museums such as the one in Baltimore devoted more or less to one line.

How about some thoughts on other museums for Main Line railroads.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Ted Miles

The Western Maryland Railway Historical Society maintains a museum devoted to the WM at the old WM station and office building in Union Bridge, Maryland.

The B&O Museum isn't 100% B&O-centric, even if we count C&O and WM as siblings--witness AFT 1 and various other such pieces. Although they do seem to currently pursur a policy of "if it isn't B&O, it's not railroading"........

Is the Reading Co. T&H Society collection 100% Reading? Probably pretty darned close.......

We could count the FEBT museum in Robertsdale, Pa. as pure EBT, but that's stretching it a bit.....

Oyster Bay Rail Road Museum and Railroad Museum of Long Island are both 99% dedicated to one company.

No one has mentioned the RDG group? That's just about the most obvious one, at least on this coast.

Howard P.

Much closer to the East Coast is the Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum at Sheepscot, Maine, totally focused on recreating its namesake railway on the original right-of-way with some of the original equipment.

But WW&F is more an operation than a "museum"--unless they've built a museum by now?

Ummmm....... yeah, me.

Sorry, wasn't paying attention. Yes, you did mention it.

HP

Well, the original poster specifically mentioned 'Main Line Railroads' - an obscure 2ft branch hardly qualifies.

That having been said, the WW&F does have some limited displays in our Freight House/Gift Shop. The whole campus is the museum, as visitors are free (within reason) to room and explore the yard, shop. equipment, etc.

A larger museum/visitors center is envisioned, but many years off.

Someday, down the road, there WILL be a Conrail museum.



But not yet.

The Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society has a policy of trying to preserve Monon Railroad artifacts. In conjunction with the local Township Historical Society that owns the old "L" shaped depot that once served the Monon and the Nickel Plate Road in Linden, Indiana, the Society acquired vacant property to the south of the depot. They have moved three pieces of Monon equipment (a boxcar, caboose and flat car) onto display tracks and have purchased a small ranch style type home just to the south of these cars which is not "World Headquarters" for MRHTS. The building houses various Monon Railroad records. In additon, the Society also owns other equipment which it has "lent out" to museums for display and, in some instances, operation. This includes two cabooses at the Indiana Transportation Museum in Noblesville and a caboose at the Indiana Railway Museum in French Lick. The Society continues to explore the possibilityy of acquiring other Monon equipment that might be available.

Les

Thanks for your thoughts. I did not include operating or tourist lines simply because that would open up the whole world of railroading.

And I see nothing at all wrong with preserving short Lines like the WW&F 9in fact I am a member); but I was trying to tie my comment back to a specific conversation I had recently. Thanks for your thoughts!

Since the original post the other day; I remembered the "Find a Museum" feature on the Association of railway Museums web site. It's a good place to find a lot of this sort of information.

Ted Miles

There is a local historical society with a museum housed in the Western Maryland Railway Station in Westernport, Maryland. The great majority of their artifacts are of the documents/pictures variety, with a fair amount of other non-paper items as well. The operator/agent area is original. Their centerpiece is WM caboose 1820, restored to the steam era "Fast Freight Line" scheme.

NP Ry. Museum http://www.nprymuseum.org/index.html Toppenish WA