With Christmas behind us, and the New Year upon us, I figured I'd throw this one out to see what everyone comes back with.

What did your Museum accomplish in 2010, and what do you hope for in 2011?

As the President & Founder of the Niagara Railway Museum, 2010 was a great success for us. In April, after almost 14yrs without a home for our equipment, we were able to take over the privately owned, former CNR diesel shop in Fort Erie, Ont. We have been constantly cleaning, and working to secure a building which for years has been used as a hangout for kids, and has seen a remarkable amount of vandalism. It is a huge undertaking for our group, and is far from over. With no track to the building, we have been building as time and material permit. So far, 150ft has been built on 1 track, with 80ft on another. 1 shop bay still has no track. The track allowed us to roll our equipment inside, all of which was moved by truck, from 3 different locations across Ontario. Between the beginning of June and middle of July, we successfully moved our 1920 0-4-0st steam engine, 1953 Plymouth MDT40t diesel, and 50 ton NSC/Westinghouse electric to the site. We also held 2 very successful open house displays at the site, and even managed to get our Plymouth diesel running after 20years of sitting.


Our 1953 built Plymouth MDT40t diesel on display at our first open house in July 2010.

Ex-Inco #102 (nee-HEPC #E-7) and HEPC 0-4-0st #46 sit on track 1 & 2 of the shop, over the inspection pits. Both locomotives worked together during the construction of the Queenston-Chippawa Project in the 1920's for the Hydro Electric Power Commission.

At our July open house, my ex-CNR Fairmont M19 is at the end of the track, with the Plymouth and shop in the background.

What's instore for us in the new year? Complete the architectural drawings for the display area, cover in the many broken/missing windows, and continue general building maintenance. We also plan to connect the 2 tracks we have already started construction on, as we work towards an eventual connection to live rail. Moving more equipment to the site, including our 3 ex-CP Rail boxcars and ex-CNR Flanger, and the operational restoration of the Plymouth diesel. The Electric loco should (if all goes well) also be cosmetically restored in 2011.

As I look to the future, I see great things in store. I'm sure there are many other groups out there that met great success in 2010, and look for more in 2011. I wish all of you the best in the coming year, and may all your Museum plans move ahead.

What a great find in the engine house. It is the perfect starting point for any museum.

We took delivery of a 40' PS-1 boxcar via lowboy in late December 2009. It arrived one day after the second big snowstorm of 2009.

We wired it for electricity early 2010. We laid 160' of track at the platform to roll our consist down the trail to give the contractor room to do his contracted work.

He managed to destroy our 80 year old platform. We now have a horrible, uneven deck. He has cut every corner to get more of the grant money than he bid. He used inferior wood, ripped out the curbing that was put in in 1921, decided the cast iron lights should be cast aluminum, decided that since he was using aluminum lights he didn't need to put in the concrete footings that were spec'd, and then spread road millings in the parking lot rather than the spedified topsoil. All this with the blessing of the township engineer and the mayor.

But in 2011 we hope to get the turntable pit dug out and convince a local museum to lease us their turntable that they cannot use. We will have the ash pit re-bricked. We hope to get the bunkhouse foundation put back in, frame the bunkhouse, lay 1500' of track in the yard and sidings, transport the small GE diesel, rebuild the freight house, move the 1850s water tank to it's new foundation, find the foundation for the engine house, restore the CNJ caboose, and the N5c, the Tidewater tank car and get electricity to the section house. Pretty aggresive but doable.

Later!
Mr. Ed

At National Capital Trolley Museum we opened full service on our demonstration railway after a hiatus of almost two years, and hosted a successful ARM Conference. Santa also returned to visit for HollyTrolleyfest. In 2011 we hope to re-introduce TARS 678 and the Blackpool boat car to service, among other planned projects.

Wesley

Two grant projects benefiting the Trolley Museum of New York were completed in 2010, together amounting to roughly $400,000.

A FEMA grant rebuilt the tip of the trolley causeway at Kingston Point to repair and mitigate erosion by the Hudson River. The project included many tons of rip-rap, a new concrete pad for the trolley stop, and landscaping:


The museum building received a new facade. When the building started construction in 1987, the original plans called for a lower brick, upper clapboard exterior to be in harmony with the historic area. However, the budget at the time didn't allow for this, leaving the building in plain gray masonry. Besides bringing the facade up to the original spec, the state-funded project also included new stairs (interior and exterior), new doors and windows, and new gutters with underground drainage on the south face:



In 2011 we look forward to implementing an $860,000 grant (90%/10% federal/state) awarded in FY2010 that will rebuild close to a mile of our track. The project will include subgrade reconstruction, rail bonding, underground conduit for future feeder and ground return cabling, an insulated grade crossing on one of our two East Strand crossings, and curbing to better separate the track from the roadway where they are parallel.

With no government sugardaddy to fall back on, those of us in Youngstown had to do things the old fashioned way, with private contributions!

A couple of weeks ago I sent our 2010 report to our supporters, and here is a link to it on our blog site:

http://todengine.blogspot.com/2010/12/2 ... eview.html

At the Southern Michigan Railroad Society things are looking up.

For 2010 the big thing is that we got all the court stuff behind us. Which frees us up to concentrate on more pertinent things.
South Shore car #1 got water proofing put on it roof and most of its cracked windows replaced.
The GE 44tonner got a new coat of black paint.
We got a good start on doing some serious tie replacing.
Our M-50 crossing got completly redone by M-DOT for free(don't ask how we managed that)


For 2011...

Running 3-4 weekends a month May-Nov. Up from 1-2 times a month in 2010.
LOTS of track work. We got a decent amount of ties laying around, just gotta get em in.
LOTS of brush cutting.
Painting the bay window caboose back to NYC colors.
Getting our name out there and getting people(and their wallets) to visit.
Plus a few long term projects that I can't talk about. ;-)

Great to hear that the hostile takeover has been thwarted at the SMRS. Thatwas a nail biter for a while.