http://www.delawareonline.com/article/2 ... nav%7Chead

So the question begs to be asked - will this new station area replace the one currently in Greenbank? With a turntable/station barn, one would think that this would be a replacement/main station. Thoughts?

I have no inside or outside information on the Yorklyn Station. I will say that it was nice to see #98 pictured in the center of the front page of the Wilmington News Journal, the #1 daily Delaware paper.

I would love to see a passing siding and perhaps a stub end siding and for W&W to be able to host, "The way it was". A demonstration of switching cars. This facility would lend it very nicely to that. A handful of vintage freight cars be shoved around by #58 with a dialog to explain the events. Not sure that people would buy a ticket to see just that however.

I guess you could also run Hockessin-Yorklyn trips with a shuttle bus to Auburn and age of steam museum. For those not aware, age of steam is an outstanding collection of steam vehicles, mostly Stanley Steamers, and a very nice 7-1/2" gauge live steam train.

Tom P

In 1999 I spent a month at the then working NVF plant doing boiler/power plant consulting and training. The place was absolutely amazing! One entire large section of the mill was running a paper machine that was built in Wilmington in the 1870's and delivered by the first Wilmington and Western. The entire thing was run by a giant motor in the basement and everything was connected to line-shafts with flat leather belts. NVF had it's own machine shop, patter shop, foundry, and all of he really cool old industrial stuff found a century ago. It also had a wonderful campus that still had company housing and the company gun club buildings that once hosted large skeet shooting tournaments. I marveled at the place each day I reported to work. There is a real railroad tie-in to the whole place and if done right it will without a doubt be a model for preservation.

Outside of having this Turntable, which they have talked about now for some time, I cannot see them moving everything up to Yorklyn. I honestly don't think the community would appreciated the traffic flow that would be created by such.

Greenbank station, though NOT far down Rt 41/141 from Hockessin/Yorklyn, is still a much easier place to find for the average traveler. Their customer base, which mostly comes via I-95, would still have to follow the same route to either station, with more of a side trip off Rt 41/141 from Hockessin into Yorklyn than is required to just go to Greenbank. You'd have to drive nearly 6 miles further to only travel BACK, via train, to where you passed going to Yorklyn in your car...it would make no sense. As for a second boarding location, that would work, but I don't see them extending their regular trips to Yorklyn on a regular basis any time soon.

There were "high hopes" when the Old Greenbank Station was moved to Hockessin, that people would flock to the new boarding area...that it would "attract" more locals...it didn't, in fact, they only ran trips out of Hockessin one season and then dropped it. Quite honestly, its rarely ever worked over the last 40 years, offering trips out of that town, unless there was already something special going on (ie: 4th of July Doodlebug Trips or the Artist Show at the Fire Hall) Any successful trips are always started from the "Triangle" in town, vs where the station actually sits.

I think this is a matter of making this location a destination for Passengers out of Greenbank, rather than the starting location. When NVF as an active facility, there were limitations to transporting passengers up to the Marshall Family Home and Historic Stanley Collection (it is an impressive collection, not just the steamers, but all of the stuff Tom and his Father collected over the years), since you had to literally travel through the facility's property (gated access) to get to the road leading to the Marshall Estate. This current concept would allow much easier access to both the Railroad and the Museum.

There already is a passing siding at Yorklyn, which was for MANY years, where all Hockessin Bound trains saw run around service, since the siding in Hockessin was long out of service. It was finally rebuilt in the 90s, after which, the siding in Yorklyn fell into disrepair. There are two stub end sidings there, one leading to the long trestle that parallels the main building and another that leads up to the building behind 98 in the Photo. Both have LONG been out of service. Last time a freight car traveled over the Trestle was in the very early 1990's when NVF requested help moving machinery and the W&W loaned them a flat car.

The other sign that they would not be packing up and moving, is that they are currently building (actually, its nearly complete) a rather large, railroad style office building to replace their current office, that is overlooking the current shop building in Marshallton, DE.

Not sure what Ludlow means by having "train barn" at Yorklyn, but then again, we all know how accurate reporters are on these "choo choo thingies"....