Well, the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum in North Judson, Indiana, operated regularly scheduled and special event passenger trains this year and did a lot of track maintenance and road crossings replacements, but "accomplishments" are as follows:

1. The placement in our museum depot of a special Elgin, Joliet & Eastern "Centennial Flag" which was originally flown by the "J" to commemorate its 1888-1988 years of operation. The flag was originally given to one of the EJ&E retirees who recently donated it to the museum.

2. The completion of the restoration of a Pullman Troop Sleeper spearheaded by a Boy Scout to earn his Eagle Award. Family and museum members aided in the restoration and the car which was given the number 7256, since the cars actual number has never been discovered.

3. The restoration of our Illinois Central Railroad Iowa Division display caboose continues moving forward. This car has needed much more work than originally thought but the job should be completed early next year.

4. The first two strips of concrete were placed in the West Annex of the museums Shop building. It is the harbinger of what is eventually expected to be a complete concrete floor in this section of the shop.

5. The arrival at the museum of Notre Dame & Western 65-ton Porter diesel #5332. The unit was donated to HVRM by the University.

Les

An agreement was reached between the City of Waterville Maine and New England Steam Corporation for the sale of ex Maine Central 4-6-2 No.470 for $25,000 to be paid by the end of 2015.

Yeah Brian, and it was no little feat. What we should let readers know is, they helped up and continue to do so, in this project. While we are pushing toward the cost of purchase and the move, the 470 is behind a chain link fence for the first time in 60 years. Finally, she gets a rest while we prep to do what we've planned to do.

And NKP # 765 went around the World Famous Horseshoe Curve EIGHTEEN TIMES ! !

"On June 3rd 2013, it was announced that the East Broad Top Preservation Association had purchased the first part of the East Broad Top Railroad. In two separate transactions they purchased, the old PRR/Conrail spur from the NS mainline to the northern end of the EBT yard from Kovlachick Salvage, and the EBT Mount Union yard from the Conrail Spur tie-in to the US 522 crossing from the East Broad Top Railroad and Coal Company" - wiki.

The East Broad Top Railroad Preservation Association is a non-profit founded with the intention of acquiring the railroad and reactivating all 33 miles of the railroad's original main line (only 5 miles are currently active).

/Mitch

In many ways, at Steamtown National Historic Site, we can't wait until 2013 is over. The "13 factor" kept showing up throughout the year.

At the beginning of the year, the park knew that steam would not run on the mainline, so we were planning for the big roll-out of Baldwin 0-6-0 26 sometime in the summer. Plans were suggested on how to best present this wonderful accomplishment. Parts painted black several years ago were decided to be painted in olive green. In late January, the wheels, frame and suspension were joined up for the first time in years. By Mother's Day, the boiler was added.
While the work is still progressing, the project has not made many big leaps forward since.

Excursions were expected to be led by the F3 duo on the long trips, but during the first excursion of the year in June, number 663 suffered a compressor failure. While the part is now repaired, the two have not run together since. 664 would only lead yard trains on days of outbound trains the rest of the season.

Our Nickel Plate GP9 came to the rescue for the entire year, taking on all duties, but she also needs a lot of work. You can only stretch the rubber band so far. Diesel-led trains also do not attract riders the way the steam trips do, so ridership was low.

US government issues led to the sequester stripping funds off the top, and the government shutdown for 2 weeks in October removed four excursions during the peak of the foliage season that could not be made up.

The deaths of Kip Hagen, Bernie O'Brien and at least 5 other friends and family of the park did not help much, either.

Not all was dismal, however. During all of this, contractors repaired the brick, windows and roof of the locomotive shop. Natural light has replaced the need for artificial lights in a lot of places where corrugated fiberglas installed a half century or so ago became so encrusted with dirt.

The Scranton Limited yard trains were extended slightly to allow passengers to ride the turntable at the beginning and end of the trip. I can't think of any other place where this occurs.

A very successful RailFest (our seventh) expanded beyond the railroad yard to include the Iron Furnaces state park, and featured a surprise guest with Reading & Northern Railroad's steam engine 425. It also included track speeders, approximately 7 of them. It was also the unveiling of the slogan, "America's Locomotive" for the last leg of fundraising for Boston & Maine 4-6-2 3713. A new exhibit was built to attract attention to the project.

Other new exhibits this past year were on railroad advertising, the role of railroads in World War II and other wars, plus a toy exhibit for the holiday season.

The EarthCam.com webcam debuted at a quiet time of the year, and we hope to keep it more active when steam comes back online.

Volunteers continue to scan photographs from the Erie Lackawanna / Syracuse University collection along with the photos donated to the park by the Railroadians of America. So far, only a few have been made available to the public for easy access.

We do look forward to a better year ahead, and a lot of different types of trips are in the works when the motive power situation gets straightened out. An interim superintendent, Bill Leonard, started at Steamtown on Monday, December 23. He has a deep knowledge of Steamtown and its background. He is a native of Tobyhanna, PA and his family has built the ice house at the lake. Come on, New Year's Day :)

Despite significant damage to the collection during Hurricane Sandy (October, 2012), the Shore Line Trolley Museum fared OK during 2013, and is finally setting the stage to break out of the flood-repair-flood-repair cycle.

Chief among out accomplishments is the completion of a significant portion of Elevating the Collection, our $2.0 million capital campaign to build two new trolley-car storage buildings and associated yard tracks at a height of 14.0 feet above sea level, about the 500 year flood stage, safely above any future hurricane's reach. Geographically just to the south of the current yard at Farm River Road, the two new storage buildings are now 98% complete as of December 31, with only minor interior completion yet to do. The exterior yard and approach area is now rough graded. Our challenge in 2014 will be to raise the final $200,000 needed to lay the track and erect and string the overhead wire (and purchase the materials for both) so at least some of the collection can move under power to this new safe home if a hurricane comes during this year's season.

From this (June 2013):


To this (late-December 2013):


Early in 2013, FEMA finally approved our award of about $1.3million in remediation money to repair damage to the equipment collection from the flood which came during Hurricane Irene (August, 2011). The collection damage primarily consisted of flooded traction motors and related equipment on 56 of the 59-pieces of equipment in our collection which could operate immediately prior to the storm. After a fleet assessment of the damage, we selected 10 cars to begin remediation work on in 2013, to work on an average of 10-12 cars per year over the 5-year life of the program. Of the total amount of the award, the museum must front all repair work costs, which are then submitted to FEMA, and reimbursed to the museum at 75% of the actual cost.

The first car through the "FEMA motor" program was NYCTA R-17 "redbird" subway car 6688. This car has been fully reassembled and is now in operable condition. 5 other cars had motors overhauled in 2013; we are now waiting to reinstall the motors after at least some of the new building storage space is available, so freshly rebuilt motors are not flooded again should another hurricane come. Among the equipment in this list is Brooklyn PCC #1001, the world's first production PCC car, which was awarded an NRHS Railway Preservation Grant in the 2013 cycle to help cover the museum's motor repair costs.

6688 back in action!:


Interior of one of 1001's freshly overhauled traction motors:


Our diverse and skilled staff and cadre of volunteers continued to make headway on a number of restoration and repair projects in 2013 (this is but a small sampling):

ConnCo 865 (Wason, 1905) is nearing completion after a 12+ year restoration effort. When complete, this car will join our operating passenger fleet in 2014 - so be sure to come by for a ride on this suburban beauty! The motors are currently in rotation as part of the FEMA program.



Johnstown 356 continues to progress toward being reassembled. When this car is complete (likely in 2015), it too will join the operating passenger fleet - as a compare and contrast with sequential JTCo 357, which we also operate regularly.



IND R-9 subway 1689 got a major cosmetic overhaul inside and out in the spring, with all new paint, and a refresh of lamp fixtures, interior advertisements, and more. It is now the most popular rapid-transit car to operate during the museum's "Guest Operator" summer weekends.



Our program to reupholster the rattan seats on our passenger service cars continued. 865 got newly upholstered seats early in the year, followed by ConnCo fleetmates 1602 and 775. The lack of a supplier for the traditional "Transit" weave pattern means we have reverted back to the simple cross stitching.



Much other work is ongoing on well over a dozen other cars in the collection at any one time.

We are pleased to report that visitorship is up substantially in 2013 in all segments (special events, group charters, birthday parties, and regular "off the street" walk-in traffic). Our comprehensive marketing effort which began a few years ago is now bearing significant fruit and we are hoping to build further on that during the year 2014. We also launched a new website in October which is still in build-out mode. When it is complete it will include a full collection roster section and have several sections related to our archival and photographic holdings.

While we still face many challenges (especially in relation to storm flood damage), 2013 was a positive (and hurricane-free) year, and we look forward to what 2014 will bring!

Follow the Shore Line Trolley Museum for updates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Branford-Electric-Railway-AssociationShore-Line-Trolley-Museum/188568678917

Nathan Nietering
Shore Line Trolley Museum
http://www.shorelinetrolley.org

After 25 years the Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources (better known as the SPCRR or the Railroad Museum at Ardenwood) got the certificate of occupancy for its first car house... 3 tracks wide, 140' long with fire sprinklers and all required niceties... As of a week ago, all mobil cars are inside... one body is likely moving in this Saturday... there are other bodies to move soon.

Our museum site is complicated... City owned, county park district operated, with two agency deal with... the upside is our location in a regional historic park with 200,000 visitors per year... a house museum, a blacksmith shop, farm animals and cultivated fields... Adjacent to the the original SPC mainline...

With the collection inside, we are currently working to add track, move the bodies indoors, and restore our 1893 narrow gauge caboose...