Another year is coming to a close, and so once again the time has come to make mention of all the completed projects and milestones in railroad preservation in 2017.

Previous years' posts:

2013: A Year of Accomplishments

2014: A Year of Accomplishments

2015: A Year of Accomplishments

2016 Year in Preservation

I'll start - after a multi-year overhaul, New Hope & Ivyland 2-8-0 #40 has re-entered service on the railroad.

Also, the Black River & Western Railroad, in Ringoes, NJ officially re-opened 2.5 miles of the "Alexauken Division" of the railroad towards Lambertville - to Bowne Station and the WoodsEdge Farm.

After a multi-year restoration, the Wilmington & Western Railroad returned 0-6-0 #58 to service, pulling Santa Claus trips out of Greenbank, DE.

Track laid in Como, Colorado. First steam train operated there is 79 years. Turntable reinstalled and first steam on turntable and stored in roundhouse in 79 years.

The Keokuk Union Depot Foundation has [practically] completed the restoration of the 1891 tile roof, which included rebuilding (in 2016) of the central tower's peak which the CB&Q leveled off around 1950. Because of a delay in delivery of certain tiles from the manufacturer, some work remains to be done in the spring of 2018 but the roof is substantially complete.

Grammling's 0-4-0 #85 "Mack" returned to service and saw operation at a few locations across the USA.

Go to HeritageRail Alliance's magazine/blog edited and authored by Aaron Isaacs. Aaron did a good summary of the major projects completed that he presented at the HRA's annual member's meeting held in early October 2017 in Minneapolis. http://www.atrrm.org/blog/2017/10/2017-completed-projects/

One project not shown in this slide show was the restoration of single-truck streetcar Winona (Minnesota) No. 10. After a 14+ year effort, the car operated with passengers for HRA's fall conference, and our Museum won an HRA award for the restoration. Here's a photo of No. 10.

Thanks!

How about what might be the most photographed restoration of 2017, the return of Clinchfield 800, which led this year's CSX Santa Train. The Southern Appalachia Railway Museum worked on the plans for several years, worked with CSX for the final repairs and paint, and then helped the Santa Train. #800 is currently operating in Florida, but groups interested in future operations can contact the Museum.

Also, Duluth & Northeastern 2-8-0 #28 was restored to service for the North Shore Scenic Railroad in Duluth, MN.

The cosmetic restoration of C&O 2700. It went from sad to beautiful.

How about non-achievement of the year?
Canberra Railway Museum remains closed and I've been unable to work on my beloved Pullman sleeper since last November and it's driving me nuts!!!
Another reminder of the line from Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi": "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."
Cheers, Bob

One from this side of the Atlantic........

It's not complete yet, but work continues on our Cambridge (UK) double deck horse car from 1880.
History & some "as found" photos are here... http://www.ipswichtransportmuseum.co.uk/hrstram.htm

Current state, as of this morning is.....





Lower saloon now fairly complete, new staircases fabricated and installed, with attention now turning to the top deck. Seat frames laid out on upper floor pending positioning & fixing and handrail stanchions now fixed in place.
Should be finished by this time next year........

None of the Ipswich horse cars (operated 1880-1903) survived, but the Cambridge one is very similar to ones used in the Town, so hence our interest in getting and restoring it. The Cambridge cars actually lasted in service until 1914, when they were replaced by motor buses!

2017 has been a big year for the Northern Ohio Railway Museum.

On June 10th we carried the general public for the first time under wire. This is the culmination of many years of work to fulfill our mission statement. Our mission is to collect, preserve, restore, display and operate streetcars and other electric railway equipment for the education and entertainment of the public. We finally got the word OPERATE fulfilled! We continued to operate one day a month until October. We were very pleased with how things went this year and are looking forward to the 2018 operating season.

The museum has had an operating rulebook for a few years, but we had no formal training program. This year we created a conductors training curriculum. A written rules test and field operations test were also created and implemented. Our thanks to the many other museums that shared their training materials and rules exams to assist us in developing our program. A special shout out to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum training staff. They shared much training materials, took extra time to meet specifically to discuss NORM's efforts and welcomed me to sit in on their training for 2 days to observe their training and testing in action.

A motorman training program was also implemented while the formal program was being developed. The classroom portion of the motorman's program still needs completion. Ah a wonderful thing to work on during a cold northeastern Ohio winter!

Before we could operate for the public, we needed to complete work on car 12 to make it public ready. We had run the car for our own members the previous year, but many things needed to be done to get the car public ready. This was work was far ranging. It included a through cleaning, window and seat rebuilds/repairs and various mechanical systems receiving work. It was a major undertaking consuming many volunteer hours.

Early in 2017 we scored a victory against a communications company that had placed an underground pull box dead center on our right of way at our second road crossing. This crossing is not in service yet and has no track present. After a lengthy period to locate the owner, (various govt. agencies were not yet aware of their presence) a volunteer private investigator of real estate matters identified the owner. It turned out the company had not done their homework and missed our legal right of way. The dormant crossing in question was registered with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and has ENS numbers. Once the company realized their error, they quickly redid their work and moved the box. Lesson to all, make sure your dormant right of ways are known to the appropriate govt. agencies. I doubt this would have gone as well as it did if this ROW was not known elsewhere.

The museum had a very successful fundraiser called Yard Renewal and Electrification. The 20th Century Electric Railway Foundation provided $15,000 in matching funds. Our thanks to them and all our donors. We raised a little over $32,000 to rebuild 5 switches and several hundred feet of track. Bought with the funds to date are ordinary ties, various length switch timbers, culverts and poles. One switch was rebuilt last fall to get a jump on the project. Drainage work with ditching and culvert placement was completed this year on the area where track was being rebuilt. Four switches were rebuilt this year as well as about 400 hundred feet of curved track on 2 curves. 29 poles have also been set. Addition tie replacement work and ballasting will be completed next year.

The final item is late breaking news. The Museum has just purchased another 5,000 ft. reel of new 4/0 grooved trolley wire. We got it at an attractive price from another museum that deemed it surplus to their needs. We need to raise $12,000 to pay for this purchase. This will give us about 11,000 ft. of 4/0 that can be strung. Plenty to keep us busy for years. If you are inclined to donate to a cause at the end of the year, we would be most appreciative. So we'll hang stockings on our poles with care, in hopes that donors will soon be there!

Congratulations to everyone for your successes in 2017 and here's to hoping that 2018 is a safe and successful season for the rail preservation community.


Steve Heister


Northern Ohio Railway Museum
P. O. Box 458
Chippewa Lake, Ohio 44215-0458

http://www.northernohiorailwaymuseum.org
https://www.facebook.com/Northern-Ohio- ... 544183676/

IRM's Schroeder Mercantile Store has been finished and used beginning with the Happy Holiday Railway event. It was moved to IRM in the 1990s and has, over time, been completely restored by IRM's B&G Department. Now it will be the museum's gift shop.

http://www2.irm.org/blogs/archives/2019-Happy-Holiday-Rail-2017.html

Christian Ellis

I will pass on word to montclaire and possibly other friends in the local preservation scene to make reports on the Scranton (PA) trolley progress. I will report mostly on Steamtown for 2017.

The National Park Service operation at Steamtown started as it has in the past with National Park Week in mid April. Ongoing negotiations with partner railroads altered how the season would begin, so instead of a 3 mile Scranton Limited train running through the yard, we had on weekends a 500-yard trip on Lackawanna caboose no. 889. The good news is steam locomotive no. 26, our 1929 built Baldwin 0-6-0, was ready to run, and the caboose trains did rather well for a different experience. By late May, our trains returned to weekend rusn in the yard and the Sunday-only Nay Aug Gorge Limited, which takes a 5-mile round trip to a Scranton park.
The excursion season began by late July, and had a few hiccups. Nothing major, but stalwart F3 no. 664 started giving train crews and mechanics some troubles almost as soon as F3 no. 663 came back in service for the first time since 2013. Diesels took the excursions to the various towns on the former DL&W Pocono Route.
Work took off on the restoration of Boston & Maine no. 3713 once a long promised grant of $650,000.00 came in. This will cover replicating the tender tank, the cab, driver wheel repairs, along with one axle change-out, and some other smaller tasks. A dedicated crew of volunteers through local Johnson College, among other helpers, has been instrumental in cleaning, painting and storing many parts until they can be assembled back to the locomotive.
Fundraising projects for 3713 also came along well, with a jazz and beer open house at Susquehanna Brewing Co., and an excursion on the Stourbridge Line Railroad with vintage BL2 no 54 and photo run-bys taking place on the route. A new preservation fund, called the Signers Fund has garnered some interest among donors, and the #givingTuesday campaign the week after Thanksgiving has brought in some extra money to keep the project rolling.
In January, the Ontario & Western Railway Historical Society received General electric 44-tonner no. 105, and it was brought to Steamtown. In 2017, it was cleaned up for display at Railfest in September, and the group plans to have her operational in the near future.
The Holiday Express trains in November and the Santa Train in December put everyone in a festive mood, as each of the excursions was a sell-out, and the Santa Train, which visits 6 towns on the old Delaware & Hudson RR route, always draws large crowds.
At the end of the year, DL&W caboose no. 889 was taken in for stabilization and paint. A few days, later, she is more appropriately painted to match her operational history with the railroad.

I'm sure I missed a few other notes of progress. With the upcoming Federal budget, we are expecting a cut, so every year has its challenges. See you soon.

Its all foreign, but what the hay!

After nearly 8 months of hard work, our Swedish 2-6-4T was brought back from the dead in September after nearly 10 years of storage. This also became the first steam locomotive I was employed to restore, bringing me to "the constantly dirty and tired" tier of preservation! To all of those that offered and have helped me in various ways, a big thank you is well deserved!

The national railway museum is re-structuring, allowing us to overtake three large mainline certified steel coaches, another open end wood coach, another medium sized shunting engine, a nearly operational doodlebug, and various spare parts of all kinds. Unfortunately the change up has resulted in a large mainline 4-6-0 being scrapped. This fate nearly fell to an 1870's 0-4-2 and a large 2-8-0 until other clubs stepped in and acquired them.

Also, after nearly half a year and three missed appointments, the local railway (shortline) finally sent out their track/safety inspector and approved new track we have laid. This paved the way and fully commenced work on the new museum building on the other side of the mainline from our historic station/locomotive depot in Græsted! More track work lies ahead before construction starts on the building, but this hopefully should all be finished within the next year or two.

Hope others have had a good 2017 as well!
-Stuart