(rshsdepot) Hornell, NY

[jdent1_@_optonline.net]

City gets to work on museum at Hornell Erie Depot

By KYLE A. TOROK - Staff Writer
HORNELL - Rail memorabilia has been moving into the city's Erie railroad museum at the Hornell Erie Depot on Loder Street.

Having collected more than 400 items in four months, City Hall is ready to move forward on the as-yet-unnamed museum, the idea for which has been kicked around since first acquiring the depot in 1982, according to Heather Reynolds, city planning director.

The focus will not be on the history of the railroad, but the people who made it historic.

"In other rail museums, they focus on technology," Reynolds said. "Here we're going to focus on the workers, life on the rails."

After beginning the move-in, the city will form a committee to guide the museum's development. Reynolds is not certain who will be on the committee, nor where funds will come from, but said they will most likely come from the mayor's contingency funds.

Moving in comes first, then display, then operation. Reynolds and Collette Cornish, the city's archivist, traveled to the Salamanca Rail Museum on Thursday to get ideas toward those ends.

"We got an idea of what kind of cases we'll need to build or purchase," Reynolds said, "how to set up certain items that they have that we also have."

She and Cornish also got references from the Salamanca museum's director for fundraisers and cheap printers, and an idea what the gift shop might yield.

"They make between $3,000 and $5,000 a year in their gift shop, which would be great for utilities" Reynolds said. "They're non-profit, and we're lucky enough to have city funds, but you still need operating expenses."

The city began advertising for donations just before the December 2003 holiday season. Four months later, Reynolds has seven boxes full of more than 350 small and large donations, and about 100 more loans.

The small items include photographs, tools and books. Reynolds considers the uniforms from engineers, conductors and security guards some of the more interesting items.

"I think the tools are interesting, too, because they're not hammers ... they're things for measuring the track, and balancing the wheels so there are no derailments," Reynolds said.

"They all have that Erie logo on them, so they were probably stolen," she laughed.

Railroad enthusiast Bob Lee made the very first donation, a blown-up picture of a postcard titled "The Four Horsemen," where engineers have pulled four engines abreast and lean out their windows, waving.

"We'd really like to know who they are in those engines," Lee said.

Space is too limited at the depot for some of the large items, which include two-person hand carts used to inspect rails, and Reynolds is not sure yet what will be done with them. That is one reason the city will focus on the human aspect of the rails.

"We're never going to get a donation of a whole train," Reynolds said. "If we did, we'd have no place to put it."

However, they might try to display one outside. After calling for donations, Reynolds was contacted by the Erie-Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society about a possible temporary exhibit of one of the historic dining cars the group maintains and operates. The group sells the original blend of coffee served in the dining cars, as well as recipe books and Erie-Lackawanna china, all at cost.

"I'm not sure how it would be done, but there's got to be a side rail or something we could pull it off on for a couple of weeks," Reynolds said.

Just starting out, most of the railroad museum matters are up in the air, and Reynolds could only say they hope to have it open as soon as possible.



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http://www.eveningtribune.com/articles/2004/04/16/news/news01.txt

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #894
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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org