Land donated by BNSF to become new home of Nebraska Railroad Museum
The Nebraska Railroad Museum has received a donation of 8 acres of land from BNSF Railway in Nebraska City, Neb., which will become the museum’s home. Cleanup and evaluation of the existing infrastructure, which includes 2,000 feet of track, has begun. The museum is seeking volunteers to help with the effort, as well as individuals and corporations to help raise funds for or donate to its efforts, which do not receive any government funding. The museum is a registered 501 (c)(3) non-profit and is the Eastern Nebraska chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. For more information, visit the museum website or Facebook page.
L&N Historical Society relocates to Chattanooga, will join Southern group at Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
The Louisville & Nashville Historical Society will move its headquarters, archive, and store from Bowling Green, Ky., to Chattanooga, Tenn., where it will become part of an archive building housing the Southern Railway Historical Association archives on the campus of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. The L&N Historical Society, which will occupy about 2,500 square feet of the building, will relocate as soon as the space in the Chattanooga facility can be prepared. Space limitations at the current facility at the Historic L&N Depot and Railroad Museum have constrained use and development of the archives; the current space is also needed for depot and museum projects. “Completing this project will allow L&NHS to achieve its mission,” society president Lee Gordon said in a press release, “’To engage in the collection and preservation of information, vestiges, artifacts, and other items of historical and technical interest concerning the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, its predecessors, successors.’ … When this move has been completed, L&NHS will have: (a) adequate space for archives to be organized and stored, (b) space to expand archives by accepting donations from L&NHS members and others, including artifacts, (c) and space to conduct research on the L&N.”
Tucson rail museum reopens
A Tucson, Ariz., museum dedicated to the area’s railroading history has reopened in the city’s Amtrak station after a lengthy closure because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Arizona Daily Star reports the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum opened in 2005 and takes up a portion of the station, built for the Southern Pacific in 1907. In non-pandemic years, it hosts the Silver Spike Railroad Festival, marking the arrival of the railroad in Tucson, and includes a variety of railroad artifacst, as well as a covered outdoor display of SP locomotive 1673, an M-4 class 2-6-0 built in 1900 by the Schenectady Locomotive Works. More information, including the museum’s hours, are available at its website.
Wow Jeffery you sound like the current style of todays journalists. A “poster” that has a picture of an engine and it resembles a Frisco unit. Could it possibly resemble any other railroad unit like the UP, CB&Q, IC, MILW, RI, CGW, CNW ,etc that operated in Nebraska?
The Nebraska Railroad Museum was a railroad without rails. The former line they used (Elkhorn & Western?) to Hooper is full of weeds and cut off after BNSF removed the diamond. When a bridge failed, they didn’t have enough money to even fix it. So I am glad they got a donation, but they still have to get their rusty rolling stock over to the new locale. With so little money, I am wondering how long it will be before the BNSF donation is full of weeds as well.
It’s curious that the locomotive on the logo for the Nebraska RR Museum closely resembles a Frisco passenger E-unit, when the closest the Frisco got to Nebraska was the Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas area.
Three feel good stories in a row, congratulations to all!