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 Post subject: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:47 pm 

Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:11 pm
Posts: 12
Location: Columbus, OH
Greetings all. My name is Vickie Broskie, and I volunteer with the Ohio Railway Museum in Worthington, OH. I've joined RYPN in hopes of updating everyone on the goings on of our organization.

I know just mentioning the ORM stirs up something in a lot of you, whether good or bad. So first off, a disclaimer of sorts: My goal here is not to place blame or make excuses. Yes, things haven't been done right and mistakes have been made, but instead of dwelling on the past and what could have been, we must move forward. I want to let the truth be known among all the rumors and speculation, something that seems to run rampant in this industry of ours. For the longest time, the museum was running like a private club - nobody knew what was going on and could only observe from the outside. After a change in museum administration within the past couple years, that is no more. We're glad to let both the preservation community and the public alike know what's going on and what we're doing to bring the museum back to life. It's still an uphill battle, but I have yet to find any organization in this community that isn't fighting one of those in some way.

Now then, to get started, here's the status on a few pieces and some things we have going on this year...

Streetcars and Interurbans: Focus for 2018 will be on Ohio Public Service #64, Columbus Street Railway #703, and Illinois Terminal #450. For those worried about the rest of the collection, minus two cars (one of which is for sale), all are under full body tarps to protect them from the elements. Plans are also being made for future buildings to house them and other equipment. #64 will receive continued maintenance and repairs as needed, but at this time is still operational and will certainly be seeing some run time again this year. #703 will be returned to operation after being out of service for many years. Our focus with her will be window replacement, roof work, and body work. Her interior is still in amazing shape, and to our knowledge she doesn't have any electrical issues - however we're prepared to deal with those if they do exist. #450 is a coveted piece among a lot of people - yes folks, I've seen the comments. #450 is still not for sale and won't be for the foreseeable future, and I'm one of the people personally responsible for taking care of her. This year we hope to have some major roof work done on the car, as time and manpower allows. The car suffered a major electrical issue a few years back that has rendered her a static piece ever since, and if enough higher priority projects can be completed in the meantime, we hope to have someone come out to look at her.

We recently announced a GoFundMe to raise money for 703's restoration, any help is appreciated if you'd like to donate! https://www.gofundme.com/bring-703-back-to-life

Steam Locomotives: The ORM still has the same two steam locomotives we've always had, 0-4-0T Marble Cliff Quarries #1 and 4-6-2 Norfolk & Western #578. #578 is still with us in Worthington while #1 is still on loan to another local museum/conference center, both are still ours and are not for sale despite numerous rumors always floating around. Plans are calling for museum volunteers to come out and do cosmetic work on #1 this year, the same for #578 as time and manpower allows (you'll be hearing that a lot, but it's the honest to God truth). #578 is still moved around the yard once or twice a year by one of the locomotives to make sure nothing ever seizes up and to keep everything greased and oiled, and she moves with ease. In long term plans, we hope to bring #1 back to the property and eventually have the museum to a point where we're able to seriously look into restoration for both her and #578. It's a long way off, but a future goal none the less.

Rolling Stock: For purposes of not making this post even longer, Erie Doodlebug #5012 will be lumped in with the rest of our passenger cars. Her and PRR RPO #6510 are in desperate need of repaints, and if local weather would ever cooperate for longer than just hours at a time, will receive them this year. #5012 will be going back into her Erie green as #6510 will be going back into her Pennsy Tuscan. I'm at a standstill for finding the correct font to use on #6510, and our friends at the Mad River & NKP RR Museum in Bellevue, OH are in the same boat for their RPO, sister #6570. If anyone knows anything about Pennsy fonts on their passenger equipment, help would be appreciated from both museums. Otherwise for rolling stock, N&W combine #1511 is being utilized for parts storage and ex-CN coach car #5060 is our primary passenger mover when #64 isn't running. #5060 arrived at the museum in 2012 in a trade with Iowa Pacific for our former sleeper, PRR Pullman "John Greenleaf Whitter". All the cars are free rolling with no major issues (excluding #1511 who needs major repair to be fit for visitors), and RPO #6510 has even been put on trains with #5060 a few times in the past 5 years. Once her cosmetic work is done and we investigate what kind of work her brake system and trucks need, this is hopefully something that can be done again.

Diesel and Electric Locomotives: 2018 will continue with the upkeep on our two operational locomotives, ex-US Army diesel GE 65-tonner #7178 and electric steeplecab Columbus & Southern Electric #2. Our second and larger steeplecab, Youngstown & Ohio River Railroad #7, needs extensive brake system and body work before she's ready to haul trains again. #7178 is our primary passenger power as at the moment, diesel fuel is cheaper than the electricity used to power the overhead for #2 and others. #2 needs some roof repairs that we will hopefully get to this year, but for now has a tarp over her roof to prevent anything from getting wet and damaged. She's still regularly used for rearranging the yard, and despite her low gearing making her a beast to operate for the volunteers, runs with ease and without issue. #7178 is mechanically sound thanks to one of its Cummins engines being rebuilt shortly before donation in 2010, its second engine needs an eventual tune up but isn't a high priority as one engine easily serves our purposes on the train rides.

Thank you to all for your time in reading this. If there's anything I've missed here, or you'd like to know about, please feel free to ask. I'll be happy to post further updates on the museum if wanted.

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Victoria "Vickie" Broskie
Ohio Railway Museum Historian, Volunteer Coordinator and Brakeman, Lover of GE's, PCC's and Saddletanks


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 8:06 pm 

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:55 pm
Posts: 2279
Welcome Vickie, please keep us up to date.


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 9:34 pm 

Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:29 pm
Posts: 1899
Location: Youngstown, OH
It is great to see you here! You are among friends.

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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 9:43 pm 

Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 5:19 pm
Posts: 567
Location: Bowie, MD
Please do keep us up to date with happenings at ORM. I have extremely fond memories of the place in the 1960's and 70's.

I wonder if management has considered a visiting steamer to raise the museums profile and at least see steam in Worthington if even for a brief period of time?

Cheers,

Bob Bunge


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 9:49 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm
Posts: 6400
Vickie -

Appreciate the candid remarks. Please keep us informed as to the happenings at ORM.


Les


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2018 2:09 pm 

Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2013 6:07 pm
Posts: 203
Thanks for the update.

For PRR lettering, may I recommend Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Car Painting and Lettering, by Charles Blardone Jr. and Peter Tilp? It was published by the PRR Technical & Historical Society in March, 1988. It should answer any and all questions about the proper paint mixes, striping, lettering fonts & sizes, etc. for PRR passenger and head-end cars.

On overhead Google Earth views, the Museum site seems to contain several items that are not listed on your roster. In particular, I note a hopper car and possibly other freight cars. Is it possible to learn about these items, and possible future plans for them?

Thanks. Wishing success to you and your group.

Tom


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:14 pm 

Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:11 pm
Posts: 12
Location: Columbus, OH
bbunge wrote:
I wonder if management has considered a visiting steamer to raise the museums profile and at least see steam in Worthington if even for a brief period of time?


It's been considered in the past, but we have a lot of work to do before it could be done. I've personally spoken to the Gramlings and they've been kind enough to give some great advice on our own Vulcan 0-4-0T. It'd be a great idea to have a visiting Vulcan to welcome home our own!

Tom Davidson wrote:
For PRR lettering, may I recommend Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Car Painting and Lettering, by Charles Blardone Jr. and Peter Tilp? It was published by the PRR Technical & Historical Society in March, 1988. It should answer any and all questions about the proper paint mixes, striping, lettering fonts & sizes, etc. for PRR passenger and head-end cars.

On overhead Google Earth views, the Museum site seems to contain several items that are not listed on your roster. In particular, I note a hopper car and possibly other freight cars. Is it possible to learn about these items, and possible future plans for them


Thank you very much for the info on the Pennsy lettering! As for the items at the museum, which roster are you looking at? It's been a while since we've had an official one published (another one of many projects I have to work on, it never ends!) and some of the cars in question (most notably the hopper) are lacking reporting marks or identification of any kind, so I'm always on the hunt for information about them. Currently we have 6 reefers/boxcars, a flatcar, and a hopper and a half (the half was partially scrapped by the previous administration). 5 of the reefers are used for storage while the 6th has been converted into a shop car. The flatcar and half-hopper are just static, while the complete hopper is used for occasional ballasting when the job is too large to do by hand. Eventually we'd like to get some of the storage reefers turned into display cars as other museums have done with theirs.

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Victoria "Vickie" Broskie
Ohio Railway Museum Historian, Volunteer Coordinator and Brakeman, Lover of GE's, PCC's and Saddletanks


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:15 pm 

Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:11 pm
Posts: 12
Location: Columbus, OH
Apologies for posting twice in a row, but this was worth the second post: Some great news as one of the local stations came out today to do a story on our efforts for the last Columbus Car!

http://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/ohio-railway-museum-needs-help-to-restore-historic-columbus-streetcar/1136337485

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Victoria "Vickie" Broskie
Ohio Railway Museum Historian, Volunteer Coordinator and Brakeman, Lover of GE's, PCC's and Saddletanks


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:55 am 

Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2004 7:57 am
Posts: 2576
Location: Faulkland, Delaware
Thanks for the update and your post once again proves that RYPN is a very useful resource on the world wide web.

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Tom Gears
Wilmington, DE

Maybe it won't work out. But maybe seeing if it does will be the best adventure ever.


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 12:42 pm 

Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:54 am
Posts: 1773
Location: New Franklin, OH
On the 6510, I may have the correct herald and lettering set in vector artwork suitable for having paint masks or cut vinyl made. You won't find it in a font since it was designed by PRR and was proprietary. I should also have some paint info for it and also for the Erie car. I'll do a check of my archives and post back.

[EDIT] Now that I did some digging, I think that PRR Technical & Historical Society has or had a font designed for PRR lettering. However, working with fonts to get the size right is a royal pain. I do have the appropriate passenger car lettering in vector format, I would only need to scale it to full size. I also have the correct herald if you were are to use them - depends on what year(s) whether or not they were on the car. I'd need to scale that, also.

The original DuPont PRR colors were:
Tuscan: 5505
Imitation Gold: 44157
Toluidine Red (herald): 6282
Black is just black
A good Axalta (DuPont) dealer with the old references should be able to do some samples for you in current formulations. It's unlikely PPG can cross reference it.

The current PPG colors used on the NS Erie Heritage Unit are:
Light Green: 411630
Dark Green: 411470
Yellow (if you need it): 801760 [EDIT] That should be the Safety Yellow used on the grab irons.

PM or email me if I can help with the lettering.

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Eric Schlentner
Turner of Wrenches, Drawer of Things


Last edited by jayrod on Mon Apr 30, 2018 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:10 pm 

Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2013 6:07 pm
Posts: 203
On those freight cars, the reporting marks of the original owner was usually cast into the truck sideframes, and this can be a good starting point (assuming the trucks are not replacements). In looking over past material from O.R.M, I have seen photos of electric and steam equipment, but no good photos of your freight cars. If you could post such photos, the members here might be able to help with identification. If any original paint remains, information about the color might also be helpful.

Tom


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 4:25 pm 

Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:11 pm
Posts: 12
Location: Columbus, OH
Hello again all,

Sorry for taking this long with another update. We've had a lot going on since April and things are still looking up.

First and foremost, for those asking for a roster, I have one: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hz4i6tdfoxwdp19/ORM%20Roster%20-%206-19-2018.png?dl=0
Special thanks goes to Tom Davidson for suggesting looking on the trucks of cars for their original owners, this helped a lot in finding the history on the two ballast hoppers.

Onto the actual museum updates. This month we welcomed home Marble Cliff Quarry Co. #1 after an 11-year loan to a private events facility with a railroad theme. She arrived back on June 11th to some curious onlookers and very happy museum volunteers. I lost count of how many people pulled in the parking lot that evening just to take a look at her. Right now we only plan on working on her cosmetically, but an operational restoration is something we'd like to look into in the future.
Image

Fundraising has been slow for the last Columbus Streetcar, #703. Today we learned that we received a matching grant from the wonderful folks at 20th Century Electric Railway Foundation for half the renovation costs. With this, we only have to raise half of the costs originally projected. We're still taking donations online and in person, online at the links below the photo of 703's current state.
Image
GoFundMe: https://bit.ly/2s8YrDX
YouCaring: https://bit.ly/2s764vq

The rest of the work has been ongoing site cleanup and RoW work. We've had a lot of rain in the Columbus area this year so brush cutting and weed spraying have taken up a lot of time. We're still planning on doing cosmetic work on RPO #6510 and Doodlebug #5012, but the weather hasn't been cooperative... yet. Fingers crossed, though.

One last thing is that we are still looking for volunteers. I know this is something that just about every organization needs help with, but we're especially running short staffed for our Sunday open (operations) days and are starting to on our workdays. Everyone has lives outside of this hobby (and business for some) and we get that, which is another reason why we're hoping to expand the volunteer base so that nobody gets burned out. If any of you are in the area and are interested in helping, please let me know and I'd be happy to get you all the information and get you started with us.
I'd also be glad to hear of any advice or tips from the rest of you on how to recruit new volunteers - social media hasn't helped much other than getting 'likes' or people saying they'd like to help but never reply back!

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Victoria "Vickie" Broskie
Ohio Railway Museum Historian, Volunteer Coordinator and Brakeman, Lover of GE's, PCC's and Saddletanks


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:07 pm 

Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2016 9:49 pm
Posts: 84
Location: Northern Illinois
It can be seen on the roster that last year, you acquired a Baltimore & Ohio caboose. Is this on the property yet? What is the condition of the caboose? Thanks for the update.


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:32 pm 

Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:11 pm
Posts: 12
Location: Columbus, OH
lmckay175 wrote:
It can be seen on the roster that last year, you acquired a Baltimore & Ohio caboose. Is this on the property yet? What is the condition of the caboose? Thanks for the update.


She arrived last September. She needs A LOT of work (we have found a pair of trucks though!) and is going to be a long-term project, but we saved her in all sense of the word - the property she was on was scheduled for demolition within a couple days and would have rendered her as wood debris and scrap metal.

Photo is her sitting next to our 65-ton GE.

Image

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Victoria "Vickie" Broskie
Ohio Railway Museum Historian, Volunteer Coordinator and Brakeman, Lover of GE's, PCC's and Saddletanks


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 Post subject: Re: An Update On The Ohio Railway Museum
PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:16 am 

Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:29 pm
Posts: 1899
Location: Youngstown, OH
Congratulations on the matching grant! Doing some fine work down there at one of America's first railway museums.

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inside Conrail caboose 21747


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