Railroad Museum seeks $1M in transportation funding

The Nevada State Railroad Museum is seeking more than $1 million in grant money to protect and better display its collection of historic train equipment.

Members of the Carson Area Metropolitan Planning Organization will hear about the plan during their meeting at 5:30 p.m. today. Local officials only need to approve the museum's plan.

One of the grant requests would help pay for a storage facility to protect some of the 20 large museum pieces that must be left outdoors, such as locomotives and passenger cars, because of a lack of enclosed space.

The museum has 80,000 square feet of space to hold its inventory of 65 pieces of railroad equipment. This, however, "is still not enough to afford protection for the growing collection," said Peter Barton, museum director.

What won't fit indoors now is "subject to whatever the weather drops on it, and we need to protect the equipment entrusted to our care," he said.

The $382,000 would finance creation of a roofed storage site 40 feet wide and 125 feet long that could accommodate up to nine more pieces.

The other funding request for $681,338 would finance creation of 4,000 feet of track for trains that can't run on the current one-mile route now used for the Santa Train and Steam Up events, Barton said.

A significant number of the trains that ran through Nevada were used for timber or mining, and many of these trains ran on narrow tracks. The museum only has 300 feet of the narrow track now and can only run these types of trains "back and forth," he said.

Riding the trains is the way many people spend their first visits to the museum. Seeing the trains run provides visitors "a better overall interpretation" of the equipment, he said.

The money for the shelter is what the museum has identified as the most important request of the two, according to Barton.

The museum opened in 1980. Forty of the locomotives and train cars were built before 1900, and 31 of them were operated by the V&T Railroad.

Much of the rail equipment at the museum was featured in films and on television. Studios purchased the items to provide an authentic look to productions. In time, the museum has acquired some of these items. It also works with collectors and railroad companies to obtain pieces.

The goal of this Carson City-based museum is to preserve the state's railroad heritage, and the money would come from a federal transportation grant administered by the Nevada Department of Transportation for museums that highlight ground travel.

"These were the only valid applications submitted," said Patrick Pittenger, the city's transportation program manager, of the Carson City-based state museum's request. It will be measured against other similar requests from across the state by NDOT.

• Contact reporter Terri Harber at tharber@nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111, ext. 215.

If you go

WHAT: Carson Area Metropolitan

Planning Organization and Carson City

Regional Transportation Commission.

WHEN: 5:30 p.m. today

WHERE: Sierra Room, Carson City

Community Center, 851 E. William St.

In other business

• Action to modify Route 3 of Jump

Around Carson bus line to add service on Curry Street between Koontz

Lane and Clearview Drive. It wouldn't

start until the street re-opens.

• Discussion about plan to obtain a federal economic development grant for

reconstruction of Curry Street from

Lake Glen Drive to Koontz Lane.