IFC accepts gift to Railroad Museum

The Legislative Interim Finance Committee on Thursday accepted a gift of $49,200 to the Nevada State Railroad Museum.

Museum director Peter Barton said the gift was a surprise.

“It’s not every day you open the mail and there’s a check,” he said.

Barton said the money was left to the museum by a Southern California man “with an obvious affinity for railroad history and heritage.”

He said Bruce Ward was an engineer. When he died, he left money to the Nevada museum and 13 other organizations — all but one a railroad museum — in his will.

Barton said the money will be used to help rebuild the museum’s operational locomotive and to match federal money for landscaping, among other things.