The Museum is also pleased to announce that brown and white attractions signs are currently being installed through out the Town of Riverhead to direct patrons to the museum easily and stress free. The Museum had the signs made over the winter and the Town of Riverhead is currently installing them. This is a major accomplishment for the museum because people can find us now with ease and many will learn that the museum is there. The Town of Riverhead also installed two new Pedestrian signs along Griffing Ave to the North and South of the Museum’s main gates. These much needed signs were added to warn motorists of heavy foot traffic by museum patrons during the operating season. The Museum is extremely grateful to Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter & The Riverhead Town Board along with the Riverhead Town Highway Dept. for their cooperation and hard work installing the new sings. Make sure you watch the side of the road for our signs the next time you come out to RMLI Riverhead, just follow them to the Museum!
We also continued the brush clean up and maintenance of the museum grounds for our April 9th grand opening. Leaves continued to be trucked off site, while general maintenance was preformed. The gardens that surround the museum have been weeded in preparation of new spring time flowers. Wood Chips have also been spread throughout the gardens in preparation of the new season. Lou Caruso has started to work in the Railroad yard around Steam Locomotive 39 cleaning up all the winter debris. Big thanks to Lou for taking on that project single handily, is greatly appreciated and greatly noticeable!
The World’s Fair Train continues to go through it’s annual maintenance and inspections. Today the main objective was inspecting the brakes on the locomotive and passenger cars. Everything passed with flying colors, as train kept going around the loop on practice runs with the engineers that were on the property today to get those practice runs ins. Needless to say I lost count of how many times it went around after 10! An extensive track examination was completed with necessary lubricants. The switches received their last adjustments and TLC after being covered in the deep snow for 2 months. Engine 701 and her train will be ready to whisk another generation of rail fans back to the World’s Fair starting April 9th.
And last but certainly not least the Historic Lionel layout continues to near completions. Lights and station platforms work, with signals and missile cars ready for museum patrons April 9th. Today Francis Amendelo and his nephew Patrick worked tirelessly on their hands and knees ballasting the many “Miles” of track on the layout. The Grand Opening of the layout will be April 9th at 10am-4pm. Admission is free to all with. We Hope to see you all their! Children of all ages will be amazed at this 14’ by 40’ train layout, able to run seven train sets at a time and chock full of LIONEL accessories that you can operate! Donated to the RMLI by LIONEL LLC, electric trains – this layout, (designed after the 1949 New York City LIONEL Toy Train Display), was moved from LIONEL’s offices at Chesterfield, Michigan and lovingly restored by volunteers of the Long Island Toy Train Locomotive Engineers Committee of the Railroad Museum of Long Island.
We’d also like to thank all our hardworking volunteers for putting in overtime the last few weeks to get the museum and the Lionel layout ready!
This weekend the Railroad Museum of Long Island had the honor of presenting “An Overview of the Long Island Rail Road” presented by Mr. Bob Sturm at the Suffolk County Historical Society in Riverhead. Mr. Sturm is the author of the “New York Connecting Railroads” along with a new book about the Long Island Rail Road that will come out later in the year. The forum was a preview of Mr. Sturm’s new book that can be described as anything but your classic LIRR history book in the sense that it goes into detail with reasons why the LIRR did certain things, rather then a “Basic History” that would explain what the LIRR had done. Mr. Sturm gave an OUTSTANDING presentation that went into great depth of the LIRR’s history from roughly 1844-1960. 42 Guests attended the forum to hear the presentation which required additional chairs to be added to the room, something we were pleased to see. Thank you to all that attended this year’s event and supporting the Museum. Special Thanks goes to Mr. Sturm for giving such a wonderful presentation!!!