Randy Pirkle, SRM Administrator

October has been a fascinating and fabulous month thanks to our volunteers and visitors!

We continued making significant strides in rehabilitating the park train. We are optimistic that we'll be able to begin testing the track and equipment later this fall thanks to a multi-pronged attack our teams have made on the work involved.

The MacGyver episode filmed largely at the museum in September aired this month. Many of the rail scenes were at the museum (featuring cars 4529 (normally a party car), 1111(a coach)  and 3168 (diner). While it was clear the production took some amount of artistic license it was also good to see our equipment on screen.

  

As usual, our education department continues to host an excellent 2nd Thursday pre-school program (focused on Cherry Pickers) in between field trips and group tours. This month in addition to a number of groups, we hosted a long distance  group tour with a group of 23 visitors from France that were in the U.S. specifically visiting rail related museum's. Next month's 2nd Thursday program will feature Cement Mixer trucks. Our education department has some exciting this in store! Make sure to review the scheduled activities and reserve your tickets HERE.

We hosted a group of the volunteers that put on Duluth's fabulous Fall Festival each year during the third week of the month.  This was organized by our partner the Duluth Historic Society (and catered by Zoe's Kitchen) to introduce the Fall Festival team to the Historic Society exhibit on Fall Festival history and the SRM.  Museum staff presented a slide show introducing this group to our facility and some of the projects we put on each year as well as our events schedule. Speakers included DHS president Candace Morgan, Museum shop manager Jordan Rice, Museum Operations manager Andrew Durder & myself.

         

As the month drew to a close, it got even more hectic.  On Tuesday the 25th, we hosted groundbreaking for our new RTE building with about 70 folks in attendance. This included volunteers as well as local dignitaries and thanks to a lot of volunteer time & energy, was well received by all.  On Friday the 28th, the NS local dropped off our newest donated exhibit NS9690 (formerly Sou9690) a huge box car in the series that Southern Railway used to revolutionize the freight rates in the mid-1960's. Then we held Train or Treat.

         

Train or Treat  is our annual Halloween themed event designed to attract children and explore history at the same time.  This year we exceeded our wildest projections in that we hosted over 1065 visitors for the one day event. Attendance for the day sets a new record for one day at the museum (it even beat entire months from the "off" season).  We gave out over 12,000 pieces of candy and had over 600 folks ride the train.  While we had high school volunteers staffing candy stations,  museum volunteers staffed the train... and robbed the train multiple times throughout the day.  It was an amazing day, THANK YOU to everyone that attended or volunteered at the event.

Coming up we'll have our annual Model Railroad Days (Nov 5-6) followed by Santa & Christmas events. The additional showings of Polar Express Experience created by adding an additional rail car added almost 50% to our capacity and that event has sold out. We still have seats available for both Breakfast with Santa and Lunch with Santa at this time. View available dates and times below within this newsletter in the events sections.

As the year winds down and you start thinking about year end and tax preparation, please think about the museum and especially the RTE building project.  As the environment for building in Atlanta has changed over the course of the planning of this project, we're finding a need to raise a significant additional amount of funding in order ensure the building meets the standard we've set and we can use your help.  Please make a donation this year to support the museum and let us know if your employer will match, it will mean a lot to the success of this project and the growth of the museum.  For more information about donating please visit our website donations page.
 

We look forward to your next visit to the museum and
hope you enjoy seeing the evolution and growth!

For the months of September and October, we began working on the transfer caboose. It started with a lot of sawing, splitting wood with a maul and use of a bolt cutter to remove the old wood flooring. Then we proceeded to the cleaning and painting phase in preparation for the new flooring.

After that, we followed with the measurement and cutting of the new floor boards. Now in progress is the drilling and bolting of the flooring to the caboose frame. Nick Whitehouse and Doug Ballin are the primary workers that have been leading this project. Other shop volunteers assist as needed. We have made many strides on the transfer caboose and will continue to update on our progress.

The Southeastern Railway Museum has over 125 volunteers collectively contribute over 1200 hours per month. Valuing at over $20,000. Without our volunteers, the museum would not function like a well oiled machine.

SRM volunteer Melissa Carel narrating the adventures of the Atlanta-Charlotte line 
on October the 29th during our Train-or-Treat event!  We had a great day!

Thank you for all that you do, Melissa.
You are greatly appreciated!

Did you know that the museum hosts birthday parties for children of all ages? For one group rate you get 20 people into the museum, train rides for everyone and 2 hours in an airc onditioned railcar to have your party. Stop by or call us for more details!