The Eastern Shore Railway Museum is located at 18568 Dunne Avenue, Parksley, Virginia, United States. The museum exhibits historic trains and equipment.[1] The museum also contains a restored train station with railroad memorabilia from the lines that operated on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.[2]
The ESRM is open from noon until 4 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, from March through October, and housed in a restored 1906 Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station. On its siding are two cabooses,[3][4] a baggage car,[5] a Pullman sleeper,[6] Seaboard 6106, a Budd dining car,[7] a 1913 wooden box car[8] and the Diplomat, an observation car.[9] The museum also includes an 1890s maintenance-of-way tool shed,[10] a crossing guard shanty,[11] and various railroad artifacts.[12][13] The ESRM no longer maintains a website but it does have a Facebook page.[14]
ESRM museum members were affiliated with the Delmarva Chapter NRHS who had staffed the annual train excursions in held on the first Saturday of October in Hurlock, Maryland. In recent years they were replaced by Wilmington Chapter NRHS members as the Parksley Chapter became depleted by the aging and death of its members.[citation needed]
ESRM members also took part in the annual Santa trains operated by the Bay Coast Railroad each year on the first Saturday in December. The train consisted of one Bay Coast locomotive pulling the museum's Fairfax River, a stainless steel Pullman car, and it start at the BCR's southern end at Cape Charles, Virginia at 9 a.m. and head north, stopping at Cheriton (9:50a.m.), Eastville (10:40a.m.), Nassawadox (11:45a.m.), Exmore (12:30p.m.), Painter (1:35p.m.), Melfa (2:25p.m.), Onley (3:30p.m.), and Parksley (5 p.m.). Problems with the car's wheels prevented the train from running in December 2017 and in May 2018 the Bay Coast ceased operating entirely.
The demise of the Bay Coast has left the ESRM in danger of becoming rail-isolated from the national railroad network. At present the BCR's tracks are still in place; however, they were in a poor state of maintenance prior to the BCR's end of operations and subsequent filing for abandonment, and they would need millions of dollars in repairs to restore them to a satisfactory state. Richard Lewis, president of Associated Grain in Parksley, has asked that the Delmarva Central Railroad reopen the track south from its current terminus in Hallwood, Virginia, 11 miles to the north, to serve his facility. To date the DCR has said no, that the cost to restore the track would be too much and, despite the promise of 250 cars for three years, the DCR would lose money on each car.[15] If rail service to Parksley can be restored, the ESRM will be able to maintain its connection to the national railroad network. If not, it will become rail-isolated.
In January 2020 the Diplomat,[9] one of the museum's older exhibits, was to be trucked to the Colebrookdale Railroad in Boyertown, Pennsylvania and renovated for excursion use. Complications arose regarding the car's shipment and, over a year later, the car remained at the museum. In mid-March 2021 the Colebrookdale Railroad confirmed it still intended to acquire and move the car to Pennsylvania, and the ESRM has stated the current plan was for the car to be shipped on April 13, 2021.[16] A March 30, 2021 announcement on the ESRM's Facebook page, however, stated that the Colebrookdale Railroad had changed its mind and declined to acquire the car.
While the Diplomat has been on display at the museum, it is actually owned by the Delmarva Chapter NRHS and it has been on loan to the museum. Due to the aging and deaths of most of its members, the Chapter has become almost completely dormant and unable to maintain its rail car.
In July, however, the Colebrookdale Railroad changed their mind again, and on July 23, the Diplomat began its journey to Boyertown by truck.[17]
Parksley is a town in Accomack County, Virginia, United States. The population was 842 at the 2010 census. It is home to the Eastern Shore Railway Museum.
A caboose is a crewed North American railroad car coupled at the end of a freight train. Cabooses provide shelter for crew at the end of a train, who were formerly required in switching and shunting; as well as in keeping a lookout for load shifting, damage to equipment and cargo, and overheating axles.
Buckingham Branch Railroad is a Class III short-line railroad operating over 275 miles (443 km) of historic and strategic trackage in Central Virginia. Sharing overhead traffic with CSX and Amtrak, the company's headquarters are in Dillwyn, Virginia in the former Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) station, itself a historic landmark in the community.
The Eastern Shore Railroad, Inc. was a Class III short-line railroad that ran trains on the 96-mile (154 km) former New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad line on the Delmarva Peninsula between Pocomoke City, Maryland, and Norfolk, Virginia, interchanging with the Norfolk Southern Railway at both ends. It took over from the Virginia and Maryland Railroad (VMR) in October 1981 when the Accomack-Northampton Transportation District Commission (A-NTDC) purchased the line from the VMR. It stopped operations in 2006 and was then replaced by the Bay Coast Railroad.
The New Hope Valley Railway is a heritage railroad in Bonsal, North Carolina operated by the North Carolina Railway Museum, Inc., an all-volunteer, nonprofit, and tax exempt educational and historical organization.
The Bay Coast Railroad was a Class III short-line railroad that ran trains on the 96-mile (154 km) former New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad line on the Delmarva Peninsula between Pocomoke City, Maryland, and Norfolk, Virginia, interchanging with the Norfolk Southern Railway (NSR) at both ends. It took over from the Eastern Shore Railroad (ESHR) in 2006. It ceased operations on the Delmarva line around 2012 and leased part of the line to Delmarva Central Railroad in 2016. In 2018 it filed to cease operations entirely, handed operations of the Delmarva line from Pocomoke City, MD to Hallwood, VA to the Delmarva Central Railroad (DCR), handing Little Creek-Norfolk operations to the Buckingham Branch Railroad and abandoning the line from Hallwood to Cape Charles, VA.
The Stewartstown Railroad is a heritage railroad in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania. Chartered in 1884 by local interests in the Stewartstown area and opened in 1885, the Stewartstown Railroad survives today in very much original condition and retains its original corporate charter.
The Virginia Museum of Transportation (VMT) is a museum in Downtown Roanoke, Virginia, that is devoted to the topic of transportation.
Established in 1960, the Empire State Railway Museum is a non-profit railroad museum currently located in the historic Ulster & Delaware Phoenicia Railroad Station, Phoenicia, New York. The station was built in 1899 by the U&D, and is one of the few surviving examples left along the line. The museum owns a small collection of historic railroad equipment. The museum was formerly the publisher of the annual Steam Railroad Directory until the 2006 edition, when the title was taken over by Kalmbach Publishing and now released as the Tourist Trains Guidebook.
Norfolk and Western 1218 is a preserved Norfolk and Western A class 2-6-6-4 steam locomotive, built in June 1943 by the Norfolk and Western's (N&W) Roanoke Shops in Roanoke, Virginia as part of the N&W's class "A" fleet of fast freight locomotives. It was retired from regular revenue service in July 1959, and was later restored by Norfolk Southern for excursion service for their steam program, pulling excursions throughout the eastern United States from 1987 to 1991. It is currently on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, Virginia.
East Penn Railroad is a short-line railroad that operates a number of mostly-unconnected lines in Pennsylvania and Delaware. Except for two industrial park switching operations, all are former Pennsylvania Railroad or Reading Company lines, abandoned or sold by Conrail or its predecessors.
The Virginia and Maryland Railroad Company was a Class III short-line railroad that ran trains on the 96-mile (154 km) Pocomoke Secondary rail line, interchanging with the Norfolk Southern Railway at both ends. This was the former New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad line on the Delmarva Peninsula between Pocomoke City, Maryland, and Norfolk, Virginia. It took over operations from Conrail on March 30, 1977 when the Accomack-Northampton Transportation District Commission (A-NTDC) leased the line from the estate of the bankrupt Penn Central. It ceased operations in 1981 and was then replaced by the Eastern Shore Railroad.
The Railroad Museum of Oklahoma is a railroad museum located in the former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway freight depot in Enid, Oklahoma. The museum began in 1977 and is a non-profit operated by the Enid chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. The freight depot was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
The Eastern Berks Gateway Railroad is a short-line railroad in Pennsylvania that runs from Boyertown south to Pottstown over the Colebrookdale branch, where it interchanges with the Norfolk Southern Railway. The railroad was operated by U.S. Rail Partners until 2013, when the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust took over.
The New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad was a railroad that owned and operated a line that ran down the spine of the Delmarva Peninsula from Delmar, Maryland to Cape Charles, Virginia and then by ferry to Norfolk, Virginia. It became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system.
The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society (FWRHS) is a non-profit group in New Haven, Indiana that is dedicated to the restoration and operation of the ex-Nickel Plate Railroad's steam locomotive no. 765 and other vintage railroad equipment. Since restoration, the 765 was added to the National Register of Historic Places as no. 96001010 on September 12, 1996 and has operated excursion trains across the Eastern United States. In 2012, the FWRHS's steam locomotive no. 765 was added to the Norfolk Southern's 21st Century Steam program.
The Colebrookdale Railroad, also known as the Secret Valley Line or colloquially as The Colebrookdale, is a tourist railroad located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The railroad operates between Boyertown in Berks County and Pottstown in Montgomery County.
The Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Railroad is a defunct American railroad that operated passenger service from Broad Street Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Franklin City, Virginia in the late 19th Century and most of the 20th Century. At the latter city, steamship connections could be made to Chincoteague, Virginia on the Atlantic Ocean-side exterior islands.
The Delmarva Central Railroad is an American short-line railroad owned by Carload Express that operates 188 miles (303 km) of track on the Delmarva Peninsula in the states of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The railroad operates lines from Porter, Delaware to Hallwood, Virginia and from Harrington, Delaware to Frankford, Delaware along with several smaller branches. The DCR interchanges with the Norfolk Southern Railway and the Maryland and Delaware Railroad. The railroad was created in 2016 to take over the Norfolk Southern Railway lines on the Delmarva Peninsula. The DCR expanded by taking over part of the Bay Coast Railroad in 2018 and the Delaware Coast Line Railroad in 2019.
The Delmarva Division is the set of railroads on the Delmarva Peninsula of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia that were part of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) through most of the 20th Century. The lines were built by several different companies and then eventually consolidated under the control of the PRR and later the Penn Central Railroad. Throughout the 20th Century some of the rail lines were abandoned and following the bankruptcy of Penn Central and break-up on Conrail ownership changed many times.
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