A Night At The Museum

This years theme was "40 Years of Conrail"
Article and Photo by Ian Cole

Back in June 2016 Sam Zitello and I headed up to the Lake Shore Railway Museum's "Night At The Museum" event. Along the way we made short stops at both Conneaut and Erie, where we would run into A Norfolk Southern local parked in the yard at Conneaut, Nickel Plate Road 755, and a Ferromex GEVO locomotive awaiting to be shipped from the GE in Erie.  When we arrived in North East, Pennsylvania we got to witness both Canadian Pacific trackage rights trains pass through. Shortly after we were given a tip from a few railfans in the Buffalo, New York area regarding a mixed freight on CSX that included power from Dakota Minnesota and Eastern Railway, Iowa Chicago and Eastern, Canadian Pacific, and CSX! What a start! Throughout the day before the night photo shoot would begin, we saw power from Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific as well. The museum also provided speeder rides for all to enjoy that got you up close to the New York Central signal bridge towards the edge of the museum property. Once the night photo shoot began things got even sweeter. The museum patched their New York Central 2500 a GE U25B Locomotive to look just like a former conrail locomotive before they started painting them blue. Rick Rowlands also brought his Hi-Railer truck coined "spongebob" to the event and added a nice compliment to the photos. The museum also had a Conrail transfer caboose that they would use for the event and provided plenty of nice photo opportunities. That night when everyone was off to rest a number of us had the opportunity of a lifetime to sleep in a Great Northern Railway sleeping car used on the "empire builder" train back in the day. When we woke up, we were greeted by Amtrak's 48 "The Lake Shore Limited" shortly after that, we all packed our things and headed our separate ways. All in all, the event was a great experience I will never forget!