Railroad Museum of the Niagara Frontier facts for kids
The Railroad Museum of the Niagara Frontier is a cool place to learn about trains! It's located in North Tonawanda, New York, inside an old train building called a freight depot. This building was built way back in 1922 by the Erie Railroad. A group called the Niagara Frontier Chapter of the National Railroad Historical Society runs the museum. Their main goal is to save and share the history of railroads in the Buffalo, New York area. Buffalo used to be a super important place for trains in America! This group also owns the museum.
Museum History
The museum officially opened its doors on June 1, 2003. Before that, dedicated members worked hard to fix up and restore the old train depot. There was a special ceremony to celebrate the opening. A local leader named George Maziarz even gave a speech.
What You Can See
The Railroad Museum of the Niagara Frontier has many interesting items. You can see small artifacts that tell stories about trains. They also have four real pieces of railway equipment!
Train Cars and Engines
The museum has two special train cars called cabooses. Cabooses are the cars at the very end of a freight train. One of the museum's cabooses came from the Erie Railroad. The other one was used by the New York Central railroad.
They also have two different types of train engines, called locomotives.
- One is a small, gasoline-powered engine called a Plymouth 20-Tonner. It's used for moving cars around a rail yard.
- The other is a Whitcomb 50-Ton Diesel-Hydraulic centercab switcher. This powerful engine was built in Canada. It used to work for the Tonawanda Island Railroad (TILR).
The EL-2 Tower
Right across the street from the museum is an old building called EL-2. This building is a New York Central interlocking tower. An interlocking tower is where people used to control train tracks and signals. This helped trains switch tracks safely. The museum plans to fix up this tower in the future. They want to make it part of the museum experience.
