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This museum is located just outside Downtown Bellevue. It costs $7.00 to get in and there's ample free parking available near the museum's coach yard. After parking the rental car, I went inside the museum's gift shop, paid the admission fare and had a nice conversation with a museum volunteer about the passenger cars they have on site. If you're a fan of the Nickel Plate or just a railfan of any kind, you should check out this museum, you'll really enjoy what they have here. Enjoy... |
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This Pullman Sleeper "American Life" was built for the Erie RR and used on the Erie Limited. |
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Nickel Plate Coach #105 - This Pullman-Standard built coach saw service on Amtrak with its exterior back in Nickel Plate colors. |
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Interior View of #105. This car had a center wall with coach seating on each side. |
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Amtrak #9401 - Silver Dome, this was the very first dome car built in America. It was originally built as a coach and would serve as a prototype for future dome cars. The car was initially built as a coach in 1939 with its conversion to a dome car in 1945. |
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Lower level interior view of #9401. |
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View of the Dome section of #9401. |
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Amtrak #8002, a former Seaboard Air Line 48-seat Dining Car built in 1939. |
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Dining area section of #8002. |
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The Kitchen galley in #8002. |
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OK, not exactly a museum piece but this NS freight passed by the museum grounds while I was there. To add some meaningless historical significance to this photo, that black Pontiac G6 to the left of the train was my rental car on this trip! |
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B&O Wagon Top Caboose #C2424. |
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Former N&W (Ex-NKP) Work Train Dining Car. This car served on the Bellevue Wreck Train. |
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The Museum's restoration building with N&W #402 Railway Safety Instruction Car sitting outside the shop. |
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Ex-Amtrak #3226, former Seaboard Coast Line 6 Double Bedroom Sleeper "Sea Island Beach". |
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Great Northern # 1384 "Lewis & Clark Pass" Sleeper, Ex-Amtrak #2450. This car was used on the original Empire Builder. |
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Amtrak #5688, built by Pullman-Standard in 1947, it's a former Auto Train 56 seat coach, originally named "Roaring Camp". |
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Former New York Central Snowplow #3X665. |
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A wide-angle view of the main museum grounds. |
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Wooden Nickel Plate Caboose #1047, on display inside one of the museum's buildings. |
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Porter 0-6-0 Fireless Cooker steam locomotive. |
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Milwaukee Road Fairbanks Morse H-12-44 #740. |
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Nickel Plate GP-30 #900, a former NS unit. |
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Nickel Plate RSD-12 #329. This unit was in the middle of being painted when I visited the museum. |
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Nickel Plate Bay-Window Caboose #423. |
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B&O Alco Switcher #9096. |
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Pullman Troop Sleeper #7407. |
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Milwaukee Road Coach #618. Built as a 56 seat coach for the Olympian Hiawatha. |
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Former Wheeling & Lake Erie Curtice, OH depot. Moved to Bellevue in 1976 and renamed "Bellevue". |
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N&W #401 Railroad Safety And Mechanical Instruction Car. |
What I've shown here only scratches the surface of what this museum has to offer. Lot's of hands-on displays and historical displays await you here at this fine museum. The railfanning on the NS main is also decent. Be sure to stop by this museum if you're ever in the Bellevue or Sandusky area and bring lots of film or memory cards (I'm beginning to see I'm one of the only people left still shooting slides anymore!). After leaving the museum, I stopped by a nearby McDonald's for lunch then drove back to Sandusky, stopping to visit a former co-worker from CP along the way. After spending some time in the hotel and enjoying a "P-Zone" from Pizza Hut, I drove over to Meijer to pick up some supplies for the trip and over to Wal-Mart to pick up the new Diana Krall Greatest Hits CD. I figured some good jazz music would go well with train travel! After getting back to the hotel, I loaded that CD onto my iPod and eventually drove the rental car back to Enterprise as I would no longer need it. I took a taxi back to the hotel, and would just hang out for the rest of the evening. |
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