A Visit To The Lake Shore Railway Museum

I have made this type of a trip before and decided I wanted to get back to the Erie area again for some good railfanning this year. Couple this with having the privilege of being back at Cedar Point again, this time for the opening of their new nightly music/laser/entertainment show "Luminosity", and I had the puzzle pieces to put together a good road trip! My first stop of the day would be in the Erie suburb of North East, home of the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society's museum known as the Lake Shore Railway Museum. The museum is built in an original Lake Shore & Michigan Southern (New York Central) passenger depot which was built in 1899 and the museum is also home to several pieces of historic railroad rolling stock, locomotives, speeder cars as well as signal lights. One of the museum's specialties is rides in a real speeder car on one of the tracks on the museum grounds! This museum is a must if you're a fan of the New York Central as well as a fan of today's trains since the station grounds are next to the busy CSX Lake Shore Sub (Former Conrail/New York Central Chicago Line). You also have a good view of the Norfolk Southern (former Nickel Plate) main not too far back from the CSX main. Included here are some photos I took on my visit to this great museum this year...

A view from the platform of the station building looking east.

Former Budd-built Great Northern Empire Builder dining car "Lake Wenatchee" is on display
and open for tours during regular museum hours.

LEFT: The color-position light signal shows a Stop indication, meaning the museum is closed. RIGHT: The the same signal now shows
a Clear indication, and the museum is open for business. This is an original color position light signal that is of B&O heritage.

Lots of equipment on display in the "yard"! Yes, there is a signalman up inside that tower, he's been hard at work for years!

Former Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Baggage Car #1530, a heavyweight car built in 1918.

Pullman Observation/Lounge/Sleeping Car "Central Park". According to the museum, this is the last known Pullman car of its
kind to exist in its original configuration. This car was part of the New York Central's signature train, the 20th Century Limited.

Based on this photo, it looks like the Western Maryland and Amtrak had "speeder" service at one time!!! The museum does give
rides in one of its speeder cars (the Western Maryland speeder shown above), you'll see some photos from that a bit later!

Also on the museum's property is the old Lake Shore & Michigan Southern freight depot.

Let's not forget, we're sitting next to a busy mainline! Here we have CSX Train Q-167 with GE ES44DC #5325 on the head end.

Now it's time to take a ride on a speeder! Departing the depot, we go past the museum's former New York Central GE U25B #2500.

Moving right along past some of the museum's equipment on display!

Coming up near the old freight depot. This "engineer's" view is really cool!!!

Getting closer to the mainline!

The museum's track ends at this derail, CSX owns the track beyond that point.

And here's another freight, this time an eastbound CSX van with GE ES44DC #5480 leading.

The inside of the passenger station is filled with lots of really cool historical displays of railroads in this part of Pennsylvania!

Another view inside the passenger depot. There's so much to see here, you should definitely make a trip to
North East and check out this great museum, it makes for a good trip!

Some experimental paint schemes that were designed when Amtrak was first formed, a variation of the one in the middle photo
would go on to become "Phase II" though the other two photos look to have just been that, experimental! That's all from the
museum, lets head out to the GE Test Track!