WILLIAMSVILLE DEPOT - 2008 UPDATES

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Williamsville Depot 2008

Williamsville Depot Chairman, Tom Stackhouse reports that the depot crew has been busy at work all spring. Four new colored glass windows have been installed in the dormers located in the main waiting room. They are also planning to restore the main agent's office windows as soon as the $5000 grant from Senator Rath is received.

The depot will be open every Sunday afternoon from 1pm until 4pm through Labor Day.

There has been quite a bit of progress on the restoration of the depot on the Lehigh Valley Trail off South Long Street in Williamsville since the six waiting room and two dormer windows were manufactured in the Spring. Glass for the windows was obtained from the windows of another building built about the same time as the Williamsville depot, and it shows the occasional waviness and rare bubbles of glass typical of the late 1800's. Thanks to Mark Klepadlo and Don Wood for their excellent work.

The Amish farmer who has agreed to fabricate the molding identical to the molding originally used in the depot around the windows and elsewhere (at least 200 linear feet will be needed) has been given the "go-ahead" to begin work.

Meanwhile, funding for the remaining eight windows still awaits release from a promised New York State grant. Tom Stackhouse called for information relating to the status of the grant and was told that four additional bits of information were needed. Two of these, Tom has since provided, but the others relate to the lease of the land under the building and require the Village of Williamsville to supply them. These include citations from the minutes of the Village Board approving the lease, and copies of the agreement between the Village and the WNY RHS. The Village Mayor has referred the issue to the Village Administrator for action. It should be noted that the roof of the Orchard Park depot awaits a similar grant.

The August 15th slide show, held in the Williamsville depot, documenting the transfer of theSociety's steam locomotive I-1, which sat on an isolated piece of track in Pennsylvania, to Western New York, was well received by an enthusiastic audience of visitors, mostly residents of the Village, that nearly filled the passenger waiting room of the depot.

In June, visitors from the Hornell-Ithaca Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society commented on the reconstruction progress at the 114 year old Williamsville Lehigh Valley depot since their last visit a year ago. Shortly afterwards, this group visited the Orchard Park depot.

Overall, the numbers of visitors to the Williamsville depot has been greater this summer than in the past, probably because the replacement of the two trail-side windows in the passenger waiting room has allowed passers-by to look into the station to see the progress that has been made.