ALL ABOARD

The Newsletter of the Oakland B & O Railroad Station Museum

Vol. 2, no. 2    Fall 2011

Our First Railfest - Friday, Saturday, Sunday, September 23, 24, 25, 2011

The Railfest kicks off with an invitational open house Friday night from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Members of the Greater Oakland Business Association and the Garrett Chamber of Commerce have been invited to tour the train station and hear about our plans. People who have been helpful in our fund raising efforts have also been especially invited.  Mr. John W. Garrett, the President of the B&O Railroad, is expected to join us for this event.

On Saturday and Sunday the train station will be open to the general public from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  The BANTRAK group from Baltimore is organizing an amazing model train exhibit in the baggage room for all to see, and there will be several vendors of model train equipment and accessories. 

The Oakland B&O Train Station Museum Committee will also have DVDs, T-shirts, and station prints for sale, along with raffle tickets for the beautiful Simon Pearce hurricane lantern engraved with a line drawing of the station.  Robert Rodeheaver will be present to sign copies of his print of the station.

Glidden Tour - Wednesday, Sept 21 during the day

On the Wednesday preceding the weekend Railfest event, the Town of Oakland and the Train Station will host the 66th Revival Glidden auto tour organized by the Antique Auto Club of America. About 250 antique cars and the 600 people with them will leave Cumberland in the morning, tour Swallow Falls and then park their cars in Oakland along Liberty Street for all to see, have lunch at the Elks Club, and spend the afternoon visiting Oakland’s museums and attractions. Cars and drivers from 22 states will be represented.  While most of the cars are American made and date from the 1920s to the 1940s, there are a few less well known.  If you come to see them, look for a 1909 Ford Model T, a 1912 Locomobile, a 1923 Paige Touring Car, Reos from 1927 and 1930, a 1931 DeVaux, a 1936 International Woody, and from 1930 a Franklin, a Cord and a Duisenberg, all presently on the list of cars and drivers planning to attend.  The train station will be open from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. 

Autumn Glory - Wednesday through Sunday, October 12-16

The Train Station will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. each day of Autumn Glory. There will be self-guided tours, and all the items from our Station store will be available for sale. 

The raffle drawing for the Simon Pearce hurricane lantern will be held on Sunday, October 16 at 3:00 p.m. in the station.

For Sale at the Station Store

- DVDs - Al Feldstein’s “Postcard Tour of Oakland” is available for $20.

- T-shirts - Leon Cardiff has designed a handsome tan cotton t-shirt with a line drawing of the station. It will be available in youth (YM-YXL) and adult (S-3XL) sizes for $20. 

- Robert Rodeheaver’s Oakland B&O Train Station prints - large prints (16 x 24) will be on sale for $40, copies signed by Mr. Rodeheaver are $50; set of five cards (same print) with envelopes - $10.

- Simon Pearce Hurricane Lantern raffle tickets, $2 each, 3 for $5, 6 for $10. The drawing for the winner will be held on Sunday, October 16 at the station at 3:00 p.m.

- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (MBI Railroad Color History) by Kirk Reynolds and Dave Oroszi, two copies are available at $25 each.

Closing the Train Station for important work

We are ready to begin the process of remodeling the station to become a Museum. Century Engineering has been chosen to supervise this work, to oversee the contractors and to interface with the Maryland Historical Trust so that our beautiful building retains its historic integrity. The station will be closed over the winter when some of the interior work - preparing the windows for control of UV light, installing air conditioning and dehumidifying equipment, etc. will take place.  Some of the exterior work will be done this fall and some in the spring, and the entire building will be repainted, inside and out.  We hope that all will be completed by next spring and that we can open the building then so that you can see what has been accomplished.

Railroad Station quilt for sale

The beautiful king-size quilt made for the Oakland B&O Train Station is for sale.  The quilt top was created by Martha McGettigan of the Heritage Quilters in Oakland using a quilting pattern popular during the time the train station was being constructed called “Burgoyne Surrounded.” The quilt is made from reproduction Civil War fabrics in the colors of the station - brick red, slate blue and grey, and sandstone tan.  The quilt was assembled and quilted by Janet Fike of the Friendsville Library Quilters in a pattern selected by members of that group.  This piece of traditional Appalachian craftwork can be yours for $1,000, all to benefit the repairs and restructuring needed to make the train station suitable to become a museum.  The quilt is hanging in the train station and may be viewed there whenever the train station is open to the public. Contact Terry Helbig at 301-533-1050 if you are interested.

Remembering the Station’s past...

Camping  in the 1960s

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, a summer camp was operated just southwest of the Oakland station. The girls’ camp was named Minnetoska, after the nearby lake, and the boys’ camp was named Whitethorn. I have no idea how many acres the property included, but there were about 8 cabins (6-8 bunks each) in each camp with a centrally located barn and dining hall. There were also stables for the horses, an arts and crafts cabin, a large barn for rainy weather days, and tennis courts.

I was a student at the University of Maryland in 1963 when I answered an ad for a camp counselor position for this 8 week camp. I got the job and traveled from Baltimore to Oakland to work for the summer. I taught swimming and arts and crafts. The camp brought children from DC and Baltimore up to Oakland to spend part of their summer in the mountains and they came by train. The staff arrived about a week ahead to prepare the camp, and when the campers arrived, we took a big old school bus and two trucks to the station to pick them and their camp trunks up.  The campers stayed two weeks, and we would take them back to the station and pick up the next group. The farewells were always quite teary. The railroad station staff was always very accommodating and seemed to enjoy having the children at the station. 

I spent three summers working there and loved every minute of it. We not only had a host of activities for the campers on site, but we took them on day trips to Swallow Falls, Herrington Manor, and Blackwater Falls. I remembers a summer in 1963 or ‘64 when we had snow flurries in July.  And the lake water was very cold and I had to get in it nearly every day. 

My younger sister was one of the campers who took the train trip to camp. She and I revisited the old train station together last fall and even drove out to try to find the camp site. We found the lake, but most of the outbuildings were gone and the land has been developed into home sites. We were amazed that the driving time from Baltimore now takes such a short time. It took me nine hours back in the ‘60s.

I will always cherish fond memories of my summers in Oakland and the beauty of that part of the world.

Riding the Train to Oakland

At age seven I was considered old enough to travel alone for vacations with my aunt Lucille Henry Robinson and her family in Oakland. We would drive from Fairmont to the B&O station at Grafton, WV, where Dad would board the train with me and find the smiling car attendant who would see that my suitcase and I were safely delivered to Aunt Lu. I wore a respectable Sunday dress and shoes and carried the book, packed lunch and clean handkerchief provided by my grandmother.

I loved feeling the train vibrating beneath me and looked forward to the moment when it finally began to gather speed and leave the station. Going up mountain grades, the ride was slow and there was time to take in the views outside; going down was a different matter, at once exciting and scary. The train whistle would hoot as we approached crossings and the several stops along the way where people would get on and off. There was no public address system and the conductor would walk through the cars calling the names of the towns ahead. The smell inside was a cozy combination of train grit, warm leather (seats), sandwiches, and ladies’ perfumes and I would inevitably fall asleep at some point. Finally we would arrive in Oakland where Aunt Lu and my cousin Monica would be grinning and waving as the train pulled into the station. In the car heading home, we would pass important landmarks: Rudy’s clothing store (new bathing suits), Englander’s drugstore (ice cream sodas), and the movie theater (Saturday matinees and popcorn). Summer had begun.

Thanks to Demma and Jeanne for their recollections. You can send the editor your funny stories or reminiscences of the railroad station when it was still serving the public.  Marilyn Moors This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .  

Book Review

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, by Kirk Reynolds and Dave Oroszi, published by Voyager Press, 2008, is part of a series on railroad systems by the same publisher. The book is big and glossy, full of historic black and white photos and lovely recent color shots. It is organized historically, starting with the railroad’s founding in 1828, and follows the progress of the railroad up to 1987. But the thrust of the book is its photos rather than its text. The black and white pictures are appropriately grainy and historic, the modern photos are beautifully set. The authors seem to have a preference for the rolling stock of the railroad system and have included shots of trains coming through the more scenic areas along the tracks. There are fewer pictures of the buildings, although our station is represented by a small photo. The text is minimal and the history is sketchy. The book was published at $37, but there are two copies at the Oakland B&O Station available for $25 each.

How You Can Help

Contribute some time:

- Volunteer to serve on the Oakland B&O Railroad Station Museum Committee. We really could use someone to be our corresponding secretary.

- Volunteer at the train station. We need people to staff the museum on days when it is open, to run our Station Store, and to show visitors around. We will organize a training session if we have enough volunteers.

Contribute some money:

- Contribute art works or crafts with a railroad theme that can be sold at the Store or raffled off to raise funds for repairs.

- Become a sponsor of the Oakland B&O Railroad Station Museum

ALL ABOARD!  Join us as a

Station Master  $500 and up

Engineer  $250 

Conductor  $100 

Fireman  $50 

Brakeman  $25 

YES!

My company will be a Corporate Sponsor of the Oakland B&O Railroad Station Museum.

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Contact Person_________________________________________

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YES!

I (We) will be a Founding Sponsor(s) of the Oakland B&O Railroad Station Museum.

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Make checks out to “Oakland B&O Railroad Station Museum” and send to Train Station Museum, c/o Oakland Town Hall, 15 South Third Street, Oakland, MD 21550