Just A Car Guy: this 1956 Penn Central box car that been abandoned and forgotten for 30 years has a 3rd life left in it, as a local park centerpiece for local railroad history, after a complete restoration. The Cumberland Valley Railroad Museum will be open year-round for self-guided tours.

Tuesday, August 07, 2018

this 1956 Penn Central box car that been abandoned and forgotten for 30 years has a 3rd life left in it, as a local park centerpiece for local railroad history, after a complete restoration. The Cumberland Valley Railroad Museum will be open year-round for self-guided tours.

The car was stranded after the PRR main was ripped up through town, and they missed that it was still out on tracks because it was on a siding behind the former Domestic Castings manufacturing site in Shippensburg. Since they didn't move it before pulling up all the tracks, there it stayed.

above photo by Jacob Rink, http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rspicture.aspx?id=1082884

They cleared out a lot of brush to get the big tow trucks in

https://www.facebook.com/ShippensburgUniversity/videos/10155695038446130/

The Cumberland Valley Rail Trail Council, Cumberland Area Economic Development Corporation and Shippensburg University came together with the Shippensburg Township and Dave’s Trucking of Chambersburg to move the 1950s boxcar to the CVRT Shippensburg Trailhead right between downtown and the university.

“We are going to rehab it. We're going to power wash it, scrape it, paint it, and it’s going to look beautiful,” Steve Oldt, Supervisor Chairman, Shippensburg Township, said.

For nearly twenty years, the CVRTC has developed the former Cumberland Valley Railroad into an eleven-mile, multipurpose recreation trail. The section through Shippensburg Township Park was completed in 2006, but the stretch through campus sat relatively untouched, as usual, there were no funds.

About five years ago, the CVRTC received a grant to complete the trail on Ship’s campus, Taylor said. After dealing with a few practical issues, they started clearing out the trail in 2016.

Two things are needed to create an authentic community development, according to Dieterich-Ward—outdoor recreation and a connection to where you are. Adjacent to the trail, the boxcar provided a perfect opportunity to develop an accessible mini-museum that told the story of the Cumberland Valley Railroad. These new developments—the rail trail extension, comfort station, boxcar museum, and performance space—collectively were renamed Shippensburg Station.

Stanton said people have told stories about the different railroads, but no one has put the whole story of the Cumberland Valley Railroad together like this. “There weren’t many places served by three railroads,” he said. “The whole story has never been told in one place.”

With tracks placed underneath the boxcar and railroad artifacts inside, the boxcar transforms into a museum commemorating the rail industry in Shippensburg.