Transportation Museum Christmas Show

It’s been a while since I posted here but I’ve been busy setting up “Santa’s railroad Wonderland” at the Texas Transportation Museum.  In its eleventh year, this eight night event has become a significant source of revenue for this small, independent museum, which receives no government funding of any kind, from city, county, state and federal levels. So we get by, solely, on visitor support.  We must be doing something right because we are still here after 45 years.

 Click http://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/SHD.htm for more information about “Santa’s Railroad Wonderland.”

The event is going well.  Attendance over the first weekend was the highest we have ever had.  This could be, in part, due to the media attention we received following a significant fire that gutted our party caboose.  While this looked like a traditional red caboose on the outside, its interior was converted to a party room capable of seating thirty people.  With heat and A/C, it was a significant revenue maker for us until the fire, caused by smoldering insulation material lit by welding repairs, took off in the wee hours last week.

The good news is that work to refurbish it has already begun.  This, along with the museum’s first ever significant grant towards the restoration to working condition of our 1925 Baldwin 0-4-0 steam locomotive, means both the museum and I will be very busy and even more successful in 2010.