Berkshire Scenic Full-Steam Ahead With North County Plans
 The Berkshire Scenic Railway is moving along in creating a detailed plan of operations when they start running scenic rides in North Adams and Adams. |
LENOX, Mass. — The Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum is chugging along with planning the details of scenic rides in North County.
The organization has partnered with the state and local officials to bring train rides between the Adams Visitors Center and Western Gateway Heritage State Park in North Adams. The plan was announced in January and since then museum officials have been sorting out the details while they wait for final design work to be completed.
Already, the organization has decided that it will likely park a caboose and another passenger car on the North Adams end to serve as a ticket booth and visitors' center. The Baltimore & Ohio Combine 1444 coach car currently houses a "Gilded Age" museum exhibit at the Lenox Station. Those items will be moved out and the car redesigned to become the ticket booth.
"It'll be an information booth so we can direct people to local shops and restaurants," Berkshire Scenic Director Jay Green said on Tuesday.
The car also features a "theater" area in the rear where the organization is considering placing a flat-panel television to show programs emphasizing its history and that of the local area. Green said the group has been in discussion with area chambers of commerce on ways to provide that additional information.
On the southern end, the town is taking the lead in developing a platform at the Adams Visitors Center for loading and unloading, Green said. The center has bathrooms available and possibly may be a location to purchase tickets.
Meanwhile, the organization has already picked out two locomotives and four passenger cars that will make the trips. The passenger cars are Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Coaches built between 1911 and 1920. The four cars — numbered 4301, 3204, 341 and 31 — are the same four cars the organization used for its popular "Polar Express" run when it operated on the rails between Lenox and Stockbridge.
The diesel-electric switcher locomotives date back to the 1950s.
The group has begun to look at ways to transport the vehicles to North County from its Lenox location but Green said the process won't be finalized until its known exactly when they will need to be moved. However, the organization is looking at the pros and cons of trucking, running the trains on the line through Springfield to get to North Adams or shipping the cars along the flat rail cars.
The trains haven't been able to make long runs in two years since the group lost access to the line between Stockbridge and Lenox. Green said Berkshire Scenic is already preparing the trains for usage.
"We have work to do in our equipment and our mechanical volunteers are doing that as we speak," Green said.
Additionally, the group is brainstorming programming for the ride, including bringing steam engines to the rails. Green said there is an organization that restores steam engines that the scenic railway is talking with to create a special steam ride a few weekends a year.
"We plan to bring an operating steam engine back to North Adams for the first time since the 1950s," Green said. "We're also bouncing around a lot of ideas about what we can do it in the fall."
Another example of possible programs the group has thought up is reaching out to the owners of The Range to let riders off there for a round of mini-golf. The group is also thinking of partnering with the North Adams Historical Museum to offer talks and lectures.
"We won't be able to finalize a lot of that until we have access to the track," Green said of ideas that require additional stops.
Recently the organization held an informational session for interested volunteers. A total of 15 people attended and five them have already taken operating classes and will be working this summer in Lenox, Green said. The group is looking to hold another informational session in the fall so training can begin early in 2014.
Green said he met with state and town officials last week and a public announcement of the progress with a timeline is expected in the fall. The designers are in the process of finalizing the track designs and acquiring land needed and the state and communities are working on their portions.
"This really has been a true public, private partnership," he said. "The cooperation that has gone into this has been phenomenal."
Berkshire Scenic Railway is going full-steam ahead with planning to have trains operating in May 2014.
"There is a lot going on behind the scenes," Green said.
Tags: rail, railway, scenic rail, trains,
