• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Railway Society Open House About Fun, Safety

Posted on: Friday, 16 December 2005, 12:00 CST

By Brian Foley, STAFF WRITER

SAN LEANDRO -- All aboard a weekend of railroad history, thanks to an invitation to the San Leandro Historical Railway Society's annual open house.

"The purpose this weekend is for us to raise funds to meet our three objectives of restoration, maintaining the model scale train display and education," said Railway Society board member Joe Winkle.

Up to a half-dozen model trains will be chugging for families, kids and train enthusiasts to enjoy. The open house will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot on Orchard Avenue.

The open house is one of the few annual fund-raisers hosted by the 20-member organization. Some model trains will have as many as 15 cars and will meander on three levels through a widespread landscape. One train will be Thomas the Tank Engine, an animated steam engine from the popular cartoon series.

Kids also will have a particular interest in the raffle prizes, one of which will be a Hogwarts Express model train set, the same one that delivers Harry Potter and his young wizard friends to their enchanted school.

Besides the model trains, the depot itself celebrates history -- a 107-year-old landmark that put San Leandro on the map in the 1890s. The depot was sold to the railway society for $1 in 1988 and was reopened to the public as a museum a year later.

While model trains are the Railway Society's theme, Winkle said its main function is to teach railroad safety at local schools.

"It's to save a life," he said. "The main line of Union Pacific and Amtrak runs out of Oakland, through San Leandro and through parts of Hayward. We have an awful lot of schools and students who have to cross the tracks to get to school. Every year, we have one or two deaths that involve kids and students along that line."

Winkle said the media does not do enough to raise awareness of the dangers of lingering around railroad tracks.

"How much exposure do we get with railroad safety?" he said. "Because railroad tracks are not fenced, they are very convenient for people to walk up and down and take shortcuts. Kids just don't realize how much danger there is with being around railroad tracks."

For more information on the San Leandro Historical Railway Society, visit http://www.slhrs.org.

Brian Foley can be reached at (510) 293-2480 or bfoley@dailyreviewonline.com.

Source: Oakland Tribune

More News in this Category