June 9, 2021
The train is a coming… The Dubois County Museum’s Train Club is working to finish the train tracks and scenery they began work on several years ago and will be presenting the completed train room on Thursday, June 17, 2021, for the Third Thursday Free Night program. The museum will be open from 5:30-8:00 p.m. on that night. Also, the Train Room will be open and operating during normal museum open hours thereafter.
The Train Room came to be after a group of interested train enthusiasts moved their model train set from the basement of the former Older American Center on Jackson Street in Jasper, temporarily to the basement of the Municipal Pool and finally to the museum. Les Lorey, one of the original train enthusiasts, related how he and Scotty Davis began working from the ground up at the museum on the trains and with the help of fellow enthusiasts Wayne Lytle, John Guthrie, John Depot and Fred Williams began laying the tracks and building scenery. The Dubois County Museum’s Train Club was then formed and others came on board to enhance the room and equipment.
The present club members are enthused about how they are creating the Norfolk Southern train route that crosses Dubois County from its route from Louisville to St. Louis. They are recreating the towns of Birdseye, Mentor, Kyana, Huntingburg and connectors to Jasper along the tracks in Dubois County. With the help of a grant from Dubois Rural Electric Rounding Up program, the room was given a facelift with new paint, new lighting, a ramped viewing area and a new track table.
Club members created trestles, rolling hills, built roads and bridges. Club members Bill Stroud and John Arnhold made a children’s play train modeled after the Ferdy Flyer from Ferdinand. The actual bell that graced the Ferdy Flyer train was acquired and moved to the museum through the work of Mike Lindauer, Ernie’s Welding Shop, KWK Enterprise, Demuth Trucking and Alvin and Kathy Tretter. It is on display by the train room with information about this train that ran between Ferdinand and Huntingburg and transported students to Huntingburg to school.
New members are always welcome to join the Train Club. Contact the museum at 812-634-7733 and leave a message for Boyd Dick, club president.
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