Community Corner

Day Trip Ideas: All Aboard at the Connecticut Eastern Railroad Museum

This is an escape in Willimantic for the budding train geek in your household. Don't miss the new gallows signal, the roundhouse and manual turntable.

Article written by Stephanie Summers and updated by Liz Young

In its railroad heyday from 1850-1950, Willimantic hosted 50 trains a day on three businessman special lines that traveled between New York and Boston on six-hour trips, a decent time even today. All three lines – one Central Vermont and two New Haven – junctioned at Bridge Street off of Main Street by the Willimantic River.

For the last 20 years, a group of avid railroaders who started from scratch have been nurturing a life-size museum on 45 acres near there that boasts a 60-foot-long, 19th century, hand-operated turntable, attached to a gorgeous roundhouse and an array of rolling stock on the grounds. Visitors can climb in and out of buildings, cars and engines, as well as learn to operate a pump car, for instance.

The museum also has a full replica of the Gallows Signal, created from the original blueprints, that controlled all trains at the Bridge Street crossing for 100 years beginning in 1854. 

Volunteers continue to work at the museum, restoring and adding pieces where they see fit.

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They found a turntable like the original one discarded in a field in South Carver, Mass., and got the owner to sell it to them for $10,000, including delivery, in 1994. They worked for seven years to get the mechanics together and unveiled it in 2008. It’s so well-engineered that a few kids can turn the mammoth machine with their own strength.

Several years ago, some people broke the custom glass out of the roundhouse and defaced the museum property. Although the police were unable to figure out who committed the vandalism due to a lack of evidence, other glass breakage occurred on train property around the same time in Palmer, Mass. Binswanger Glass in Bristol, CT, replaced thousands of dollars in glass and worked on redoing the 8-foot-diameter gable window on the end of the roundhouse.

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The museum is a true escape for lovers of the rails. 

The CT Eastern Railroad Museum is at 55 Bridge St., Willimantic, Conn. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays from May through October. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors, $1 for children ages 8-12 and free for those under 8. For information, call 860-456-9999 or visit the museum website.


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