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EspañolHEART OF DIXIE RAILROAD MUSEUM
The 'Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum' is located at 1919 Ninth Street, Calera, Alabama.
It features a wide range of locomotives, cars and other railroad equipment that dates from the 1800s to the 1950s.
It also features two depots that are approximately 100 years old.
It also is home to a privately owned dinner train.
They have two train rides that operate on Saturdays from March 31 - December 17 every year, along with other special dates such as Halloween and Christmas that they run. One of them is on a standard-gauge track with a diesel engine, along a five-and-one-half-mile trip of former Louisville & Nashville track. The other train runs on a one-quarter-mile long, two-foot gauge loop featuring a steam engine locomotive.
★ The Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum, Inc. began as the Heart of Dixie Railroad Club. Its first location was at 18th St. S and 1st Ave. N in Downtown Birmingham, across from the Alabama Power Steam Generation Plant. The cars were largely donated to the Club by their respective railroads. However, the cars were vulnerable to vandals. Several cars were burned in different disputes over territory by homeless people. In the Early 1980's, the Club moved to Calera and secured several hundred acres of land between 17th Ave and 20th Ave along 9th St.
★ The Calera and Shelby Railroad (the standard-gauge trains) run along a five-and-one-half-mile section of the former L&N Mineral loop, constructed in 1891 to collect the minerals necessary for making iron, then looping back to Birmingham to drop off the minerals at the local ironworks. The line was abandoned when Alabama Power dammed up the Coosa River for a new hydroelectric plant. This would have flooded the bridge over the Coosa River, which was subsequently removed. CSX later pulled up the rails along the line. Eleven miles of right-of-way were purchastd by the Heart of Dixie Railroad Club (now Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum, Inc.) when they moved to Calera in the 1980's. Since then, the museum has been replacing the track along the right-of-way. The track currently ends at Springs Junction, Alabama, just East of its crossing of Alabama State Highway 86.
★ The Shelby and Southern (the two-foot-gauge train) rolling stock is the former park train of the Birmingham Zoo, which was donated to the museum by one of its members. Some two-foot-gauge track was purchased, a station and maintenance shed were built, the cars were sandblasted, re-lettered, and re-painted, and the propane-fired 4-4-0 steam engine was sent to the Tweetsie Railroad for refurbishment. The S&S opened during Day Out With Thomas 2002, a two-weekend period where Thomas the Tank Engine comes to visit the museum.
★ The William A. Boone Memorial Library is located in the Woodlawn Depot, across the road from the main museum. It houses a sizeable repository of railroad-related books and technical manuals.
★ The William Penn Dinner Train is privately owned by several members and operates out of the museum. It holds open reservation dinners monthly and is available for charter. Its equipment consists of a recently refurbished ex-Pennsylvania Railroad Budd-built parlor car converted by Amtrak to a dining car named after William Penn and a 48-seat coach leased from Mid America Railcar Leasing.
★ Official Website of the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum
★ The William Penn Dinner Train
It features a wide range of locomotives, cars and other railroad equipment that dates from the 1800s to the 1950s.
It also features two depots that are approximately 100 years old.
It also is home to a privately owned dinner train.
| Contents |
| Rides |
| History |
| Other Points of Interest |
| External links |
Rides
They have two train rides that operate on Saturdays from March 31 - December 17 every year, along with other special dates such as Halloween and Christmas that they run. One of them is on a standard-gauge track with a diesel engine, along a five-and-one-half-mile trip of former Louisville & Nashville track. The other train runs on a one-quarter-mile long, two-foot gauge loop featuring a steam engine locomotive.
History
★ The Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum, Inc. began as the Heart of Dixie Railroad Club. Its first location was at 18th St. S and 1st Ave. N in Downtown Birmingham, across from the Alabama Power Steam Generation Plant. The cars were largely donated to the Club by their respective railroads. However, the cars were vulnerable to vandals. Several cars were burned in different disputes over territory by homeless people. In the Early 1980's, the Club moved to Calera and secured several hundred acres of land between 17th Ave and 20th Ave along 9th St.
★ The Calera and Shelby Railroad (the standard-gauge trains) run along a five-and-one-half-mile section of the former L&N Mineral loop, constructed in 1891 to collect the minerals necessary for making iron, then looping back to Birmingham to drop off the minerals at the local ironworks. The line was abandoned when Alabama Power dammed up the Coosa River for a new hydroelectric plant. This would have flooded the bridge over the Coosa River, which was subsequently removed. CSX later pulled up the rails along the line. Eleven miles of right-of-way were purchastd by the Heart of Dixie Railroad Club (now Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum, Inc.) when they moved to Calera in the 1980's. Since then, the museum has been replacing the track along the right-of-way. The track currently ends at Springs Junction, Alabama, just East of its crossing of Alabama State Highway 86.
★ The Shelby and Southern (the two-foot-gauge train) rolling stock is the former park train of the Birmingham Zoo, which was donated to the museum by one of its members. Some two-foot-gauge track was purchased, a station and maintenance shed were built, the cars were sandblasted, re-lettered, and re-painted, and the propane-fired 4-4-0 steam engine was sent to the Tweetsie Railroad for refurbishment. The S&S opened during Day Out With Thomas 2002, a two-weekend period where Thomas the Tank Engine comes to visit the museum.
Other Points of Interest
★ The William A. Boone Memorial Library is located in the Woodlawn Depot, across the road from the main museum. It houses a sizeable repository of railroad-related books and technical manuals.
★ The William Penn Dinner Train is privately owned by several members and operates out of the museum. It holds open reservation dinners monthly and is available for charter. Its equipment consists of a recently refurbished ex-Pennsylvania Railroad Budd-built parlor car converted by Amtrak to a dining car named after William Penn and a 48-seat coach leased from Mid America Railcar Leasing.
External links
★ Official Website of the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum
★ The William Penn Dinner Train
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