The Western Virginia Railroad Preservation Society is dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of railroad artifacts large and small, especially those in immediate danger, and to further the public understanding of railroad history and its impact upon society. Although TWVRPS was formed originally to save a specific group of endangered locomotives and rolling stock, the donation of that equipment to another museum gave us an opportunity to re-think our priorities. As a result, we are taking the unique approach of establishing our restoration facility first, before taking on large and costly rolling stock restoration projects. To this end the society has undertaken several major projects to accomplish this goal, the majority of which are detailed below.
Locomotive Restoration Shops
The long-term goal of TWVRPS is to establish a facility to house, display, and restore historic railroad equipment, both from our own collection and equipment belonging to other organizations. We envision this facility as a place to preserve not only the physical artifacts, but also the traditional skills used to build, repair, and maintain this equipment, in a historically appropriate and publicly accessible environment. TWVRPS is currently working to acquire a former railroad repair shop complex for this purpose, which is completely historic in its own right.
Located in the town of Clifton Forge, Virginia, the old Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad repair shop complex still stands. Donated to the town by CSX Transportation in the early 1990s, it has been sitting in disrepair ever since.
Machine Tools
While acquiring a facility is one thing, actual preservation and maintenance work is something else entirely. As a way to accomplish these goals, TWVRPS has begun to obtain several machine tools that will be of immense help in the continual restoration of railroad equipment and the shops themselves. To help start off this collection of machine tools the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has graciously donated an extra set of authentic steam-era machine tools to the TWVRPS.
Having since moved the machine tools to the Walkersville Southern Railroad from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, multiple work days have been put to good use in an effort to return these tools to active service.
Digital Archives
In contrast to the large and relatively low-tech machine tools, TWVRPS has been acquiring several pieces of computer equipment with the intent of creating digital archives of historical documents. This will allow us to digitally preserve historic data that may otherwise be lost, and to make it accessible to everyone without putting the original papers at risk.
At this time we have been in contact with several individuals who have the same goal in mind. We have been able to share amongst our collections and are in the process of documenting much of what is available.
