Colfax Railroad Museum receives support from village board for programming grant application
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — In an effort to create an after-school program around model railroads as well as develop other programming, the Colfax Railroad Museum is applying for a $497,000 Wisconsin Department of Administration grant.
The Colfax Village Board approved a resolution at the January 8 meeting in support of the Colfax Railroad Museum’s grant application.
According to information in the Colfax Village Board’s packet, the application request amount is $497,000, and the required match by the Colfax Railroad Museum would be $500,000.
The current resolution would be a follow-up to a previous resolution approved by the village board a year ago for a Transportation Alternatives Grant for historic infrastructure, said Herb Sakalaucks Jr., curator of the Colfax Railroad Museum.
The programming that would be funded by the grant would include an after-school model railroad club, he said.
The chair of the Colfax Railroad Museum’s Board of Directors has had extremely good success with creating an after-school model railroad club, Sakalaucks said.
The model railroad club has 24 students attending every week, and there is a waiting list of students who want to participate, he said.
The after-school program at the Colfax Railroad Museum would be split into two groups: elementary and middle school for one group and high school students for the second group, Sakalaucks said.
The programming grant also would improve the museum’s miniature train ride with a battery-operated engine that could pull up to eight cars with adults as passengers, he said.
The current miniature train ride is powered by gas engine that can gives rides to three children and two adults, Sakalaucks noted.
An enhanced miniature train ride would provide a better chance to bring groups to the museum, he said.
A handicapped chair lift for the wooden depot building on Main Street would be part of the project, too, Sakalaucks said.
The second floor of the building constructed in 1898 is now only accessible by a set of stairs containing 15 steps, 14 of which are eight inches high, with the last step being 9.5 inches high, according to information provided to the village board.
Longer season
In addition, the museum would like to be able to purchase a tractor with a snowblower attachment in order to keep the museum open later in the season and to open the museum earlier in the spring, Sakalaucks said.
The railroad museum closes October 31 and opens again May 1. The time that the railroad museum is closed now covers much of the school year, he said.
If the railroad museum had the capability of moving snow, the museum could be open until sometime in later November or December and then start up again on March 1, Sakalaucks said.
In addition, the project would obtain more furnishings for the event center in the wooden depot and would also go toward expanding the museum’s hobby shop, he said.
The Colfax Railroad Museum achieved about $60,000 in sales this past year, which were mostly Internet sales. Many of the hobby items come from estates, and a building could be used for storage of the items, Sakalaucks said.
Handicapped accessible walkways for the rolling stock part of the museum would be included in the project as well, along with a solar array to generate electricity. The project also would include a shelter for the rolling stock, he said.
Interns
The Colfax Railroad Museum has employed interns from UW-Eau Claire, UW-Stout, and the Chippewa Valley Technical College, Sakalaucks said.
The museum is one of the few sites in the region with intern opportunities for some of the university and college programs, such as history, he said.
Without a local option for an internship, students have had to go out of the area to complete their internship projects, Sakalaucks said.
By working at the railroad museum, students are able to do their intern work locally at a museum, he said.
The Colfax Village Board unanimously approved the resolution supporting the Colfax Railroad Museum’s grant application.
Library
The Colfax Railroad Museum has a reference library of over 4,000 hard-cover books, along with 3,000 periodicals and paperback books and 800 videos, according to information provided to the village board.
The Colfax Railroad Museum started out in 1999 on a three-quarters of an acre site and has expanded from three buildings and four railroad cars to include two Colfax train depots, four auxiliary buildings, a large display of railroad dining car china, a miniature train ride, 14 pieces of rolling stock, a large railroad technical library and archives, an events center, a traveling model railroad display and is located now on a two-acre site, according to the information.
The original train depot in Colfax burned down at the end of August in 1898.
At that time, there was no fire department in Colfax, and village residents feared the entire village would burn down.
In the fall of 1898, water lines were dug by hand for the first fire suppression system in Colfax.
Shortly after the original train depot burned down, the wooden depot on Main Street was constructed on the site where the stone depot is located on Railroad Avenue. The wooden depot was moved to Main Street when the stone depot was being built.
The Colfax Railroad Museum has on display the menu and guest list from the February 19, 1914, banquet to dedicate the stone railroad depot in Colfax.