Oak Ridge museum closer to reality

[NS Newsfeed]

OAK RIDGE — Derailed for a decade by a perfect storm of roadblocks, plans for a $1 million railroad museum are now back on track, officials said last week.

The long-awaited Southern Appalachia Railway Museum — with a new design and location — is received the go-ahead Tuesday from museum members.

Members of the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee — a nonprofit group tagged with finding new uses for old Department of Energy properties in Oak Ridge — received an update on museum plans.

CROET is chipping in $300,000 to help fund the museum project, CROET President Lawrence Young said.

The museum would be moved from its envisioned location just off state Highway 58 to a tract just inside the old K-25 site, an abandoned uranium enrichment facility undergoing cleanup and conversion into an industrial park.

With that relocation, the design for the museum would be changed from a Victorian-era depot to a 1940s-style train station that will mesh with plans for a K-25 historical area, Young said.

For years, vintage locomotives loaded with visitors have chugged through the former K-25 site on the start of a 14-mile round trip into Roane County's rural Blair community.

Weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a $480,000 federal pass-through grant to the state was awarded to underwrite the planned museum and depot.

A security crackdown at that time imposed a ban on train trips but was later lifted. Since then, fundraising efforts to match the grant have lagged, and concerns about site preparation costs at the original museum location surfaced.

Museum members are now on a hurry-up schedule for the depot.

"We have to do something by the end of this year to meet the state requirements (for the pass-through grant)," said museum member Dick Raridon.

Last year, more than 5,000 people rode the Secret City Excursion Train, said Charlie Poling, past president of the museum.

"The hope is with a permanent building there, they would see that ridership grow considerably," he said.