What’s Happening at the La Grange Railroad Depot?
The past year has been hard for a lot of us. Most of us have been primarily concerned with keeping our lives moderately in order under the strain of the pandemic and the challenges it has presented to us. Fayette County communities are mostly small, so that practicing social distancing, wearing masks and avoiding large crowds has not been particularly difficult. During the past summer we were all hoping for a significant permanent decrease in the incidence of COVID. In recent weeks that hope has been fading, but because so many of us have been vaccinated and are continuing to live carefully, the risks are being pretty well managed. After a very tiresome period of limited social interaction we are thankfully beginning to go on with our new normal lives.
A big factor in keeping La Grange and Fayette County such a pleasant place to live is our numerous civic attractions and tourist venues. Local residents enjoy them, and visitors from elsewhere are returning in increasing numbers, which is good not only for the local economy but is also producing a number of friendly encounters with people from elsewhere. The quilt museum, the Texas Heroes Museum in the old jail, the Faison House, Monument Hill, the painted churches, and other locations are enjoying increasing numbers of visitors.
Although the La Grange Railroad Depot is of primary interest to railroad enthusiasts (referred to as “foamers”), it draws quite a number of young people (almost all of whom like trains!), with their parents, of course. Visitors to the Depot Museum are fairly evenly split between local or nearby residents and people from a long way off. Our Depot Museum, though small, has a number of quite interesting exhibits, including our two cabooses, which are open for public inspection, including the cupolas on top – these particularly attract young folk. The lack of an entrance fee and the presence of several hands-on attractions for young people contribute to our popularity. We continue to enhance our exhibits.
Like most of the other tourist venues in our area, the depot was closed for the better part of a year, but in late spring we resumed regular opening hours every Saturday. Attendance has been steady, though not recordbreaking. We are open almost every Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., and special openings can be arranged in advance for even small groups of visitors. Telephone and email contact information for our staff is posted on the outside wall of the depot, and listed below.
The depot is staffed each Saturday by one of a very small number of dedicated volunteers. We really need to expand the number of people who are willing to spend one or two two-hour shifts each month staffing the depot. No prior experience or railroad knowledge is required. We have handouts and considerable signage that describe most of our exhibits. An outgoing personality helps. We know there is a lot of that in La Grange. If you are interested please contact one of the people listed at the end of this article.
One of our attractions, in addition to model trains inside the depot, is the fairly regular passage of sizeable Union Pacific and BNSF freight trains. Trains along Lafayette Street in La Grange pass within about twelve feet of the depot itself. When the depot was renovated twenty years ago we installed a barrier fence to keep depot visitors and train viewers separated from rail and street traffic, but the hubbub of a train passing is still quite impressive.
An unusual train that passed recently was the Amtrak passenger train going from Houston to Los Angeles. A derailment in Luling made it necessary reroute this train and we heard that it was going to pass through La Grange at 10 p.m. on a Monday night. One of our staffers opened the depot and turned on the lights, in the hope of getting a nice photo of a passenger train passing our depot. After an hour of waiting he gave up, closed down the depot and went home to bed. Three hours later in response to a train whistle he got up and ran to the window just in time to see the brilliantly lit five-car Amtrak train pass his house, unfortunately unphotographed.
An upcoming event which will be more reliably scheduled is the annual Christmas open house, which will be on Saturday, December 11. Our annual Christmas party usually attracts around 150 visitors, half of whom are very young. Refreshments are served, but the big draw is the visit of Santa. He usually arrives about 10 a.m., courtesy of the Union Pacific Railroad, on a UP locomotive which stops at the depot to let Santa de-train. He goes into the depot and welcomes each youngster onto his lap to make gift requests. Please put this date on your calendar.
If you might be persuaded to help out at the depot, please visit us some Saturday to learn more about it, or get in touch with one of the following:
Arnold Romberg
(512) 422-0149
farssr@farssr.com
Gale or Gary Lincke
(979) 247-4506
(979) 968-3985
linckefloors@cvctx.com
W. O. Wood
(979) 966-7192
wowood@cvctx.com
We look forward to seeing you soon.