MEADVILLE — Dennis Mead has tinkered with his fair share of model train sets ... those little ones that have become such a huge part of America’s toy heritage. He’s torn some apart and put others back together. And then at the end of the day, he unhooks them, packs them up in their boxes and transports them to wherever it is they belong next.

It’s a rather simple process. If only it were that easy to tear down the real thing — the Erie Railroad ALCO S2 yard engine No. 518 — and bring it to a set of local tracks currently holding a historic caboose.

“Far from it,” Mead said. “It would be nice if we could just pack it in a box and bring it to Meadville. That is definitely not the case.”

The French Creek Valley Railroad Historical Society acquired the Erie Railroad’s yard engine No. 518 nearly three years ago and has been working feverishly to bring it to Meadville where it will accompany the Erie-Lackawanna Caboose C356 currently on display at Pomona Park, on the north end of Smock Bridge, just off the French Creek Parkway.

The switch engine was originally expected to be in Meadville by summer or fall of 2008. But the 1,000-horsepower engine, weighing 115 tons, has required much more attention than members of the FCVRHS ever thought; and more funding.

“We never expected this,” said FCVRHS treasurer Ed Cronin of the problems encountered. “It’s been one thing after another.”

The engine was offered to the FCVRHS by Bob Callahan, one of the Ashtabula Carson and Jefferson Railroad owners, according to FCVRHS board member Tom Collard. Callahan told the group that if he could take out all of the internal parts, he would be glad to donate what’s left of it, Collard said. Originally, though, AC&J was going to do the removal themselves.

“AC&J was going to (remove all the parts) and we were just going to have to pay for moving the shell,” Cronin said. “But they were unable to do the job, so we ended up putting together a crew to do it all ourselves.”

That crew, which was assembled with several former railroad employees like Meadville residents Stan Niwa and Terry Martin, has made several trips to Jefferson, Ohio, over the last couple of years with tools in hand to gut the engine. Niwa said the disassembling has included everything from doors to iron supports and brackets, and using a welding torch to get the battery box out.

“It’s been grueling all right,” Niwa said. “We weren’t planning on it being quite this much work.”

Getting closer

The good news is that most of the gutting is complete and that throughout the process the FCVRHS has been able to send many of the parts it will use away to be sandblasted and painted the original Erie Railroad paint scheme of black with yellow detailing. The bad news is that the parts that still need to be removed from the train will require more than a little elbow grease.

“It has come down to the removal of just a few parts,” said Mead, the FCVRHS president. “Those parts are the prime mover or engine, the generator and air compressor, which we need a crane to remove. Once they are out, the remaining frame and cab of the locomotive can be placed on a trailer and moved from the AC&J site to Meadville.

“The biggest problem is money.”

Cronin said the FCVRHS started out with a budget of $25,000 all of which came from either grants or money raised by the society.

“We had the funds allocated for it,” Mead said. “But then we got into more heavy work of tearing it apart. We’re going to have to put a great deal of money into a crane service.”

A crane will not only be needed to pull the prime mover out, but to load the locomotive onto a truck to transport to Meadville. Then once in Meadville, another crane will be needed to take the engine off the truck and place it onto the track behind the caboose. And that’s only if the remainder of the sandblasting and painting can be done in Meadville.

“It’s going to run out pretty quick,” Mead said of the funding.

Mead said the FCVRHS will try to raise the remaining funding. One project the society has in the works is its 2012 calendar, which will contain a photograph collection dating back to the 1920s. Mead said he hopes to have the calendars available in late August or early September. They will be sold at the caboose and any other functions the FCVRHS sponsors in addition to a few sights around Meadville, Mead said.

Donations from the public are also welcomed.

Big part of Meadville

Why is the preservation of the Erie Railroad ALCO S2 yard engine No. 518 important? And why should Crawford County residents care?

“The railroad industry was quite a big thing here years ago,” said Niwa, a lifetime Meadville resident and former railroad car mechanic. “I worked in the car shop here in Meadville and there were 365 guys that worked down there — and that’s just the shop itself.

“It was a very big part of Meadville.”

Mead is the train engineer at the Erie Zoo and said he talks to youngsters and parents daily about the railroad industry, and that interest is growing.

“It was a good industry,” Mead said. “And people are getting more and more interested. The railroad industry just isn’t that good at educating people about what their industry is and their place of society.”

Bringing a historical piece of equipment like the Erie Railroad ALCO S2 yard engine No. 518, which is similar to those that did in fact operate in Meadville, back to the yard could help do just that.

“Anything you can do to preserve a part of history I think is worthwhile,” said Martin, who retired from the railroad as an engineer in 2002.

“In the end, I believe we’ll have a beautiful engine to put down at the park with our caboose,” Mead said. “If only we could put it in a box and bring it to Meadville.”

You can help

Donations to the French Creek Valley Railroad Historical Society’s Engine 518 Restoration Project may be sent in care of the FCVRHS to P.O. Box 632, Meadville, Pa. 16335. In addition, the FCVRHS will have its Erie-Lackawanna Caboose C356 — on display in Pomona Park — open to the public on Aug. 6 and 7 during Bennett Levin’s Pacific Ltd./High Iron Travel excursion where donations will also be accepted.

High Iron excursion to stop in Meadville

The High Iron Travel Rail Excursions is offering a rare mileage trip that will make a stop in Meadville on Aug. 6 and 7.

High Iron will operate three cars — Caritas, Swift Stream and Cimarron River — as part of Bennett Levin’s “Pacific Ltd.” special train powered by two E8 engines.

Tourists will board at Hoboken, N.Y., on Aug. 4 and arrive in Bath, N.Y., the following day where they will stay overnight after dinner at the Pleasant Valley Wine Company, also known as the Great Western Winery, in Hammondsport, N.Y., which is the oldest winery in the United States.

Following a stop in Jamestown, N.Y., the train will arrive in Meadville on Aug. 6 where it will stay overnight. The train will leave Meadville for Franklin on the Oil City Branch. The Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad will haul the train back to Meadville using its ALCO locomotives. From Meadville, the train will proceed to Youngstown, Ohio, and then to Pittsburgh. The trip concludes on Aug. 8 with a trip from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.

Tom Collard, a French Creek Valley Railroad Historical Society board member, said the train should arrive in Meadville between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 6. The highlight will be the train’s trip to Franklin through Cochranton, a branch that has not been used in many decades, according to Collard.

The FCVRHS will have its Erie-Lackawanna Caboose C356 — on display in Pomona Park — open to the public on Aug. 6 and 7 during the excursion.

Lisa Byers can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at lbyers@meadvilletribune.com.