Atlasburg family’s old train cars to be restored for museum display
This is one of three small railroad cars that will be restored after sitting in the grass at an Atlasburg farm for a half-century.
Rick Shrum
Dan Petricca and his wife, Tracey, sold three small rail cars that had sat outside on the family farm for decades to a nonprofit that intends to to bring them back to life and display them in a museum near Brownsville.
Rick Shrum
A rotator crane lifts a rusted train car and places it on the back of a flatbed truck for transport to an Ohio facility that intends to restore it.
Workers check out a weed-choked rail car that had been sitting outside for a half-century and will be restored.
Pete Jedlicka, president of American Industrial Mining, prepares a rusted rail car to be lifted by crane onto a flatbed truck and transported to Ohio for restoration.
Eugene Petricca had an inactive rail line running through his Atlasburg farm, tracks that once were used to transport coal from Atlasburg Mine to Burgettstown.
About a half-century ago, two years after the line was shut down, he decided to purchase it and embellish it with rail cars. Petricca bought three of them, but there was a logistical issue. The 3-foot-gauge cars did not fit on the 4-foot-wide track. Eventually, the track was removed and the smallish cars sat idly in the grass, deteriorating 无毛视频� until last week.
Early Friday morning, Green无毛视频檚 Road and Towing Services of Burgettstown arrived at the center of the farm with its massive rotator crane and flatbed truck. The rotator efficiently lifted the rusted, weed-infested cars and placed them on the flatbed for transport to central Ohio.
无毛视频淭hese cars have been here since I was 12 or 14,无毛视频� said Eugene无毛视频檚 son, Dan. 无毛视频淎bout 50 people stop by every summer and take pictures of them.无毛视频�
Dan sold the cars to American Industrial Mining Co., a 501漏(3) nonprofit that, according to its website, preserves 无毛视频渧intage equipment from all types of mining, heavy industry and public transportation.无毛视频� The organization will restore the Petricca cars at a facility near its home base 无毛视频� Buckeye Lake, Ohio 无毛视频� and eventually display them in the company无毛视频檚 museum near Brownsville.
The museum also features restorations and preservation projects from two Washington County coal mines 无毛视频� Mathies Mine and Mine 84 无毛视频� and Emerald Mine in Greene.
无毛视频淲e无毛视频檙e 无毛视频榬ehoming无毛视频� them,无毛视频� Petricca said on a morning made overcast by the Canadian wildfires. He was accompanied by his wife, Tracey, at the site about 20 yards off Route 18, across from Kauffman Family Marketplace.
American Industrial Mining has a preservation team 无毛视频� all volunteers 无毛视频� that works at saving equipment at more than 70 locations across the United States and Canada. The organization has operations in 22 states 无毛视频� including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, plus Canada. Most are in the northeastern U.S.
无毛视频淲e have the largest collection (of this particular equipment) in the United States,无毛视频� said Pete Jedlicka, president of American Industrial Mining, who was assisting other workers along the strip of grass downhill from the roadway. They were maneuvering machinery, using torches, weeding out weeds and cleaning the cars as much as possible.
Petricca said the cars were originally brown. Rust was partially cleared away from at least one of them Friday. Jedlicka said all three will be painted and get new cabs. Two cars, he added, were vintage 1948, the other, 1943.
Dan Petricca, third-generation owner, is proud of the 312-acre farm that has been in his family since 1936. East to west, he said, it covers 1.6 miles. Yet it appears destined to change hands.
无毛视频淚无毛视频檓 trying to sell the farm,无毛视频� said a man who has a vested interest in selling, and the experience to do so. As does his wife. He and Tracey are real estate agents with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Washington.
Old train cars will not be included in the prospective deal.