NJ Transit recently donated an ALP-44 electric locomotive (No. 4424) to the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey. Although this is not a terribly old rail car, it is historic in that it represents both the first electric locomotives purchased new by the state of New Jersey and the first time the agency had purchased internationally (ALP-44 cars were built in Sweden by Asea Brown Boveri between 1989 and 1997). Also new to the society and making its public debut is Erie Lackawanna No. 3372.
The museum will open to the public for the day on September 24, the same day as the Boonton Fair, as it does annually, for that day claiming to be the largest railroad museum in the state, with more than a dozen pieces of restored historic railroad equipment open to the public.
Last year, we made a day trip to the Mahwah fair and the Mahwah Train Museum folks were kind enough to open for us. It was a lot of fun, and we are thinking about a visit to Boonton for the day— though the rail museum is unfortunately not accessible by rail, based on the Sunday train schedule at the Boonton Station. Check out the calendar on our Website, https://lackawannacoalition.org/calendar, where we will post an event if we plan a group excursion, in which case we will also have details in the September/October Railgram.
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