*Music Plays*
*Crowd Excited*
*Laughing and Clapping*
We are here at
the Huntington shops
in Huntington West Virginia
CSX has done an amazing job of restoring this
caboose behind me
it was donated to us back in May of 2018 and
they told us that
they were gonna repaint it and send it to
us
and what happened from about September
unto to about right now is nothing short of
remarkable
the guys here the crews at CSX the paint shop
went above and beyond
honestly I have never seen anything restored
this nicely CSX has been excellent to work
with they understand our mission of economic
development through rail related
activity our restoration project for a
variety of pieces C&O 2716 being front and
center it can only happen with the partnership
and excellent support from a company like
CSX
the more I learn about the condition this
caboose was in when it came here the more
i'm impressed
and there weren't a whole lot of pictures
taken of it and i got see some of those today
from the guys that worked on this and it was
amazing what they did
especially in the interior i know everybody
just looks at exterior of this caboose and
can't believe it you go in the interior the
wood working the attention to detail the painting
of the small little appliances it's just breathtaking
and I mean when we were in there for the first
time it was hard for us to really put into
words how impressed we were with the thoroughness
of the work and the quality of it this whole
project is'int just necessarily about the
equipment its about the people that are behind
the equipment and we wanted to tell the
story of not only the people who built the
railroads of eastern Kentucky but also continue
to help tell the story of the men and women
that worked on class one railroads and railroads all over
the nation
my name is Eric Henderson CSX transportation
director of network planning we found this
caboose in Cordial Georgia we actually had
to cut trees down to get it out cause it had
been there for quite some time then we moved
it up here to Huntington and essentially what
they did was they stripped it down just similar
to how we redo a car they sand blasted it
cleaned it all they way down to bare metal
and started building it up from there, there's
not a piece of rust on this thing everything's
got fresh metal on it there's no bondo none
of that stuff it's solid very solid so the
best part about this entire project was that
we moved this caboose up here safety and then
when did the project itself we have zero injuries
no lost time nobody got hurt and everything
was done safety and on a reasonable time frame
were proud to stand together with the Kentucky
steam heritage corp and were bringing about
some change in an area that badly needs it
the Kentucky Steam Heritage Center will be
a center point of Ravenna Kentucky it's in
an area that we recognized needs a hand up
CSX is proud to stand by and give that hand
up and were really looking forward to seeing
the area turn around and become very vibrant
again its already showing signs of it just
what little we have done already its terrific
the thing that sets the Kentucky Steam group
apart is the fact that they have a plan their
just not a bunch of dreamers they actually
have a written down goal and that they are
realistic in their goals their not trying
to do a wide expanse and save everything under
the sun they've got a very intimate goal that
they have had they've stated it to us and
its very realistic goal so CSX is proud to
help the Kentucky Steam Heritage Corp and
we look forward to working with them in the
future for some potential fun stuff and we
look forward to revitalizing Eastern Kentucky
which is the main goal.
