Rail fans came out in force for Oyster Bay’s first rail fest this past Saturday.
The Oyster Bay Railroad Museum organized and held the festival adjacent to the museum, which aimed to raise the museum’s profile and incite enthusiasm for Long Island’s railroad history.
“People need to know about the Long Island Rail Road…We thought it’d be a good idea for us to allow more people to come in and experience the museum,” said John Speece, the museum’s president. “The festival is going beyond our expectations. There are people lined up everywhere.”
He and other volunteers said the festival was exactly what they dreamed of when they started working at the museum decades ago.
The festival included seven historic train cars people could step inside and explore, including two old train simulators LIRR engineers had used to train on and a historic railroad turntable people lined up to take a ride on in the museum’s restored caboose. Speece said the majority of the exhibits were donated by the LIRR and are decades old—some over a century old.
The event included a 12 p.m. ceremony to recognize the museum’s 25th anniversary and name the locomotive caboose after Theodore Roosevelt, as Speece said he was an “integral” part of the island’s railroad history. Speece said taking a ride on it was a one-of-a-kind opportunity, as it is the only operational turntable on Long Island aside from one other used on the LIRR.
The festival also featured a food truck, vintage train memorabilia for sale, and facepainting for young train enthusiasts. Many of them elected to have trains painted on their faces as they dutifully waited in line to try out each exhibit.
Festival attendees and organizers were united by what many called a longstanding, inexplicable love for trains.
“I just love trains. I can’t help it,” Speece said. “When we moved to our apartment house in 1950, I was six years old, and it overlooked the main line of the Long Island Rail Road. Every time a train came by, I ran to the window of the terrace. As I got older, I’d actually go down to the station as trains go by.”
Self-described lifelong rail fan Howard Fein, who said his love of trains began when he was growing up in Queens and his mother would take him on the subway as a kid, came out to the festival to explore the exhibits and appreciate the island’s rail history.
“It’s quite interesting,” Fein said of the festival. “We want to try the simulators and ride the turntable. That’s something you don’t do every day.”
“It makes people aware of Long Island’s railroad heritage, which is a lot richer than people who just ride it every day may know,” Fein continued. “They can see all the different types of equipment and what’s involved with making it go. It’s not just an engineer going in and turning it on.”
The Oyster Bay Railroad Museum is open 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
