Don Fisher, President of the Railroad Museum of Long Island was our speaker this morning. He began by emphasizing the business side of operating a local museum. Raising money to create the museum environment is not easy, but it is important. The museum hired LIA economist Pearl Kamer to study the multiplier effects of money spent by the railroad museum. She calculated that for every $1 spent by the museum there are $2.25 returned to the community. In other words jobs are created.

On the soft benefits there is the educational considerations, a sense of place, and the inspirational aspects that children can appreciate. Mr. Fisher pointed out to us that whether we support his museum or some other local museum, it is important that we do so. Museums are part of the fabric that makes our communities interesting 

Later is in his prepared remarks Don gave us an overview of the available activities. There are tours of the vintage models they have on the premises where you will see the actual operating mechanisms. There is a special train that was operated at the 1964 World’s Fair that is available for short rides.

The museum is actually two locations, one in Riverhead and one in Greenport. You can visit either one, but merely by coincidence the Long Island Railroad has a scheduled train that stops at Riverhead on Saturday morning at 10.30AM  and terminates at Greenport. It lays-over on Greenport for an hour and ten minutes and stops again in Riverhead. Your $5 museum entrance fee in Riverhead allows you to see the Greenport division on the same ticket and the LIRR ticket is $5 for adults and $1.50 for children round trip

This provides a great day of history education, entertainment and recreation for a family with children, without Dad forgoing lunch for the next week.     

Everyone there received a video of historic rail systems from various places in the world.

Much thanks to  Bonnie Cornett and the Boncor Group for sponsoring this interesting event

Here is some Railroad Museum of Long Island contact info:
www.rmli.org

Located at 416 Griffing Avenue Riverhead  631 727- 7920

and  440 Fourth Street Greenport  631 477-0439