Railroad Museum, which welcomes 30,000 people a year to Medina, hit with graffiti

Provided photo: Railcars at the Medina Railroad Museum have been vandalized with graffiti.

Editor:

Vandalism is not a victimless crime. The Medina Railroad Museum, for those who don’t know, is a chartered non-profit organization on West Avenue in downtown Medina.

The museum has a large collection of railroad-related artifacts, as well as several pieces of historic railroad equipment. People travel from all over the country, and even many parts of the world to visit the museum.

How many people? Including special events such as Polar Express and Day Out With Thomas, upwards of 30,000 people per year. These are all folks who not only visit the museum, but many of whom spend time and money in the village’s local businesses.

Among the museum’s collection is a train of 8 passenger cars. These railcars together hold a total of 476 people and are used throughout the year, giving people rides along the railroad and through our local towns. As one of the people who maintains and looks after our train, imagine my sorrow and disgust when I got a report that graffiti was spotted on our railcars on Friday, April 11th.

I need to mention that the group who maintains these railcars for the museum is stretched very thin. Oftentimes, it’s 1-3 of us working for a couple of hours on a weekend. We have a lot of projects that always need to be completed within our very limited amount of availability, so setbacks like this can delay other important work.

We are also almost entirely volunteer, and the money we use to maintain the train comes from donations and from revenue that the train itself generates during rides. Some of the paint covers numbers and stencils which are required by federal law to be on the side of the train, so it now cannot technically be moved without at least some paint stripping and new stenciling in a few spots. Fortunately, we have some time to clean up the mess before our next event.

We have already filed a police report with the Medina PD. Parents, please consider where your children may have been after school the last few days, especially if your child or a child you know has recently gotten into trouble at school. It seems as though the vandal(s) fit that bill.

If you know anything about this or the people who did it, please either contact me at ccatlinrailroad@gmail.com or the Medina Police Department directly. I will be following up with the school district next week as well to inform them of the situation; they were already closed by the time I got out there today.

Sincerely,

Cody Catlin

Medina Railroad Museum Car Department