Northern Ohio Railway Museum opens season, new exhibits in development

SEVILLE — The Northern Ohio Railway Museum opened for the season on Saturday and will operate through Sept. 26, providing tours and rides on restored vintage trolley and rapid transit cars. Several exhibit areas have been updated ahead of the season, with additional improvements still underway, according to longtime volunteer Steven Heister. The museum is developing a new exhibit featuring a restored control panel from the Cleveland Rapid Transit System. Volunteers are working with computer programmers to re-create the appearance of the original system by animating the control panels with sequenced lighting displays. Although the project is still in development and will probably not be completed this season, the exhibit will eventually allow visitors to see how the transit signal system once operated, Heister said. "We don't have the actual total guts of the old signal system, but you can make the lights light up like it used to," Heister said. Another exhibit under development centers on historic fare boxes used in transit systems. Museum volunteers are researching the equipment with plans to add an interactive touchscreen display that would provide information about each fare box that was used and manufactured. Heister said that since the museum is volunteer-run, the timeline for the projects' completion is uncertain. The museum continues to feature its restored operating trolley cars, including Cars 12 and 109, which visitors can ride during tours. The operating cars offer a hands-on experience that goes beyond just viewing the displays. "You get to experience it and see what is going on, as opposed to just looking at it static," he said. In addition to the exhibits and trolley rides, the museum is the only one in Ohio that showcases the film "The Trolley." The film was originally produced for IMAX screens but struggled to gain distribution before it was offered to railway museums through the Heritage Rail Alliance. "We're the only one that picked it up," Heister said. Contact reporter Sam Russ at (330) 491-6962 or sruss@medina-gazette.com.