$9K in damages to vandalized Salamanca Rail Museum cars

By Kellen M. Quigley

SALAMANCA

— Thousands of dol- lars in damage was done to train cars at the Salamanca Rail Museum in January.

Salamanca po - lice reported Jan. 20 that a vandalization of four rail museum cars caused about $9,000 in damages.

Police believe the damage happened sometime in the few days before reported.

Museum director Jaré Cardinal said she noticed something amiss when she went to check on the building and grounds Thursday. The museum is closed during the winter months except for private tour requests.

“It looked like one of the windows was missing on the red caboose, but it gets blown out once in a while by the wind,” she said Monday. “I went to check and it wasn’t just that window. Glass was everywhere.”

Cardinal said their mannequin dressed as a conductor in one of the cars was also missing, but there were gummy bears left behind. Three out of the four damaged railcars sit in an area surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.

“We did some research, and to replace everything that needs replacing, to clean up and because they’re exposed to the weather and there’s possible floor damage, it’s going to cost about $12,000,” Cardinal said.

Police are currently investigating the vandalism. Cardinal said they took the gummies as evidence and found a pitchfork that had been thrown into the museum yard.

In the meantime, rail museum officials are taking steps to secure the cars and avoid further damage caused by winter weather.

Cardinal said they managed to secure one caboose with covering over the windows thanks to Sixt Lumber and Al Robison Construction & Residential Electric donating supplies and labor to help.

Cardinal said the rail museum has set up the GoFundMe page “Repair the rail cars,” with a link available on the rail museum’s Facebook page, to help raise funds to replace windows and other materials that were destroyed.

“Right now we’ve got over $1,000 in less than a day, so hopefully we can secure at least one more and then we can work on the other two,” she said.

Cardinal expressed thanks to all the friends and neighbors in the Salamanca community for their cooperation and support along with everyone on Facebook and friends at other rail museums for getting the word out.

“We’ll get it fixed. It’ll slow us down on our timeline for other things for just a bit, but not for long,” she added. If anyone has any information, contact the rail museum at (716) 9453133 or Salamanca police at (716) 945-2330 or send a message to the “City of Salamanca Police Department” Facebook page.