The Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center Project was initiated and managed by our own SCA Trail Town Outreach Corps (TTOC) member, Emma Strong. Emma has been thinking about this project since her training to become a TTOC member earlier this year. Finally, the project is coming together with help from volunteers and generous donations. Here is Emma's project story.

Images of the caboose just before the project got started.

How did you get involved with the Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center Project?

As part of our training for the SCA Trail Town Outreach Corps, we visited each Trail Town. The purpose of this training was to familiarize ourselves with the towns, note where the trail was as well as any related signage, and to learn about the amenities available to trail users in each town.

Throughout the town tours, I recognized that many of the towns provided a very important service to trail users that was missing from Connellsville – a welcome or visitor center. During the Connellsville tour, I also noticed an abandoned yellow caboose rusting away at the northern trail head of the Great Allegheny Passage. After putting these two observations together, I couldn't get the idea of the Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center out of my head.

As we were assigned towns to focus our work on (mine being Connellsville) we were made aware of the Sprout Fund Seed Award, a grant through the Sprout Fund that funds seed projects. I immediately thought of the Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center idea and decided to apply for the grant, which we received.

Dave and David Stupka, along with other volunteers, did much of the interior carpentry.

How long did it take to complete the project? Is there anything else that needs to be done?

We have been working on the Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center since May 2011 when I began work on the Sprout Fund Seed Award application.  Now December, the project is almost complete.

On the exterior, we are still waiting for the stairs to be built because the original stairs will not be used. Stencils are being made for the B&O lettering on the exterior of the caboose. Inside, I am planning on hanging photographs depicting rail history in Connellsville along with a statement of rail history in the area. We are currently collecting menus and brochures for visitor use at the completed Welcome Center. Once all of this is finished, we will hang the exterior murals by local artists, Jessica Lotman and Laura Koposko.

What were the greatest challenges of this project?

Throughout the entire project, I found it difficult to find out all of the information I needed to complete the project. Not many people rehabilitate and move large railcars. Eventually, after a multitude of phone calls spread over weeks and weeks, I found the right people with the right information and the right skills.

I also found maintaining regular communication with all of the project team to be quite challenging. It can be difficult to get people to call you back and feel the same time urgency that I often felt while working on this project. Despite these challenges, everything ended up working out well.

Karl Butchko's Auto Body Collision students removed rust, puttied, primed, and painted the caboose exterior.

Who did you partner with to complete this project?

The project had many partners, including:

• Jessica Lotman and Laura Koposko, local artists, who painted the murals and the Welcome Center signs
• Karl Butchko, auto body collision instructor at Connellsville Area Career and Technical Center, who, along with his students, removed rust, puttied, primed, and painted the exterior of the caboose
• Jerry Matthews, carpentry instructor at Connellsville Area Career and Technical Center, who will assist his students as they build the stairs
• Connellsville Street Department & Vern Ohler, street foreman, who flattened the surface where the rails and caboose now sit and donated the use of his paint sprayer in order to paint the caboose exterior
• YRTC members & Ted Kovall, president, who mobilized volunteers, agreed to maintain the caboose once the project is finished, helped to build the rails, and provided other support
• Gary Wandal, a Connellsville Area School District School Board member, who connected me with Karl and Jerry and also provided an initial evaluation of the condition of the caboose
• Jim Haun who helped with many aspects of the project including building the rails, painting the exterior of the caboose, and many other project details
• Dave Stupka, retired carpenter, & his son David Stupka, who did most of the interior refinishing and carpentry work, helped to build the rails, and helped to paint
• The HObo Model Railroad Club, including Bill Baetey, who has provided historical information about the caboose and did most of the detail painting, Ed Mascerelli, who provided some volunteer support, and Jason Lowe, who wrote the historical piece we will hang in the caboose
• CSX, including Gerry Gabel, Connellsville area Road Master, who donated the plates, spikes, and ties to build the rails, and Shawn Lowery, who helped build the rails
• SCA Trail Town Outreach Corps, who did interior rehab work, interior and exterior painting, and collected brochures and menus for the Welcome Center
• City of Connellsville, who owns the caboose and is leasing it to us/the YRTC to complete this project and operate the Welcome Center
• Jonathan Baeckel, a community member, who donated many days and many hours to preparing and painting the interior and exterior

We have had a few one time volunteers that helped paint and many other donations of materials. As the project has progressed, the partners we have worked with have grown considerably and everyone who assisted in any way was essential to the successful completion of this project.

Gerry Gabel of CSX donated plates, spikes, and ties that Shawn Lowery and other volunteers helped build.

Who financially supported this project?

There have been many donations of money, time, and materials given to support the Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center.

Additionally, this project is supported in part by a Seed Award from The Sprout Fund.* The raising of the Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center onto rails was a project of The Progress Fund’s Trail Town Program^® and made possible through support by the Richard King Mellon Foundation.

How did you garner volunteers to assist with this project?

The Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center project has been completely dependent on volunteer support and effort. When I wrote the grant and initially called most of the partners, everyone seemed eager to help with this project.

Community members in Connellsville, as well as the various groups I have worked with, wanted something to happen with the caboose for a long time. In the Trail Towns, people tend to shy away from projects that include a work plan or study, but when you talk about actually doing something, almost anyone will support you.

Before we began the project, the caboose was sinking into the dirt near the northern trailhead of the GAP, rusting away. Every volunteer graciously donated their time and skills to this project for the greater good of Connellsville and the GAP.

In terms of actually acquiring volunteer support, I simply called all of the people who I had been told had the skills necessary to complete a part of the project. I explained what I was hoping to do and asked for them to volunteer their time, skills, and knowledge. I don't remember anyone turning me down.

Many long-term and one day volunteers helped paint the caboose. HObo's Bill Baetey did most of the detail work.

How will this project affect the Connellsville Community as well as trail users/visitors to town?

When industry left the region, Connellsville struggled to revive its economy and community. The SCA Trail Town Outreach Corps and our partners believe that the Great Allegheny Passage is the natural resource that will help bring life back into town through ecotourism. Unfortunately, trail users do not venture into Connellsville as much as they could because of the lack of easily accessible information regarding lodging, restaurants, and other amenities.

The Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center will provide trail users with important information when arriving in Connellsville. It will serve as a hospitable entrance into town, a centralized location for Connellsville and other trail town information, and will contain maps of the Great Allegheny Passage, Connellsville business district, and the Connellsville Bike Loop. The Welcome Center is essential to integrating trail users with Connellsville and making use of an important economic resource. Thus, the Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center will encourage trail users to venture into town and support the Connellsville economy.

Also, the caboose is already serving as a source of pride for community members in Connellsville. During every volunteer day, locals stop before or after using the trail to tell us how great the caboose looks, and how they remember what the caboose used to look like or when it was first moved there. Most people I have met have very specific memories relating to the caboose, and they are grateful something is being done with it.

Yesterday, while completing the exterior painting, a young boy posed for a photo with the caboose, which was such a positive thing to see. In addition, by having so many volunteers and groups collaborating on this project, I hoped to educate community members of the importance of the GAP and team work.

The now red caboose moves to its new home on CSX donated tracks.

Who will manage/maintain the completed Welcome Center?

The Yough River Trail Council (YRTC) has agreed to maintain the Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center. I hope to have a donation box inside the Welcome Center where trail users can support the maintenance of the caboose. Currently, the Welcome Center will be unmanned, but we hope that volunteers will materialize and will agree to man the caboose during peak trail use hours. For the time being, all of the information that trail users would need will be in the caboose, including menus of local restaurants, brochures for other local businesses, a map of Connellsville, the Connellsville Bike Loop, and the GAP.

We will also have information about the Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center project and photos of the process.

Is there anything else you want to note about this project?

I think that covered it! But I can't emphasize enough how we couldn't have done this project without all of the volunteers.

A nearly complete Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center.

Share your thoughts about the new Connellsville Caboose Welcome Center by commenting below!

*The Sprout Fund enriches the Pittsburgh region’s vitality by engaging citizens, amplifying voices, supporting creativity and innovation, and cultivating connected communities. Founded in 2001, Sprout facilitates community-led solutions to regional challenges and supports efforts to create a thriving, progressive, and culturally diverse region. With strong working relationships to many community organizations and regional stakeholders, The Sprout Fund is one of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s leading agencies on issues related to civic engagement, talent attraction and retention, public art, and catalytic small-scale funding.