By BARBARA WEST, For The Daily NewsMay, 2000
By BARBARA WEST, For The Daily News
May, 2000
ANNVILLE -- Listen closely, and you can hear the past slowly riding toward the future: the shrill blast of a whistle, a whispery hiss of steam, the chugging of the steam engine as it makes its way down the tracks.
For older Annville residents, those are just a few of the nostalgic sounds associated with the steam engines that once made passenger and freight runs into the community years ago.
Blanche Schaeffer and the Friends of Old Annville have a dream - to preserve Annville's history and bring the memories of its railroad heyday to life for present and future generations.
That dream is steadily becoming reality as the Friends group continues restoration efforts for the station. Born in 1923, Sam Zearfoss for one is pleased with the group's efforts and the return of the Annville Train Station.
"The station looks just the way I remember it," the Annville resident says, recalling the high water mark of railway service in the 1930s. "My aunt used to take the 7:15 'Milky' train to work on her commute to Reading. She'd return home on the 5 o~clock express."
For the most part, only the older residents of Annville recall that the "Milky" was the term used for the milk train that traversed the tracks, and that the "Queen of The Valley" was the steam engine that made its express run through Annville each day.
"The train was called the 1:15 Express when it left Annville," Zearfoss remembers. "When it returned at 9:35 p.m. it returned as the Queen of the Valley."
During the 1930s, the train station was just one stop for trains heading from points west to Reading, Philadelphia and New York. Though it was only a single stop, it meant a lot to those who can still hear its whistle calling.
"It didn't stop when it passed through Cleona", Zearfoss recalls. "That was just a mail stop. The mail bag was pulled off a hook as the train passed through Cleona."
Thanks to the restoration efforts of the Friends of Old Annville, present and future generations have a better idea of what it was like when trains were a major source of transportation for Lebanon county residents.
In its glory days, the Annville Train Station stood along the tracks at the north end of Railroad Street between 1896 to 1976, when the station was dismantled to make a parking lot for Lebanon Valley College.
Many residents were unhappy to lose the station and an important part of Annville's railroad
history. Schaeffer, president of the Friends of Old Annville, can be counted among those residents.
She remembers the Milk Run quite well - and quite fondly.
"I came in on the milk train in 1936 from California when I was 15 years old," she recalls. "This is all part of Annville and the history that we want leave for our children and our future."
The loss of the old railroad station hit home for many residents in 1997 following the Old Annville Days celebration.
"Our theme that year was transportation," says Schaeffer. "We thought, wouldn't it be nice to find our old railroad station and bring it back?"
The drive to locate the old station began. Thanks to Gene Heisey from the H&H Tack Shop, the Friends of Old Annville that year located and purchased the station from a private owner in New Cumberland for $7,000.
The station was brought back home on the back of three tractor-trailers in September 1998. Gradually, the wooden structure was reassembled along the tracks on Moyer Street. The funds for the work were raised through a state grant and donations of cash and services from local residents and businesses.
"People have been so nice," says Schaeffer. "They've tried hard to accomodate us any way they can."
Henise Tires of Cleona, for example, has offered to store the baggage wagon until the floor of the station is painted and sanded. And when the wagon returns, a local family has offered to take charge of the complete restoration of the 100-year-old wagon.
The support from Annville residents and others outside the community has been invaluable, according to Schaeffer. North Annville resident Eri Meyer has spent countless hours sanding and painting the station. And now that the floors have been sanded, they must be painted.
This will be a labor-intensive effort for Meyer, who has donated his time and skill for the project. He will work on his hands and knees to apply the paint to the 60-foot by 18-foot floor.
Although Schaeffer says the station will be open to visitors for the Old Annville Day celebration June 10 and a ribbon cutting ceremony June 17, it won't really be completed to the group's satisfaction. The antiques, including the railroad scale are in storage, awaiting the move to their old home. The bricks for the sidewalk, numbering more than 3000, still need to be laid.
Almost 500 of those bricks are "signature bricks" that have been purchased by residents in memory or honor of loved ones.
The group would like to purchase additional computer equipment, a television set and a VCR for the genealogical research center, an important part of the railroad station project. The goal of the group is to preserve Annville's history, not just the memorabilia associated with the railroad, Schaeffer says.
Along those lines, Schaeffer says the Friends of Old Annville has begun assembling an oral history collection, including movie footage of soldiers leaving the station in 1943 and an interview with a resident who recalls life in Annville at the time of World War I. Schaeffer says that although she's satisfied that the group has prepared for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, there is still much left to do.
"You're never really finished," she says. "It's like restoring a home or working in the garden. There are always ways you want to improve."
Reprinted with permission of the Lebanon Daily News.