Vistors revel in memories at restored station.

By BARBARA WEST, For The Daily News
June 18, 2000

ANNVILLE -- Blanche Schaeffer did more yesterday than make the trains run on time.

She stopped history in its tracks.

Thirty-seven years after the last passenger train traveled the railroad line, a 5,400-foot freight train pulled its brake and stopped to rest on the rails next to the Annville Train Station. For Schaeffer, president of the Friends of Old Annville and the driving force behind the group's quest to restore the old train station, and the several interested local residents who turned out for the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the station yesterday, the train's arrival added just the right touch for a very special occasion.

"She really got a train to stop here," marveled Ruth Krebs of Annville.

"If any one can do it," quipped Annville's Owen Moe, "Blanche can."

The train, which remained until after the ceremony, attracted a lot of attention from visitors who thought that Schaeffer may have arranged for the train stop. She didn't, she admitted, but she like everyone else was ecstatic with its timely stop.

According to engineer Nate Fergusson and Mike Kern, railroad foreman, it was just a coincidence that they happened to pause in Annville at that particular time.

"We just stopped here to wait for the traffic signal," Kern said from the cab of the 54-car train, which hauls freight from Canada. "We just stopped to wait for another train."

As children and adults walked alongside the train, some elected to climb aboard to get a better of view of the station as it may have looked during its heyday. Meanwhile, movie cameras rolled and camera shutters snapped. It was another moment to record in the storied history of the train station.

The Annville Train Station stood along the tracks at the north end of Railroad Street from 1896 to 1976. At the time of the nation's bicentennial, the station was dismantled to make a parking lot for Lebanon Valley College. But amid the preparation for the 1997 Old Annville Days celebration, members of the Friends group decided to find the old station and return it to Annville.

Yesterday's ceremony was the culmination of that three-year effort.

The owner of the H&H Tack Shop, Eugene Heisey presented opening remarks to roughly 150 people who turned out to welcome home the old station. Heisey was the one who knew where the station had been moved decades ago - to New Cumberland, where it was being used as a hobby shop. The Friends purchased the station for $7,000 and brought the dismantled pieces home on the back of three flatbed tractor-trailers in September l998.

"I have many memories of when it (the station) was on Railroad Street," he told the crowd. "Thanks to the ladies here who pulled out all the stops to bring it back again."

As Schaeffer stepped forward to speak on behalf of the Friends of Old Annville, the train bell pealed as if on cue.

"This is Annville's station," she said. "It doesn't belong to any particular individual or group. This belongs to the community."

Schaeffer attributed the success of the project to community volunteers like North Annville resident Eri Meyer, who single-handedly painted the station.

"No one else lifted a paint brush except for Eri, and he wouldn't take a penny for his work," she told the crowd.

"This is what small-town USA is all about," commented Thomas Beazley, president of the Annville Township commissioners, who praised the volunteers' efforts.

The honor of cutting the ribbon fell to 9-year-old Robert "Bobby" Brown of Cleona, who had visited the station with Schaeffer every day since it arrived on the Moyer Street site.

"He carried bricks and floorboards, and swept floors." Schaeffer said moments before Brown severed the ribbon with a single snip of the shears.

As she walked through the front doors of the station, Janet Bowers was overcome by memories, her eyes filling with tears.

"I saw my brother off to the army at this train station," recalled the 69 year-old Annville resident.

Those who could recall the old station when it stood on Railroad Street said they were impressed with the accuracy of the restoration.

"It's just the way I remember it, except that it's cleaner," said Joe Waltz, 73, of Annville. "And I miss the gumball machines they used to have in here. We went on excursions to Atlantic City and New York City from this station. You didn't just jump in a car."

Rita Beyer, a former Daily News reporter who had compiled a book of Annville residents' memories of the train station, called "Next Stop Annville" was on hand to autograph copies.

After the ceremony, Schaeffer, who had arrived in Annville at the very same train station as a 15-year-old back in 1936, peered through one of the original windows of the station as the last child disembarked with wonder from the cab of the train. She said the work of the Friends group is not yet finished.

The station will also house a genealogical center and an archive of Annville memorabilia, including an oral history collection, she explained. It will also serve as a meeting place for the Friends. Photographs, artifacts and other memorabilia will remain in locations across Annville until they can be displayed in their final home. Additional restoration and computer cataloguing needs to be done. Judging by the groups efforts so far, the work is in capable hands.

As one of her volunteers said, "If it needs done, Blanche will see that it gets done."

Reprinted with permission of the Lebanon Daily News.