Steam to Victory coming to the Roundhouse
Guests will be able to ride a working vintage train.
One of the most astonishing railroad museums to be found anywhere in the United States makes its home near Sugarcreek and will host a major World War II commemorative event this month.
Steam to Victory will be held at the Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum, featuring vehicles, reenactments and battle simulations.
The museum, which houses one of the largest collections of steam locomotives and train cars in the country, will have the full collection open to the public for Steam to Victory Friday and Saturday, Sept. 9-10. Friday’s hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday's hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum sponsors the event to celebrate the role of North American railroads in achieving victory in WWII.
The event promises to deliver tanks, troops and trains. “The entire complex is going to be open, which is different from our typical tour days,” said Daniel Condo, visitor services coordinator at Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum. “We don’t normally have everything open at once. We’ll offer tours and also be doing short train rides that day. The chance to ride on one of the trains is a really big thing, as normally you just see the trains all standing still and cold.”
Admission to the grounds is $10 per adult and $5 for children, veterans and active duty military personnel. Children age 3 and under are admitted free. Guided tours and the train rides are available for an additional charge. Tickets are available the day of the event only.
“We try to hold our Steam to Victory event close to a patriotic holiday, and we’ve found Labor Day works best. We did it the Fourth of July the first year, and it was miserably hot. Pearl Harbor Day in December would be too cold, so September works well.”
This is the third year for the event.
“There will be people demonstrating arms and weapons from the period,” Condo said. “Vehicle restoration specialists will have military vehicles from the war era, and we have several food vendors coming that day. The gift shop will also be open.”
Age of Steam Roundhouse is a nonprofit organization that overseas the collection of railroad engines and cars assembled by the late Jerry Jacobson.
According to the museum website, “Needing a place to safely store and restore his fleet of railroad old-timers, our founder Jerry Jacobson acquired 34 acres of farm land located immediately adjacent to the Ohio Central Railroad main line track and right alongside a road named Smokey Lane. Today the site consists of storage tracks, a store house, coal dock, wood water tank, ash pit, back shop and the jewel of the site, a complete, working, 18-stall, brick roundhouse surrounding a 115-foot turntable and turntable pit. Other than a few small roundhouses recently built for railroad museums, we believe that this is the first full-sized, working roundhouse built in the U.S. since 1951.”
The Age of Steam Roundhouse facility, which is quite large and comprised of numerous buildings, is at 213 Smokey Lane Road SW in Sugarcreek. A smartphone GPS should guide visitors easily to the site, set among the hills and farms of Amish country. Tours are normally offered Thursday, Friday and Saturday from April through November.
Learn more at the museum website at www.ageofsteamroundhouse.org or call the museum at 330-852-4676.