Concept for the City of Foley’s new event train, making its way to the city soon.

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FOLEY – The City of Foley is known for many things, one of them being the Railroad Museum and Depot located in Heritage Park. One of the staples of the park is the Foley event train which gives rides through the park on the weekend and during special events, and is present in most of the parades that come through Foley. Before her retirement earlier this year, past Foley Depot Museum Director Bonnie Donaldson began pushing for a new train. She approached the council first in July of 2017 to speak with them about obtaining funds to have a new train built for the museum as the current train was already approaching 1,700 motor hours at that time, and the club members feared it might give out sooner rather than later. With the train rides being a huge staple of the city, they didn’t want to let that happen.

After finding a company that could manufacture the desired train to include wheelchair accessibility and the council approving to help fund the project, the building of the train was underway. As of now, the new train has been completed, but only one thing is preventing it from making its way to Foley: it needs a home.

“The manufacturer has told us that they will hold the train until we get the housing arranged for it, so that’s a good thing,” said LaDonna Hinesley, marketing director for Foley. Thanks to funding from the city, the Caboose Club has purchased a metal container similar to the one the current train is kept in, and after an approval during the April 16 meeting, the Caboose Club will now receive the funds to finish modifying the container.

The container will be fully insulated and will allow entrance from the front and back so that the new train can drive straight into and out of the container with ease. A decision was made to keep the old train as well, in case anything should happen to the new train or if the need of an extra train arises.

Now with some extra modifications, the new container will be complete, and the City of Foley will soon have a new event train taking passengers for rides through the park.