News release
ELLIS — Improvements to downtown at the Ellis Railroad Museum Park continue with a $10,000 grant from the Beach Family Foundation, Derby, awarded to the Community Foundation of Ellis’ train restoration and preservation project.
A storage garage mimicking a train loading dock now protects the refurbished miniature train belonging to the Ellis Railroad Museum. The miniature train is a one-third scale replica of GM’s 1950s Aerotrain, 1 of 4 ever built, that has been providing train rides in Ellis since 1993 on a three-quarter mile-long track.
In addition to restoring and protecting the train, the park now has additional landscaping, lighting, and art murals. Due to the generous support of the initial objective of the project, the Community Foundation of Ellis has initiated a phase two to finish restoration of a passenger car, replace railroad ties and add new gravel to the track, and make updates to the train depot from Penokee, which is located at the park.
“Last year the Beach Family Foundation helped us reach our original campaign goal,” said Pauleen Edmonds, Ellis Community Foundation Board President. “We are very grateful that they came to visit Ellis during the summer to see the improvements to the park and showed excitement to help us continue to make even more improvements than originally anticipated.”
Donations to the project can be addressed to the Community Foundation of Ellis and mailed to the Ellis Alliance office at 820 Washington St., Ellis, KS 67637.