On June 20 and 21, 2018, the Los Angeles Railroad Heritage Foundation hosted the board of directors and staff of the California State Railroad Museum Foundation in Sacramento, beginning with an evening reception at LARHF's offices and a morning tour of historic Los Angeles Union Station
The board and staff of the CSRM Foundation - the nonprofit fundraising arm of the world-class rail museum in downtown Sacramento - visited the Foundation's offices in Eagle Rock on the evening of Wednesday, June 20. They learned about LARHF's mission, our Scout Merit Badge program, the satellite exhibits in restaurants and public spaces around the Southland, book projects, and our photography and rail memorabilia archive. Route 66 Railway author Elrond Lawrence was on hand to sign books and photograph the session.
The following morning (below), CSRM foundation members & staff gathered again at the east portal of LA Union Station for a tour of the "Last of the Great Stations" built in 1939. The tour included a walk through the modern but equally stylish Metro Transit Authority building, where the group stopped to admire several enormous murals before a stop at the cafeteria balcony that overlooks rows of Metrolink and Amtrak trains waiting to depart.
Joe Lesser, chief executive officer of LARHF, then led the group back to the east entrance and under the tracks to the station's historic west end. In a high-tech touch, the CSRM group used a LARHF visual guide on their phones that illustrated tour stops with archive photos of the same locations during the "golden age" of train travel before and after the station's debut in May 1939. A stroll through the handsome waiting room was followed by a stop to view the cavernous former ticketing concourse and the main entrance from Alameda Street before the CSRM group departed for meetings in downtown LA.
We were thrilled to host President Cheryl Marcell, her staff and the CSRM Foundation board, and we look forward to collaborating on rail preservation and education projects in the future!
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