Farkash ready to lay tracks at Railroad Museum

Gary Farkash has been involved in one way or another for decades at the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum. Now as trustee and corporate secretary for the OBRM, he’s coming up on his 29th year of service there. His goal now is for four new tracks to be laid down in time for the railroad museum’s spring reopening, allowing for more organization and space to be freed up for possible newer additions in future.

In April 1993, Farkash made a wrong turn driving to his Baldwin home because of construction detours. The experience led him face-to-face with steam locomotive #35, the very last steam locomotive to operate on Long Island.

“It’s one of only three left throughout the United States; this is Nassau’s locomotive,” he said of the iconic commuter passenger train, previously in Eisenhower Park.

Farkash then founded the non-for-profit “Friends of Locomotive 35,” which later became the OBRM.

“I’ve been about history since I was a kid, I’m all about the history and mechanics,” said Farkash, when explaining why he decided to join OBRM, where every Saturday he and other dedicated volunteers work to restore and touch up the pieces of transportation history.

Outdoing themselves each coming year, last year’s big attraction was the working Oyster Bay turntable, a device used to reposition incoming and outgoing trains. Fitted with safety measures, it now acts as an interactive attraction at the museum.

The turntable is one of the bonuses the museum offers. “I think we are the only railroad museum in the United States that does regularly scheduled turntable rides [as an attraction],” Farkash asserted.

For this spring’s reopening, the volunteers are coming together with contractors to lay down as least three tacks to reposition various trains. Track one will be fitted with their GS-1 Switcher #397 “Dashing Dan,” previously used in the back shop of the LIRR for shuttling other locomotives and lovingly called “dinkys” by railway workers. Once track one is laid down, track two will have both the #398 “Dashing Dottie” GS-1 Switcher and N52 Caboose #12, used in the rear of freight trains.

The third track will have the iconic G5S Locomotive Engine #35 secured onto the track with parts of the boiler, frame, body and wheel sets assembled together. Lastly, track four will be laid down with their P54 Ping Pong Coach, a previous commuter train where you can feel the hours spent bouncing around Long Island. In addition, the two Long Island Rail Road simulators will be moved, and PS-1 Freight Box Car and FA-1 Cab Unit will be placed together creating a cohesive semi-box car.

Farkash said every year is going to be different to make the museum innovative and exciting to new and old visitors alike. Currently in Riverhead, a new addition of the BM-60 Baggage Mail Car #738, last running in the mid-70s, will soon make its way to OBRM in future.

The OBRM wrote of Farkash’s dedication to the preservation and acquisition of the antique trains on their Facebook page, “His dedication of time and energy remain unmatched, and he sets a standard that’s difficult to match. Any time there’s a question, about pretty much anything, Gary has remained the go-to guy for answers.”

The museum will be tentatively opening the third weekend of April.