OBSERVER Photo by Andrew Kuczkowski The New York & Lake Erie Railroad station in Gowanda was an epicenter for Christmas in Gowanda once again. The rides ignited a hype around trains, which helped shed the station’s stigma of being old and outdated.

COLLINS – Infrastructure may have taken a backseat in past years, but it is the backbone to transportation. Besides roads and bridges, railroads seem to have the stigma of being old and outdated. But maybe they are just old enough to be fashionable again.

“What we want to do is use tourism as the tool to fuel economic development and this is how it started. Four years ago, when I got appointed co-chair of the economic development committee for the town of Persia we started looking for ways to redevelop things to bring businesses,”  John Walgus, Persia town supervisor, said.

However, money is tight. Municipalities are making cuts rather than expanding due to shrinking tax bases. That’s why Walgus and local rail owner and activist Robert Dingman Jr. went from meeting to meeting to ask for a letter of approval from each municipality. The request is for a grant from the New York State Department of Transportation’s Passenger & Freight Rail Assistance Program (PFRAP).

“Last year was one of the first years where this money became available,” Walgus added. “It hasn’t been there for a long time. So that’s why we were proud when we got $4.3 million out of $16 million for the whole state of New York. This year it’s $20 million.”

The money last year helped Dingman, who owns New York & Lake Erie Railroad, begin repairs that will extend his rail from Gowanda to Cherry Creek.

Railroads are being resurrected locally. During Christmas in Gowanda, many eventgoers were drawn to the now-retro form of transportation.

“Last year we had over 1,200 people come into the village for our train rides,” Gowanda Mayor Heather McKeever said about 2015’s Christmas in Gowanda, adding this year’s event focused on the train even more.

These train rides have become a tradition to Gowanda’s holiday celebrations. New York & Lake Erie Railroad hosted rides in late October as well, providing short, cheap rides several times throughout the festivities.

“We have found by demonstrating these little runs (Halloween run, Easter Bunny run), and back when we were in the business for 21 years — stopping just about 2009 when the flood occurred — that we had a diverse product offering,” Dingman stated. “For instance, we had dinner trains using cable cars and we had murder mysteries on board with dinner.”

This activity could be an attraction as well as a form of transportation.

“We did a train ride from Hamburg to North Collins and there was a dinner,” North Collins Town Supervisor John Tobia said about a ride by another rail named Buffalo Southern in September. “It was just fabulous. You should have seen all the people running to the train and waving. It was like ‘You’ve never seen a train?’

“It was crazy. It was a great experience. It was beautiful. The train track going over the gorge in Eden and Hamburg there is absolutely breathtaking.”

The ultimate goal is what Walgus was assigned to do: Get money into the area. And when the people are coming, they are not leaving their wallets at home.

“Money,” Walgus said on the purpose of resurrecting the rail. “Three hundred people on a train, dumping them off. Everybody spends 20 bucks. Three hundred times 20 is ($6,000). On a day trip, that’s a lot of money. Bob and I, we went door to door for the Christmas in Gowanda train ride and we asked how much business increased because of the train ride. And it either doubled or tripled over a normal weekend.”

If the rail gets resurrected from Buffalo to Jamestown, then many of the attractions in the Southern Tier will become available for those who may not be aware of them: the Amish Trail, the plethora of small mom and pop shops. And for those stuck in the city, it may be the trees and open land that pique their interest.

Though these rides won’t be a daily occurrence, whatever day, holiday or weekend the train ride does run, it will be another opportunity to bring in another couple hundred guests.

“The grant is to get the corridor back together,” Dingman added. “By the corridor, I’m referring to this piece of the Erie Railroad that ran from Buffalo to Jamestown. While many of the freight shippers are no longer located in western New York like a lot of manufacturing, there are still some freight shippers that use it.

“Some we hope will use it in the future and those freight shippers will create employment at their locations, but above and beyond that, our business plan is predicated on creating a tourism corridor.”

Tobia added that besides the scenery that he viewed, the options available seemed very bountiful. During the summer, he pondered things to do in the coming year. Why not a train ride up to Canalside in Buffalo, do some things and then come back home? From there, the ideas are endless.

From Buffalo to Jamestown, there are thousands of events to see from Collins’ Liberty Fest on July 4 to the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival to everything that happens in Buffalo.

In small towns, it can be a struggle to find things to do. However, this can fill an empty agenda.

All aboard?

Email: akuczkowski@observertoday.com

Twitter: @Kuczkowski95