A&SV Receives State Historical Society Grant for Steam Engine Rebuild
The Kansas State Historical Society has awarded a grant for $79,152 to cover part of the A&SV’s cost of rebuilding Santa Fe 3415, the railroad’s famed steam engine.
The KSHS Heritage Trust Fund provides matching funds to help preserve properties listed in the National Record of Historic Places. Santa Fe 3415 was placed on the national record in 2011.
The grant will help cover the cost of inspecting the locomotive’s boiler and replacing an intricate system of flue tubes, a process that requires outside consulting and skilled labor.
A crew from the Durango and Silverton steam railroad in Colorado was in Abilene last month to supervise a group of volunteers on the process of removing the old tubing and other construction tasks. About 15 volunteers from four states were in Abilene for January’s work weekend. The railroad plans to conduct organized work weekends every month until the project is completed.
A&SV President and General Manager Ross Boelling said that the railroad will need more money and volunteer hours to complete the rebuild, but work crews have done a remarkable job of dismantling the engine and carefully cataloging and storing parts.
“We would like to have the engine back in service late this year,” Boelling explained. “Santa Fe 3415 figures to play a major role in Abilene’s observance of America’s 250th birthday in 2026, so we need to get the engine up and running. This grant will make us one step closer to completing that goal.”
The Santa Fe 3415 grant is one of ten projects to receive money from the KSHS Heritage Grant program this year. Boelling said work on the projects detailed in the A&SV grant will begin this summer.
KDOT Grant Expected to Improve A&SV Mainline Safety
Abilene and Smoky Valley officials say a grant received on December 18 from the Kansas Department of Transportation will help bring about a major upgrade in the railroad’s mainline track between Abilene and Enterprise.
The grant, in the amount of $471,722, was awarded as part of over $13 million in KDOT monies allocated to improve the safety of rail lines on Kansas.
The planned track work funded by the grant will be the first investment in the A&SV’s rail infrastructure since the organization spent about $380,000 three years ago. At that time, 3,500 new wooden ties, new spikes and plates, and some roadbed repairs amounted to the first track upgrade since the mid-1960s when the Rock Island still owned the line.
The current project will install 1,000 new ties, while making major repairs in the roadbed and adding new ballast along the 5.5 mile right of way. The grant also covers rebuilding switches at the Abilene and Enterprise terminals.
“This is a major project that will improve the safety on the line and give our passengers a much smoother ride,” said Ross Boelling, A&SV President and General Manager. “These are improvements that we’ve needed for a long time.
“We’ve mostly been able to provide spot maintenance and repairs as needed with our volunteer staff. But we have not had the money to do some of the things this grant will provide, and frankly, some of the needed repairs are beyond our abilities,” said Boelling.
The grant is part of the DOT’s Rail Service Improvement Investment program (RSIS). Fourteen of 23 projects proposals were funded.
Boelling said the grant requires a 30 percent match from recipients, meaning that the A&SV must raise $141,516 to meet its share of the agreement. He said fundraising has already begun to meet this requirement.
Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, in making the announcement of the RSIS awards, said “These projects reflect the diverse needs faced by our Kansas communities and rail operators. By bolstering the state’s rail network, we will promote economic opportunity throughout Kansas.”
As the state’s official heritage railroad, A&SV was the only non-profit railroad to receive RSIS money. All other awardees are commercial operators.
Boelling said construction will begin in the spring and should be completed by the start of the 2025 tourism season in May.
A&SV Celebrates Banner Year in 2024
The year 2024 will go down in history as the Abilene and Smoky Valley Railroad’s second best on record in terms of the number of passengers who rode on A&SV excursion, dinner, charter, and special event trains.
A total of 21,383 passengers rode A&SV trains, a figure that represents an increase of 9,345 over 2023, and 12,862 more passengers in 2022. The 2024 attendance is eclipsed only by the 1991 season, when the railroad drew over 22,000 riders in a season when the famed Thomas the Tank franchise trains rode on A&SV rails.
“Going into the year, we worried about how the steam engine being out of service would affect our ridership,” said Ross Boelling, A&SV President and General Manager.
“But increased marketing, some innovative special themed trains, and the Sunflower Summer program—which brought in more that 6,600 passengers alone–more than made up for the loss of the steam engine,” Boelling said. He added that the Great Pumpkin Patch Express event drew over 1,800 passengers in October, while the Santa Express drew 4,575 riders.
The A&SV’s designation as the official Kansas Heritage Railroad by last year’s Kansas Legislature also had a positive impact on ridership figures. Records indicate that 369 Kansas communities, or 59 percent of the state’s 627 municipalities, came to Abilene to ride A&SV trains.
Boelling said that Wichita, Salina, Manhattan, Abilene, Topeka, and Junction City provided the most passengers, but the railroad’s reach into the Kansas City, Lincoln-Omaha, and Oklahoma City markets also represented larger attendance figures in 2024. People from 43 states and 10 foreign countries were represented in the 2024 passenger count.
“There’s no doubt that we’re on a major growth trajectory,” Boelling said. “We’re proud of our contribution in making Abilene one of the major tourist destinations in Kansas.”
