The interior of São Paulo will have a railway museum on rails with at least 14 vehicles on display to the public, which can also be used on a tourist rail route.
Being developed by the ABPF (Brazilian Association for the Preservation of Railways), the museum is built on the tracks that were once operated by the Companhia Mogiana de Estradas de Ferro and today house a 25-kilometer route between Campinas and Jaguariúna.
The goal is that the Anhumas Station Museum, in Campinas, will be ready next year, but this depends on the resources obtained by the ABPF, whose sources of income are income generated by visits (tickets, snacks and souvenirs), annual contributions and donations. Anhumas is the embarkation station for weekend trips to Jaguariúna.
The director of the association, Hélio Gazetta Filho, affirms that the project followed the originality of the Mogiana courtyard, covering the main line, used on the tourist route, and two parallels.
In the museum, which will measure 8.2 m wide and 120 m long, visitors are expected to find at least seven locomotives and seven wagons and passenger cars, but the number may increase depending on the dimensions of the vehicles on display.
“If they are small locomotives, maybe you can take one more. The most exotic equipment will go, which you hardly use in everyday life. Administration car, sleeping car or baggage car. Even some old wagons can go there too,” said the association director.
According to him, the collection on display to the public in the future museum will not necessarily remain static forever.
“Just because it’s in the museum doesn’t mean it doesn’t come out anymore. There (the section) is connected to the rail network, so if we decide to take something out from there, just pull it and it will go.” This opens up opportunities for permanent renewal of the collection on display to visitors.
In the future, the proposal includes installing a platform in the middle of the vehicles on display and lighting the passenger cars, so that visitors can see the interior of the vehicles restored by the ABPF.
This year, structural work included the front and rear of the museum as well as the installation of security cameras. The next steps will be to meet the requirements of organizations such as firefighters and power plants.
The association is also seeking resources from Campinas City Hall, which acted as a partner, according to Gazetta Filho.
The collection intended for the future museum is currently stored at the Carlos Gomes station, also in Campinas, which houses the restoration and maintenance workshop for locomotives and wagons.
Once the vehicles have been transported to the museum, the workshop will be freed up in terms of space, which will result in better working conditions for the team and, on the other hand, the possibility of receiving abandoned locomotives and passenger cars from all over the country. And there are many of them in this situation.
In 40 years of operation, more than 20 locomotives and more than 60 passenger cars and freight wagons have been recovered from the site, which once served around 20 railway companies, such as Mogiana, Companhia Paulista, Estrada de Ferro Oeste de Minas, Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana and Estrada de Ferro Araraquara.
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