What started as a concrete plan by former Mayor Joseph Maestas to build a railroad museum is now one of Mayor Alice Lucero’s modest ideas to import a single train. Four years after the Española City Council broke ground on the long gestating museum, construction has yet to start and there are no plans in motion to resurrect it besides Lucero’s idea to place an antique train near the Plaza de Espanola.
The idea to place a railroad museum in downtown Española goes back to 1990 when the city included it in the Plaza master plans. Then Councilor Maestas started toying with the idea again in 2001 and by 2008, the city had both $400,000 in federal funding and $367,000 in state funding for the project.
Almost from the beginning, the project ran into trouble. In 2009, after much indecision from the city council for a proper site and the design of the museum, the city almost lost state funding after failing to submit design plans. Then city manager Victoria Albin was able to retain funding after splitting the project into a design phase and a construction phase.
Even after the city spent $176,000 on museum designs, the project remained in limbo. A year after the city council symbolically broke ground on the museum in 2009, the council voted to downsize the project from a three phase $782,000 endeavor to a more-modest $400,000 single phase undertaking. What started out as a full-fledged museum with a depot, outdoor space, play areas for children and a boardwalk, was now being talked about as being a self-guided museum.
Since Lucero took office, the project has effectively died. In a Sept. 12 interview, Lucero said she didn’t want to move forward with the project when she assumed the mayorship because of the costs of maintaining and providing employment for the museum. While no new proposals for the museum have been made, Lucero personally hopes the city can still import an antique train that the city can display under a structure in the downtown area.
Another idea Lucero had thought of was placing a train on a concrete island that will be created when the intersection of Hunter Street and Paseo de Onate is realigned, although Lucero said that wouldn’t preclude people from walking up to the train.
Lucero said she did not know whether the city still has access to federal and state funds.