The Empire State Railway Museum is a non-profit railroad museum located in the historic Ulster & Delaware Phoenicia Railroad Station, Phoenicia, New York. The station was built in 1899 by the U&D, and is one of the few surviving examples left along the line. In 1985, the station was purchased by ESRM and a local community redevelopment organization. The structure was restored and renovated to serve as the home of the museum.
The museum has seasonal exhibits in the station related to the history of the railroads in the Catskill Mountain region. The station had served as a stop on the Catskill Mountain Railroad until floodwaters from Hurricane Irene washed out the tracks. Train rides have been temporarily cut back to Mount Tremper station.
The organization's history stretches back to the 1960s, when they were headquartered in Middletown, New York, and sponsored many steam excursions and other railfan activities in the area.
The museum is the owner of several pieces of vintage railway equipment, including former LS&I No. 23, a 2-8-0 steam locomotive being restored to operating service in conjunction with the Catskill Mountain Railroad in Kingston, New York.
Additionally, the museum owns two former D&H and B&M wooden baggage cars, a 1926 Ex-CV Auto Carrier Car, and a steel Ex-New Haven caboose, which are in storage on the museum's siding in Phoenicia, New York. The railroad equipment is not restored, and is not open to the public.
Finally, the museum owns an Ex-NYC No. 519, Ex-D&H No. 154 type D-74 heavyweight diner, the Lion Gardiner, which is in derelict storage outside of Kingston, New York.
The museum was also the publisher of the Annual Guide to Tourist Railroads and Museums until the 2006 edition, the 41st. The guide is now published exclusively by Kalmbach Publishing.
The museum is staffed entirely by volunteers.
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“Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Once, when lying in bed with no paper at hand, he began to sketch the idea for a new machine on the back of his wife’s nightgown. He asked her if she knew the figure he was drawing. “Yes,” she answered, “the figure of a fool.””
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
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—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Flower picking.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 2710, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)