Community Assets: the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum looks back and ahead
Started as Bellevue's Bicentennial project in 1976, it became the largest railroad museum in Ohio, and it is helping link the bike trail through town.
The Mad River & NKP Railroad Society began in 1976 as Bellevue’s Bicentennial project. Thirty-six years later its museum, on both sides of the tracks along Southwest Street, is the largest railroad museum in Ohio and known well beyond the area for the number and quality of its exhibits.
Vice President David Robinson said the group once talked about downsizing and instead kept growing. Volunteers keep one eye on the past and one on the future, he said.
That future includes the North Coast Inland Trail. Museum volunteers have been working with trail volunteers to connect the Huron County and Sandusky County sections through Bellevue, closing a gap in the planned 50-mile route and linking to the trail that runs east from the Toledo area to Clyde. The museum also reached an agreement with Sunrise Cooperative, which was tearing down several grain silos next to museum property.
Hours and exhibits are on the museum’s website. See our museum guide, the train-watching platform and the Clyde-Bellevue trail. More in Community.