Times Observer file photos A National Train Day celebration is set for May 13 at the Sheffield Depot. Here’s a couple historical looks at the Depot, which has been faithfully preserved by the Sheffield Depot Preservation Society.

What once was a sparsely-populated frontier town was connected to destinations all over the country as a result of rail expansion, especially in the second half of the 19th century.

On December 21, 1859, people from all over the county gathered to see the first train arrive in Warren from Erie. A large crowd grew and “much liquor was drank” in celebration.

After much effort by Dr. William A. Irvine, the railway expanded to connect the edges of the state with a line running from Philadelphia to Erie (subsequently through the heart of Warren County) that was completed in 1864.

Soon the county landscape was crisscrossed with railways of different names, gauges, and destinations.

While the invention of the automobile ultimately removed trains from the number one spot in the transportation power rankings, the heritage of trains in our region is strong.

To that end, National Train Day is being celebrated at the Sheffield Depot Heritage Museum. The depot is one of just a couple of more than dozens of depots still standing in Warren County.

It’s been faithfully and wonderfully preserved by the Sheffield Depot Preservation Society.

The event is Saturday, May 13 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the depot is located at 75 Center St. behind Tops Market.

“National Train Day is a holiday started by Amtrack in 2008 as a method to spread information to the general public about the advantages of railway travel and the history of trains in the United States,” Dennis Sturdevant said.

He explained that the date falls on the Saturday closest to May 10.

That might seem like a random date but it certainly isn’t – it corresponds to the anniversary of the pounding of the “Golden Spike” in Promontory, Utah which marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad.

“Sheffield Deport Preservation Society is celebrating National Train Day and we are sponsoring John Vandorn’s Wurlitzer Band Organ which will be playing at the Sheffield Depot 1-3 p.m.,” Sturdevant said. “We invite you to bring children and all those who love to see model trains running.”

There is no fee but donations are certainly welcome.

There is no fee to enter – donations are always accepted.

Originally only designed as a three-foot gauge logging railroad, the Sheffield and Tionesta Railroad later accepted and discharged passengers and freight at the Pennsylvania Railroad depot.

According to information from the Warren County Historical Society, the Tionesta Valley Railway operated at the Depot from 1879 along with the Sheffield and Tionesta Rail System from 1900.

“Narrow, three foot, gage tracks were best suited to move logs from remote forests to the saw mills. Emanating from Sheffield were two logging railroads,” that source explains. “The Tionesta Valley Railway…extended from Stoneham, near Warren, PA, to the Clarion River. Boasting four passenger trains daily, this little line employed one hundred men, had eight hundred pieces of rolling stock, including two dozen steam engines and traveled over 100 miles of track.

The Sheffield and Tionesta was quartered in Sheffield and owned by Teddy Collins, a lumberman from Nebraska, Pa., according to the WCHS.

World War II appears to have been the death knell for both lines – the Tionesta Valley Railway closed in 1942 while the Sheffield and Tionesta Rail System shuttered a year later.

The Tionesta Valley narrow gauge station survives and sits next to the depot.

I’ve had the privilege of visiting the Depot and, frankly, I highly recommend it.

I’ve long enjoyed visiting places that are like what they would have been like a century or more ago; those rare places that have been preserved or restored to an original condition.

This is one of those places.

From the deck to the track to the room where you sit and wait for the train (forgive that I don’t have the term) to the ticket window, the Depot feels like what it must have felt like 100 years ago when it was a key piece of the county’s transportation infrastructure.

You can walk through the door and feel immediately transported back to 1900 and those experiences are few and far between.

My apologies for this not being an ANF Centennial piece as I said it would be last week. We’ll get back there next week (I think!) and throughout the spring and summer.