Port Jervis Railroad Museum reopens with new exhibits and caboose display

The Port Jervis Railroad Museum will reopen to the public on Saturday, July 4, with free admission, new exhibits and the first public look at Erie Lackawanna Railway caboose C380 at 86 Pike Street on the historic Erie Turntable site. The 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. reopening will put the museum back before visitors with a stronger focus on the railroad story that helped shape Port Jervis and the surrounding tri-state region.

The reopening follows a year of reinvention for the former Tri-States Railway Historical Society, which TOYX, Inc. acquired in November 2025 before the museum adopted its new name in April 2026. Museum president Rudy Garbely said the name change was meant to better reflect the mission and the railroad history the institution preserves. The new branding is part of a broader reset that the museum says will better tell the story of the railroads that built Port Jervis and connected the region to the rest of the nation.

Visitors on July 4 will see all-new exhibits highlighting more than 170 years of local railroad history. The reopening will also introduce a new Erie Lackawanna barbecue sauce made from the railroad’s original 1965 recipe, a souvenir item that ties the museum’s heritage work to a fundraising push. The museum’s public announcement says its collections, artifacts and stories have been completely remodeled, turning the site from a storage space for railroad memory into a more active destination for families, rail fans and holiday visitors.

One of the day’s biggest draws will be caboose C380, restored and repainted by TOYX volunteers this spring. The car now wears the Erie Lackawanna’s original 1976 bicentennial paint scheme, brought back in 2026 to mark the nation’s semiquincentennial. The bright red, white and blue livery gives the reopening a built-in patriotic hook and a visible reminder that the museum is trying to make history easy to see, not just read about.

The reopening also comes with uncertainty around the 8.67-acre Erie Turntable property. In December 2025, TOYX said all leases and agreements on the site would be terminated effective July 26, 2026, and that it would remove 27 historic railcars, related exhibits and artifacts over the next eight months. TOYX has said the property was once a central hub of the Erie Railroad’s shop and roundhouse complex after the railroad arrived in Port Jervis in 1848, and the museum’s holiday reopening suggests an effort to keep that history visible downtown even as the future of the site remains contested.