Restoration of the historic Ontelaunee Park train is a bit closer to completion.

During the Das Awkscht Fescht Aug. 2, in Macungie Memorial Park, a rebuilt Model A engine was donated to the Lynn Heidelberg Historical Society by the Lehigh Valley Model “A” Club for insertion into the old train locomotive framework.

The original Model “A” engine had been replaced by a V-6 Chevy engine years ago, but the historical society wanted the train to be as close to original as possible.

Steve Ryan, president of the Lehigh Valley Model “A” Club, did the greater percentage of the assembly on the engine.

Ben Giralico, a member of the historical society is also a member of the Lehigh Valley Model “A” Club.

Giralico made a suggestion to the club about rebuilding an engine for the train.

The club agreed and the project was started with volunteers contributing parts and labor in the construction of the engine.

The only money expended was for machining certain portions of the engine.

Some of the parts of the old engine are being stored in a barn. The tender and one passenger car have already been restored.

The train was originally installed at Ontelaunee Park in 1937 by Homer Snyder, who purchased it from Harvey Moser.

Moser built the train to run at a park, which he called Iona Park near Delps.

The train ran at the park from 1930 until 1937. In the late 1980s, the train was sold to a party in Schuylkill County until it was re-sold at an auction in 2000.

The engine, a tender and three cars, along with the track, were sold at that time.

Susan Kistler and the late Carl Snyder attended the auction with the sole purpose of buying the train and bringing it back to New Tripoli.

Snyder let Kistler do the bidding and, so the story goes, when the bidding reached $10,000, Kistler asked how far should she bid.

Snyder reportedly said, “Until we have it.”

They bought the train that day for $16,000.

Craig Weaver of Germansville is instrumental in restoring the train to its former glory.

He is working on one of the passenger cars and expects to have it finished in the near future.

The goal is to have the train completely restored by 2017 for the 80th anniversary of the train’s original installation at the park.

A reproduction of the New Tripoli railroad station will be built to the east of the barn.

This will house the train and will have the history of it on display.

The 1,500 plus feet of track will be installed so that the train can be run occasionally.

The original number of the train was 97.

As the insignia with the old number is not available, a new casting was made for the number and will be attached to the engine.

New castings were also made for other parts of the train to replace original ones which were lost or broken.