The president of Elgin County Railway Museum says his organization has gained traction with an announcement Tuesday of almost $260,000 in federal funding.
"Our years of hard work have not been in vain -even though I'm sure that some felt that we were spinning our wheels on slippery rails," George McNally smiled after Elgin -Middlesex -London Tory MP Joe Preston yesterday said the museum would receive $257,980 from the Sand Plains Community Development Fund.
"Hopefully, this bit of sand on the tracks will get us rolling."

The money will fund salaries of an executive director and support staff for two years, enabling the museum to move ahead with plans for development of the organization and its building.

Preston said the funding would help the museum become a year-round attraction, boosting tourism.

More than 60 people filled a corner of the museum's massive exhibit hall where Preston made his announcement from the commanding rear platform of a restored 1891 Grand Trunk Western caboose once used in international freight service between London and Chicago.

"I like this," he laughed. "I'm going to stand up here most of the day!" The Sand Plains Community Development Fund is a three-year, $15 million initiative established by Ottawa to help five tobacco-dependent counties in southwestern Ontario -Brant, Elgin, Middlesex, Norfolk and Oxford -diversify their economies.
Now in its second year, the fund provides loans to entrepreneurs, and grants to nonprofit organizations such as ECRM.

"This type of project is critical to what we are trying to do in the Sand Plains area . . . (to) drive local businesses in a different way," Preston said.
"This community is still heavily based in manufacturing, and still will be, but now, if we continue to push further into its heritage and its tourism, we can create more jobs and more prosperity because of it."

St. Thomas largely was built by railways, Preston observed. Since the first in 1856, 26 lines have passed through.