Friday, June 15, 2012

Lollipop Farm Kiddie Train Moved to the Gardiner Farm

This is the Lollipop Farm kiddie train The Greenlawn-Centerport Historical Association has acquired this wonderful  Long Island bit of history.
 The train has been kept inside the storage barn at the S.P.L.I.A facility in Lloyd Harbor.
According to a brief history on the Internet, the trian ran at Lollipop Farm from1950-1967.  It passed through several hands, including  East Woods School, and other owners who intended to restore and set the tracks up and run the train for children.
Tony Guarnaschelli, a master antique truck and auto restorer, and big part of the GCHA organization,  requested an got the train from S.P.L.I A.  They knew after more than 45 years in storage, the train would be lovingly brought back to life at the Gardiner Farm.




The train and its parts, the cars, trucks,  the tracks, and other pieces were in remarkable shape.

They put the cars and tracks on dollies, and





the move was on!






 We loaded the straight and curved tracks onto a boat trailer.
 The train cars came out of the barn and were carefully loaded onto another trailer.

The cars were tied down.
 Then we got rolling and headed for,
 the Gardiner Farm Barn in Huntington.


 Even the bottom didn't look that bad.




Now that we had the train at the Gardiner Farm, the members almost jumped for joy looking at it.


This train will get loving care from the association members, many of whom rode on this train as children, including me.




We had heard that a Doctor had this train after East Woods.  This card was still in one of the parts boxes.


So now the lead car, the end car, and one of the middle cars is safely tucked in the GCHA barn.  Missing parts, such as the gasoline tank can be replicated.  We expect to have this operational for the Pickle Festival in 2013, and the cars for photo ops set up for this year's pickle festival in September, 2012.   This is a treasure that the grandchildren of  Long Island Boomers will enjoy due to the GCHA volunteers.


4 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Such fun!

lisa lewicki hermanson said...

The train looks great! - almost like new. Really enjoyed the links to the Lollipop Farm, a rich local history. Will pass this on to other train enthusiasts.

Unknown said...

My brothers, Dick and Bob Gessner, and several of their friends, including Doug Bartow, ran the train at Lollipop Farm in the 1960's. They also ran the parking lot and did anything else Mr. Sweeney needed done.
This place holds a special place in all of our memories.
Catherine Gessner

Unknown said...

My brothers, Dick and Bob Gessner, and several of their friends, including Doug Bartow, ran the train in the 1960's at the farm. It was a high point of their teens.