Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum volunteer Jo Ann Messuri
leads the The Boca Express Train Museum tours on the first and third Fridays of the
By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley
“Welcome to the Boca Express Train Museum,” says stationmaster Carolyn Kammerer.
You’ll find her behind the ticket window at the renovated Boca Raton FEC Railway Depot on Dixie Highway. She’s ready to hand you a ticket back to the mid-20th century, when train travel was chic and cutting edge.
“We want history to be a living experience,” says education director Laurie-Lynne Jones of the Boca Raton Historical Society. “Instead of offering just a tour of an old train and station, we want our guests to actually experience what it must have been like to be a passenger in the 1930s and ’40s.” So she’s worked with six volunteers to study the train’s history and bring it alive by portraying characters onboard.
Station agent Sally Monbleau, dressed in black slacks and vest with crisp white shirt, welcomes travelers to the depot’s waiting room with its hand-painted pecky cypress beams and original tiles.
When it’s time to “depart,” conductor Jo Ann Messuri blows her wooden whistle and urges you “Aboard.” Then, with gold pocket watch in hand, she ushers you onto the Silver Meteor that’s running on time between New York and Miami.
The 1947 streamline rail car harkens back to another era.
It’s time to climb the stairs to enter the first of four sleek Streamliner cars. The Bud Co., using what were then the new techniques of bending and welding stainless steel, built them all.
In the dining car, take a seat at the table set with white linens, china and sparkling silver, as one of the cooks you’ve caught doing some cleaning chats about eating onboard.
It’s Vanessa Carosella, wearing a white chef’s jacket, who welcomes you into her cramped stainless steel galley. You can imagine how hot this space must have been when the coal grill and wood stoves were turning out cooked-to-order steak dinners for $4.75 each. And instead of just telling visitors that guava jelly was served to passengers after their train crossed into Florida, Carosella lets you actually taste a bit of it dabbed onto a mini corn muffin.
In the lounge car, you can sit on a curved banquette and enjoy a shot glass of lemony sweet Bubble Up or Sioux City Sarsaparilla. Both drinks were available when this train was at its prime, says bartender Dotty McCord from behind a bar carved with tropical birds. Oh, and don’t tip the bartender. It’s not expected, she tells us.
Move along to an orange upholstered seat in the observation car. Here you can virtually hear the click clack of the wheels as you imagine the train speeding along at over 100 miles per hour. Just be sure to ask lounge hostess Caroline Nepa why the window in her private area is the only one on the train that opens.
That’s just one of the bits of history and surprises you’ll experience during your tour.
And that’s what makes this train museum so much fun.
“It’s a real chance to learn about all the old cars, to experience the past and see how things really used to be,” says Donna Estess, a tour participant from Boca Raton. “I’m old-fashioned and I love it.” Ú
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