Roscoe O&W Railway Museum

September 19, 2026 • Leave a Comment

The regional New York Ontario & Western Railway (O&W) operated from 1868 to 1957 and ran from Weehawken, New Jersey to Oswego on the shores of Lake Ontario, passing through the southern Catskills and Sullivan County along the way. There were also branches to Kingston, Port Jervis, Monticello, Delhi, Utica, Rome and Scranton. The railway was mainly used to transport people, coal and dairy products to and from rural communities along the line and the New York City metropolitan area.

However, after years of declining fortunes, and due to lower passenger traffic, improved automobile roads, declining coal shipments and outdated equipment, the O&W went bankrupt and liquidated its assets in 1957. The O&W railway was the first Class I railroad in the United States to be fully abandoned.

The Roscoe O&W Railway Museum was founded by Wilmer and Ethel Sipple in 1984 to help tell the story of the O. & W. and its impact on farming, tourism, hunting, fishing and community life.

Photograph of the Roscoe O&W Railway Museum in Roscoe, New York.

Photograph of an historical marker at the Rosoce O&W Railway Museum.

The museum was dedicated at 11am on Saturday, September 15, 1984. The dedication ceremony was followed by a reception and a program of movies and slides on the history of the New York, Ontario & Western Railway that was shown in the Roscoe Theater. The museum was originally located in a railroad caboose, which was restored and repainted in NYO&W colors.

The museum building, its current location, was acquired in 1986. It is a former stable, feed store and auto garage. During the renovation of the building, the siding, slate and wood shingles from the abandoned O&W Summitville Station were used to create an O&W façade. The museum contains O&W artifacts, general railroad memorabilia and local history displays.

Wilmer E. Sipple (1924-2015) was a lifelong area resident and teacher for the Roscoe and Liberty Central School Districts. He served in the US Army during World War II. He had a love for trains, was an excellent woodworker and built cabins on the lake. For a time, he served as the Rockland town historian. Ethel was an art teacher at both Roscoe and Livingston Manor. She was an artist in many different mediums including sketching, painting and ceramics. Both Wilmer and Ethel loved traveling. Wilmer E. Sipple died on September 25, 2015 and Ethel Sipple passed away seven years later on July 20, 2022. Both Wilmer and Ethel are buried at the Riverview Cemetery in Roscoe.

Across the street from the museum are two train cars that form part of its outside display, including a caboose and a trout car. First, the caboose is the refurbished N. Y. O. & W. caboose #8487, formerly of the Erie Railroad.

The second car, originally a Lackawanna coach, was restored to represent an original O&W trout car. Trout cars were used to carry fish from hatcheries in upstate New York and Long Island to stock streams in the area. In the beginning, baggage cars and box cars were used to haul the iced, trout filled milk cans to easily accessible river crossings on the railroad. Once at the river site the cans were carried by the men to the stream and dumped. For sites more distant from the railroad, the cans were loaded on horseback for the journey to the stream. Where possible, the train engineer would even stop the train at river and stream crossings to dump the young trout directly into the water.

The Roscoe O&W Railway Museum is located at 7 Railroad Avenue in Roscoe, New York, adjacent to where the O&W railbed once ran.

Photograph of a train caboose at the Roscoe O&W Railway Museum in Roscoe, New York.

Photograph of an O&W train outside the Roscoe O&W Railway Museum in Roscoe, New York.

Photograph of a rusted sign at the Roscoe O&W Railway Museum in Roscoe, New York.

Photograph of a metal sign at the Roscoe O&W Railway Museum.

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Roscoe O&W Railway Museum

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