The St. Albans Chesapeake & Ohio Modelers is very pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with the St. Albans Depot Restoration Group to begin using the restored Chesapeake & Ohio depot in St. Albans as SACOM's home base. The decision was made at a meeting with Marty Burke, President of the Depot Group, on January 16, 2007.

Marty has been involved in the restoration and maintenance of the depot since her mother, Vera Ellis, led the efforts to save the depot in 1992. The depot was literally weeks from being razed by CSXT when Vera worked with the City of St. Albans to have the city purchase the building and lease it to the St. Albans Women's Club, of which Vera was a very active member. Vera spearheaded efforts to both repair and restore the depot as well as have the building placed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings, protecting the building from being destroyed. The restoration effort evolved to become it's own organization and is no longer managed by the St. Albans Women's Club. Though Vera passed away a few years ago, she was devoted to maintaining the depot and seeing it become the beautifully restored landmark that it is now.

Over the last few years many members of the Depot Group, who were not actually railroad enthuiasts, lost interest or left the area and Marty and her father, Arlie Ellis, have been doing most of the maintenance and management of the depot on their own. Arlie's age is becoming a factor in his ability to do routine work on the depot and Marty is a full time teacher and mother. The depot was becoming more than the two can handle on their own.

Enter,.....SACOM! A group of Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad enthusiasts with the stated goal of sharing the history of the C & O in the St. Albans area. After a couple of phone conversations with Marty, some SACOM members and Board of Director members met with Marty at the depot. After about an hour of exchanging visions and ideas, Marty and SACOM members realized that there were two organizations, but one idea, maintain, enhance and utilize the depot to share the history of the C & O and St. Albans.

SACOM will now call the depot home for meetings and SACOM events. SACOM will work with Marty to reorganize the museum portion of the depot and perform needed repairs to the building. SACOM will also take over routine maintenance and cleaning of the building and grounds. The two organizations will maintain separate identities and leadership for now, but work closely to find the best way to enhance and utilize the depot.

Of particular interest is the fact that the depot will be celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society is holding their 2007 conference in Charleston and will tour the depot in July, at which time we will officially mark the depot's first century of service to the community.

Plans currently call for opening the depot to the public at least once a month, and cleaning the west freight room to convert it to a layout room. Everyone is encouraged to watch this site for more information and open house dates, then stop by and visit the St. Albans C & O depot.