A Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive engineer, Smith is lauded for creating a fund that gave job income protections for railroaders nationwide.

The museum’s rail yard is now equipped to offer enhanced experiences with more events and a greater appeal to the community for education and entertainment, Executive Director Joseph DeFrancesco said.

The area includes a stage, concrete and turf, new outdoor lights, a flagpole and a fence. It cost roughly $1.3 million, according to Morey Lawruk, the general contractor for the renovation.

The bill was footed by the North American Railway Foundation, a nonprofit created in 1996 by the Brotherhood’s Relief and Compensation Fund organization that Smith created in 1912.

Railroaders Memorial Museum Executive Director Joe DeFrancesco addresses guests during the dedication of the Luther G. Smith Memorial Yard on Thursday afternoon. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

According to Brian Penfield, NARF’s vice chairman, Smith established the brotherhood to provide job income protection to railroaders throughout the United States and Canada who were “held out of service” due to being suspended or dismissed from their jobs.

Smith did not object to the railroads disciplining employees whenever it was necessary, but he did not see the logic in innocent family members having to suffer when the head of the household made an error in the performance of his duties, Penfield said.

He said the brotherhood’s leadership was strict and held men to a high standard of behavior and performance on and off the railroad, if they wanted to receive benefits. Smith believed that avoiding alcohol was essential to the safe operation of the railroad, Penfield said.

“At the end of the day, Brother Smith was onto something,” he said, adding railroad discipline has been a fact of life since the dawn of the industry.

Jesse Taylor, the chairman of NARF’s board of directors, said the rail yard project’s completion is “a gamechanger” for the museum.

Guests talk in front of the Luther G. Smith statue following the ribbon cutting at the Railroaders Memorial Museum on Thursday afternoon. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

According to Taylor, the Brotherhood’s Relief and Compensation Fund set aside excess investment revenue from 1996 to 2001 and built an endowment fund of $16.1 million, which has grown nearly $25 million in investment revenue.

He said they use their unrestricted income to fund projects they want to invest in like the museum’s rail yard renovation, which “is the biggest project we’ve ever done by far.”

“This is a project we wanted to engage in,” he said, adding Smith was from Altoona and is buried in Fairview Cemetery. “We want to bring Luther home to the city of Altoona.”

In a way, they were able to bring Smith home to Altoona after relocating a statue of the foundation’s founder from its headquarters in Mechanicsburg to the back of the museum’s rail yard.

Blair Alliance for Business and Economic Growth CEO Steve McKnight said he hopes the newly renovated rail yard will connect visitors to one of the county’s biggest historical attractions to downtown businesses.

“This is a critical asset,” he said of the yard. “To have such a center of activity of this scale associated with something of such historical significance will drive traffic to this location and then that in turn will drive traffic into the city and all of the businesses that are along Main Street.”

The rail yard will be used to host many events in the future, according to DeFrancesco.

“We collaborated with the foundation, and we were able to design something that would match the world class nature of the museum itself in an outdoor format,” he said, adding the museum has always had a blue-collar theme by telling stories from the perspective of railroaders.

Candy Holliday, the museum’s director of marketing and events, said the yard is perfect to host the museum’s sound and concert series, which will return at various points throughout the summer, beginning June 21.

“We’re partnering with a lot of community organizations and businesses that are also bringing their own events here this year,” Holliday said, adding the museum’s rail yard can be rented out for personal events and parties.

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.