Amtran board Chair Scott Cessna has long advocated for historic preservation, having led the Railroaders Memorial Museum and Baker Mansion and having worked with other Amtran leaders to preserve and enhance historic elements of the Amtran campus on Fifth Avenue — former site of the Altoona & Logan Valley Electric Railway — during renovations in recent years.

His advocacy at Amtran has been successful, except for losing an argument that the renovations that transformed the old ALVERY Trolley Barn into its Trolleyworks offices should have included keeping in view the trolley tracks that ran through the building.

It turns out that those trolley tracks that are hidden three-quarters of an inch below the tile of the Trolleyworks lobby weren’t content to stay concealed, but instead have announced themselves via cracks in the tile, leading to a proposed tile replacement project that has vindicated Cessna’s formerly losing argument — featuring metal expansion joints to mimic the tracks, brown tiles to signify the ties and random oval shaped gray tiles to mimic stone ballast.

“I’m happy the tile cracked,” Cessna said at a meeting Thursday.

His original argument was for the actual tracks to remain visible, topped with clear acrylic with the tile surface, but EADS’ Greg Elliott’s proposal for the expansion joints to mimic the rails is a satisfactory alternative, Cessna said.

The work is expected to be done in January by a subcontractor for JC Orr, the general contractor for a miscellaneous improvement project for the campus.

The campus stands out among transit sites for the historic elements that have been preserved, according to Cessna.

“It would have been the easiest thing to bulldoze this place and start over,” he said.

But Amtran’s leadership didn’t take that easy track, he said.

Instead, the leaders took “a very historic antique shell and put (in) modern amenities,” transforming a site designed to service trolleys to one designed for buses — without sacrificing modern function, Cessna said.

“The buildings were not ready to come down,” he said, noting “it would have been different if it were causing us issues.”

Elements that have been preserved, duplicated or imitated include red brick, metal roofing and the Trolleyworks clerestory.

Construction projects on campus have adhered to federal historic preservation standards for materials, features and significance, according to an online source.

A small vehicle garage constructed a few years ago was designed to align with the look of the Trolleyworks building, the Battery Barn building and the bus maintenance garage.

ALVERY operated from 1891 to 1954.

Amtran was created in 1958 by the city and Logan Township as the first public transit authority in Pennsylvania, according to information on the Amtran website.