Disappointment and anger are some of the emotions volunteers with the McComb Railroad Museum are feeling after vandals went downtown Saturday night and trashed antique railroad cars that had been undergoing extensive restoration efforts.
McComb Police Detective Sid Boyte said the department learned about the vandalism Sunday morning.
“Someone went down and saw the damage and contacted everybody at the department, and city hall is aware of it,” he said.
Railroad museum volunteer Bobby Bellipanni said he received word of the damage around 10 p.m. Saturday.
“We couldn’t really see without flashlights and we weren’t expecting what we found. They trashed those cars. They absolutely trashed them,” he said.
Bellipanni said the 1882 Post Office car — believed to be one of a handful still in existence — as well as an office car and the caboose were damaged.
“It had to have happened between 4:30 and 10 p.m.,” museum director Winnie Len Howell said.
She said she only saw the outside of the cars. Bellipanni said when he went inside the cars, the damage took him by surprise.
“The least damage seems to be in the Caboose. They broke a few windows. It was kind of a junk storage area while we repaired different cars. It’s just — it was way more than I expected.”
Howell said because the cars were antiques, replacing what was destroyed will be a tough task, if possible.
“So much of it can’t be replaced because it’s old, they don’t make it anymore,” Howell said.
Light fixtures, wooden drawers and chairs were broken and a mirror dating to 1883 was smashed. Vandals also tagged the cars with graffiti. “They just trashed it,” Howell said.
She said three names — Colby, Meghan and Aaron — were written on the cars, along with the initials BMW.
Bellipanni said it’s always a battle with vandals painting graffiti on the cars, but trashing the interior is especially disheartening.
“We put so much time into making them look good and someone comes along and tear them up,” he said.
Bellipanni and volunteers Delton Moak and James Earl White were profiled as “unsung heroes” for their work to restore the cars in the Enterprise-Journal’s 2017 Perspective Edition, which published just a day before the vandalism.
“We were almost finished restoring the outside of the Caboose and 1883 and almost ready to paint the post office car,” Howell said. “We had sanded it down and filled in holes and both of the cars were vandalized. Two of the newest cars were damaged heavily inside and a window was broken out.”
“We worked so hard on these cars getting them shape and trying to get them all repainted. One was ready to paint and the weather caught us before we could paint it,” Bellipanni said. “The 1882 cars are particularly hard to deal with. It looks like a tornado went through it.”
Howell said museum officials are looking into lighting and installing a security system.
She said there will be a meeting to discuss raising money to fix the damage that was done.
“It was terribly unnecessary, and people should take more pride in their community. We are all volunteers and we give time freely. To see this happening is so disheartening,” Howell said.
She said whoever is responsible for the act had to have broken down the door to get into the cars.
“It’s just a heartbreaking thing. It really is,” Bellipanni said. “All we were trying to do was do something people in the city would be proud of, and they come and trash it. Almost like some folks don’t want you to have anything nice, and it’s not cute.”
He said there are a few leads about who may have been involved.
“It’s going be a sad day when they get caught. Mama is not going to be happy with them,” said Bellipanni, who is a retired U.S. Marshal. “It’s devastating. It really is. It’s like your house burning down. It’s terrible. It could have been a lot worse, but it’s about as bad as it can get.
“It’s going to come back and grab them. They’re not going to like when we bring down the law on them.”
Bellipanni said what hurts the most is seeing all of their hard work destroyed.
“We’ve put so much work into these things, and that’s what really bothers us. All we’re trying to do to something for McComb to be proud,” he said.
“We’re upset with it, but it’s not going stop us. We’re going to fix things.
“It’s going to be a high-cost item to repair. Sometimes we have to make parts of them, but we’re going to get them back to where it’ll be something where McComb can be proud. It’s sad when you have to put it under lock and key for people to see and enjoy. We run a lot of people through the museum. They come from out of town to see train display.”
Bellipanni said two of the cars came from Ponchatoula, La.
“We’ve been working on them for several years to get them in shape to display. It’s educational informational for everybody and they tear it up and trash it,” he said.
“The people that are involved are not going like how the police handle it. .... They’re going to pay the price and they’re not going to like it.”
