Pueblo Railway Museum

The James N. Lhotak Digital Exhibition

In October 2022, the Pueblo Railway Museum was the recipient of a very special donation – a collection of hundreds of railroad artifacts from the estate of James Lhotak.  James N. “Jim” Lhotak was a railroad machinist with the Denver & Rio Grande Western railroad from 1963 to 1998.  Jim was a photography buff for all of his adult life, travelled extensively, and was a collector of railroad-themed artifacts and estates.

During Jim’s time at the Rio Grande, one of his coworkers at the old Burnham shops in Denver was Jon F. Bockelman, another machinist.  Mr. Bockelman’s career at the railroad began as a Machinist Apprentice in 1956, when he was barely 19 years old.  Jon worked as a Journeyman Machinist and Diesel Maintenance Supervisor, before retiring as a Wheel Shop Supervisor in 1993.  Jon, like Jim, was an avid photographer, and loved to travel around the state, taking pictures of trains at every opportunity.  Jon’s wife worked for an airline, so the couple would frequently plan many of their trips just to take pictures of trains.  In the words of his daughter Leigh Turchen, “His whole life was trains.  And taking pictures of them brought him a joy that the rest of us never understood, but respected.”

When Jon passed away at age 80 in January 2018, his widow reached out to Jim Lhotak to receive Jon’s collection of railroad photos.  Jim jumped at the chance to help preserve those unique artifacts.  Jim then passed away on December 4, 2020, at age 83.  Jim’s combined collections of railroad memorabilia, gathered over decades from a number of estates, passed to his daughter Donna, a resident of Brighton, Colorado.

In search of a good home for the collection, Donna did what any of us would do – she typed “railroad museum” into Google.  After being turned down by the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Donna contacted the Pueblo Railway Museum in August 2022.  Because part of our stated mission at the Pueblo Railway Foundation is to preserve railroad history, we at the Foundation recognize the historical significance of a collection such as this.  We are honored and very thankful to have been considered for this generous donation.

The collection includes original photos, train-themed calendars, railroad history books, timetables, postcards, model railroad magazines, vinyl LPs, newspaper articles, engine specification cards, train tickets, and internal railroad periodicals such as Rio Grande’s “Green Light”.

We have begun the long task of digitizing the hundreds of artifacts in this collection.  We have begun posting items from this collection on our Instagram page.  We look forward to comments from those of you who lived the history that is portrayed by these artifacts.  Your stories and feedback will add greatly to the enjoyment and interest for our online railfans. If you are not yet a follower of our Instagram, please consider joining us on this journey through history at https://www.instagram.com/pueblorailwaymuseum/.

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The Pueblo Railway Museum has entered its “off season”, with the next train ride event planned for Easter weekend. To stay up to date on our events for the coming year, follow our blog. Enter your email address on the bottom of this webpage, and click the “follow” button.

To give you an idea of what our events are like, check out our YouTube channel, which has lots of cool videos showing some of our past events. Click here for a list of videos.