In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Bill Poellot Jr.'s father took him to the Avella Station at least once a week to photograph steam-powered trains.

Father, Bill Sr., and son, who lived in Peters at the time, would go to Avella, population less than 2,000, to chase trains, driving beside the tracks to take pictures when the train stopped.

Robert J. Pavuchak, Post-Gazette Bill Poellot Jr., president of the A.D. White Society, said the dispatcher/telegraph operator sat in the bay window so he could look up and down the railroad tracks. The now-restored Avella railroad station was a stop on the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad, which dates to about 1904. The tracks are still in use by the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad. The model of the train station, town and railroad that now sits in the bay was built by Jim Morris, a local artist. Click photo for larger image.

The station had closed to passenger traffic in 1931, but the railroad company continued to use the station to store equipment. The railroad began as the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway, and, over time, it changed hands before becoming what it is today, the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad.

"The operators [of the station] were friendly and didn't have a problem if strangers stopped to chat," Mr. Poellet, now 70, recalled.

The line extended into Pittsburgh.

A budding railroad buff, he would later co-author a book titled "Pittsburgh and the West Virginia Railway, Story of the High and Dry" with friend Howard Worley. Mr. Poellet played an instrumental role in restoring the Avella station to its circa 1904 condition.

A week ago, the fruits of his labor and that of the A.D. White Society, the history group responsible for the restoration, was on view for the Spring History Fair. Railroad buffs and old-timers alike got a look at the refurbished station.

Mr. Poellet and Kathryn Slasor, president and founder of the White Society, respectively, were on hand to greet visitors. About 120 people either signed a registry or simply walked through the door.

"It was a real nostalgic time. Some people actually used the station. A 91-year-old man remembered being there. Some remembered the ticket agent," Mrs. Slasor said. "They really just loved being there again."

She is 82 and never rode a train but clearly remembers its mournful whistle as it chugged through town.

Restoration of the station has taken about three years, Mr. Poellet said. It had gradually deteriorated and, by the 1990s, it was in bad shape.

"I consider it almost a miracle that it never burned down or something because of vandalism. A.D. White really rescued the building by buying and rehabilitating it," Mr. Poellet said.

The restoration project started in 2002, when the society bought the building from Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad for $2,000, Mr. Poellet said. The society put the project out for bid in 2004 when work began.

	Robert J. Pavuchak, Post-Gazette General contractors, Jake McNary and Sam McNary, of Wrangler Enterprise in North Bethlehem, who did all the restoration work, check the elevation outside the restored Avella railroad station. Click photo for larger image.

Assisted by federal grants totaling $280,000 and funneled through the state Department of Transportation, the society restored the station to its early 20th century look. Wrangler Enterprises, of North Bethlehem, was hired as general contractor.

"I think they did a very nice job. When we got hold of the building, it had artificial shingles or Insulbrick," Mr. Poellet said.

The original construction included clapboard siding. The society went to great pains to recapture the authenticity, sending a sample chunk of the building to a Philadelphia company, which matched the original paint color. Today, the station is painted pale yellow with green trim.

Avella is printed out on both ends of the building and, on the side facing the tracks is Pryor. In its early days, the station was named Pryor, after a small mining community, until Avella outstripped it in size.

The nearly 900-square-foot building was falling down, said Sam McNary, general manager of Wrangler. The job involved jacking the building up 3¹/₂ inches, cabling it together inside and building a new foundation. All the floor joists were changed. Window frames were saved, although new glass was needed.

With the job done, the White Society looks forward to using the station as a research center for history buffs and storage facility for A.D. White's papers. Alvin Dinsmore White, for whom the society is named, was an admired educator and local historian who died within four months of turning 100, Mrs. Slasor said.

She, along with her sister, June Welch, founded the society in 1994, after his death.

There are two rooms in the station, one to be used for reading and the other to be reserved for archives, Mr. Poellet said. The station contains a model of Avella, including the train station, built by Jim Morris, of neighboring Independence.

"It will be much like a library except we won't be loaning material out," Mr. Poellet said.

The project took a long time to finish, breeding doubt among some involved in it.

"Some of the senior members [of the society], like Kathryn Slasor, doubted we would ever get it done. We did it with public money. You have to jump through all the hoops," said Mr. Poellet, a retired civil engineer who was accustomed to dealing with PennDOT.