JOHNSON CITY (November 7, 2012) – The George L. Carter Railroad Museum at East Tennessee State University will hold a fifth anniversary celebration on Saturday, Nov. 17. All fans of railroading are invited to attend this free event.

During a ceremony at 1 p.m., ETSU’s President Brian Noland will speak and rooms within the museum will be named for benefactors. The Ken Marsh room will be named for an avid railroad historian who has enabled the museum to create a room with a scale model of the Tweetsie railroad. The Rev. Howard Walker of Joliet, Ill., has donated his collection of railroad publications and the room named for him will house the museum’s library. The main room with exhibits and railroad layouts will be named at the ceremony for a person vital to the museum’s existence.

A donor wall bearing the names of museum benefactors will be unveiled.

The President’s Train, or ETSU Express, bears the names of all past presidents of ETSU. Two new cars will be added to the train. One will commemorate ETSU’s Centennial, and the other will bear the name of current ETSU President Brian Noland. Noland will take the controls for the expanded train’s inaugural run.

Refreshments will be served at the celebration, and several local authors will be available at a book signing following the ceremony. Among them is Ned Irwin, Washington Co. archivist and author of The Last Empire Builder: A Life of George L. Carter, 1857-1936.

The Carter Railroad Museum, located at 100 Ross Dr., is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., and will be open those hours on Nov. 17. Admission is free. The museum can be identified by a flashing railroad crossing signal over the back entrance to the Campus Center Building.