· Private foundation
The Rail Heritage Trust First Option Bank Trustee
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $19k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $231k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OREGON RAIL HERITAGE FOUNDATION | $27,000 |
| RAILWAY RESTORATION PROJECT #113 | $25,000 |
| TENNESSEE VALLEY RAILROAD MUSEUM INC | $20,000 |
| WESTERN MARYLAND SCENIC RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION | $15,000 |
| NICKEL PLATE HERITAGE RAILROAD INC | $15,000 |
| TRI-STATE RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC | $15,000 |
| UNITED RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF NJ INC | $15,000 |
| COLEBROOKDALE RAILROAD PRESERVATION TRUST | $15,000 |
| IRON HORSE SOCIETY AT STEAMTORN INCORPORATED | $15,000 |
| FORT WAYNE RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC | $15,000 |
| BELLEFONTE HISTORICAL RR SOCIETY INC | $13,100 |
| BLACK RIVER RAILROAD HISTORICAL TRUST INC | $11,000 |
| FOX RIVER TROLLEY ASSOCIATION INC | $10,000 |
| RAILROADING HERITAGE OF MIDWEST AMERICA INC | $10,000 |
| SAN BERNARDINO RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $10,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 67% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Where the work is directed
The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.
About 6% of The Rail Heritage Trust First Option Bank Trustee’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
26 repeat relationships: 10 still active in FY2025, 16 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 56% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $109k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- WMWESTERN MARYLAND SCENIC RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION2× · 2021–2025 · $65k · revenue +104%
- FWFORT WAYNE RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC3× · 2022–2025 · $40k · revenue +74%
- AAABILENE AND SMOKY VALLEY RAILROAD ASSOCIATION3× · 2022–2024 · $40k · revenue +94%
Funded once
- NSNASHVILLE STEAM PRESERVATION SOCIETYone grant, 2021 · $40k
- E5ENGINE 557 RESTORATION COMPANYone grant, 2022 · $36k · revenue +5% · 27% of their budget
- PRPACIFIC RR PRESERVATION ASSN INCORPORATEDone grant, 2021 · $35k
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Provide a museum of local railroads
Encouragement of the interest in railway history, the preservation of railway artifacts and equipment, documents and records, and to enable members to study railroad operations.
The Museums mission is the collection, preservation,restoration and operation of vintage railroad equipment at its own facility and on the historic SD&A Railway for the education.
To encourage the collection & preservation of historical material associated with the Western MD Railway and American Railway system.
Maintaining the Lake Shore Railway Museum and all exhibits
Promote railroading history, with an operating railroad and operating museum
The Museums mission is to preserve and communicate to the public the experience of Minnesotas electric street and interurban railway history.
A nonprofit museum dedicated to the preservation, restoration, and interpretive display of western wisconsins railroad heritage. this is accomplished through restoration of historic railroad artifacts, operation of a library and video…
Preserving and teaching the history of the B&SR Railroad
To provide a museum depicting the importance of the railroad industry to the economic development of the lakes region of new hamphire. the museum will display a model railroad and its routes within caroll county, new hampshire.
How this is measured
52 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 52 of the 65 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds RAILROADING HERITAGE OF MIDWEST AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN MARYLAND SCENIC RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SP4449 INC ↗
- Who funds United Railroad Historical Society of NJ Inc ↗
- Who funds FORT WAYNE RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds ABILENE AND SMOKY VALLEY RAILROAD ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds MIDWEST RAILWAY PRESERVATION SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE VALLEY RAILROAD MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds PACIFIC RAILROAD PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS RAILWAY MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds ENGINE 557 RESTORATION COMPANY ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY RAILWAY MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds RAILROAD MUSEUM OF NEW ENGLAND INC ↗
- Who funds Pacific Locomotive Association Inc Niles Canyon Railway ↗
- Who funds Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust ↗
- Who funds LAKE SUPERIOR RAILROAD MUSUEM ↗
- Who funds OREGON RAIL HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF GA STATE PARKS & HISTORI ↗
- Who funds SAN BERNARDINO RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds MID-CONTINENT RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds BLACK RIVER RAILROAD HISTORICAL TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds Austin Steam Train Association ↗
- Who funds WATAUGA VALLEY RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY & MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds IRON MOUNTAIN RAILWAY ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN STATE TRUST FOR RAILWAY PR ↗
- Who funds EBT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CUYAHOGA VALLEY PRESERVATION AND SCENIC RAILWAY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Nickel Plate Heritage Railroad Inc ↗
- Who funds THE IRON HORSE SOCIETY AT STEAMTOWN INC ↗
- Who funds Sumpter Valley Railroad Restoration Inc ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY STEAM HERITAGE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds TRI-STATE RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOC INC ↗
- Who funds Pacific Railroad Society ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: The Candelaria Fund · Bnsf Railway Foundation · The Rebensdorf Family Foundation · Tom E Dailey Foundation Inc · Xcel Energy Foundation · Union Pacific Foundation · Ibm International Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · National Philanthropic Trust
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Rail Heritage Trust First Option Bank Trustee funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Rail Heritage Trust First Option Bank Trustee. Bigger dots raise more.
- Pacific Railroad Preservation Association Incorporated: 38% of income from government
- Branford Electric Railway Assoc Inc: 17% of income from government
- B&o Railroad Museum Inc: 7% of income from government
- Sumpter Valley Railroad Restoration Inc: 3% of income from government
How this is measured
Play a game based on Rail Heritage Trust First Option Bank Trustee’s filings →