Brian Sharp

@SharpRoc

RUSH — In a back room of the museum is a small, scale-model of Rochester as it was some 60 years ago; a slice of the city along its old subway line.

A little electric trolley car races from station to station, stopping briefly at Highland, passing Cobbs Hill, heading into downtown. The real thing, an old Casey Jones track car that used to run along the subway line, and trolley and street cars that ran elsewhere are on display in and outside the New York Museum of Transportation, along with station signs and more.

"Some people remember the Rochester subway, and a lot of people don't even know we had one," said Jim Dierks, a trustee with the museum, which is commemorating the 60th anniversary of the subway's final run this weekend. Events include slide-show talks about the subway and gallery exhibits of subway art.

That last run came in the early morning hours of July 1, 1956. City officials abandoned the line because of age and cost but also the pressure and promise of the automobile and the need for an expressway route. Interstate 490 runs along a portion of the old subway route, which was the old Erie Canal bed. But the underground portion through downtown has been abandoned, filled in north of West Main Street, repaired but otherwise left open beneath West Broad Street.

In recent years, the subway has seen a resurgence in popularity, complete with a merchandise line. There have been various proposals for reuse, and, of late, a renewed push to save the subway in the face of development proposed at Court Street and South Avenue.

►Read more: Development near old Rochester subway may advance

"Rochester was the smallest city to build a subway, and it's the only subway to have been completely abandoned," said trustee Charles Lowe, who is in charge of the museum's historic vehicles and its one-of-a-kind in New York trolley ride. "People are naturally drawn to things that, for whatever reason, didn't make it."

But the museum is about more than just the subway.

In fact, the subway isn't the focus. It might sound corny, but it's about the rail experience, families and kids.

"It's the open-mouth discovery that we enjoy," said Dierks.

Wes Perry, 63, of Fairport came out for the first day of events Saturday with his 32-year-old daughter and his 3-year-old granddaughter. The family had first come many years ago, when his daughter was a child. They came again Saturday not because of the subway-themed weekend, Perry said: "It's a family outing."

Such was the story some 60 years ago.

Tom Brewer, a museum member, was 12 at the time, when he took his last ride on June 30, 1956. He even got his picture in the paper.

►See 'D&C' from July 1, 1956, and read about the subway's final run

"I would get on the bus here on Lake Avenue, and ride downtown ... walk up the Exchange Street hill, there was a kiosk at Exchange and Broad," Brewer recalled. "You'd start going down the stairs (into the subway), and it was like going down in the basement; the temperature was cool.

"The station was real quiet sometimes (and) the thrill was, all of a sudden, a car would come, and you would hear it in the distance, then pulling up into the station with the brakes squealing."

His dad had gotten him hooked on the subway, taking the kids for rides "to get my brother and I out of our mother's hair." When he learned the subway would be shut down, he rode it most every Saturday for months, getting to know the conductor, who allowed him to help out with different tasks. The newspaper article states that young Brewer "does not remember when the Subway began, but he will probably never forget when it ended."

►WATCH: Video on the subway, and it's final run

"I made two round trips," said Brewer, now 72. "It was sad, in a way. Everybody was out, a lot of families out taking a first and last ride. ... Normally they had two trolleys, but that last day, they had three, there were so many people riding."

BDSHARP@Gannett.com

If you go

Time: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Location: New York Museum of Transportation, 6393 E. River Road in Rush,

Admission: $12 for adults, $10 for seniors 65 and older, and for youths ages 3-12.

Details: nymtmuseum.org.