Train ride

Midway. (End of trolley-wire.) (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The other day (Thursday, June 10, 2010) the dreaded Alumni held its train-ride.
The so-called “Alumni” are the union retirees (Local 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union) of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY. For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS), the transit-bus operator in Rochester.
The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union.
Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years.
My employ there ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join.
“Dreaded” because my siblings are all anti-union.
It was a train-ride only in the sense it was on railroad track, the short connector between New York Museum of Transportation (NYMT) and the Rochester Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society’s (NRHS) Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum in Industry, NY.
The track is only about two miles or more, and somewhat torturous.
It was built by Chapter members.
It climbs out of the Genesee river-valley, up to the plateau the New York Museum of Transportation is on.
The Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum is down in the valley of the Genesee River.
The Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum is in the old Industry depot, an old railway station along the old Erie Railroad Rochester branch.
The Erie crossed the southern part of the state.
The Rochester branch wasn’t originally Erie, but came to be.
Parts of it were abandoned and torn up to the south, but Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Railroad, a shortline, began operating between Livonia (“liv-OWN-eee-yah”) and Avon (“AH-vahn,” as in “at,” and “Ron;” not “aye”), and also a short stub into Lakeville.
LA&L abandoned part of the line to Livonia, but has since expanded and now operates the trackage past the Industry depot.
Rochester Chapter of the NRHS is one of the founding NRHS chapters, the fifth. It was founded in 1937.
It now has a surfeit of old railroad equipment, including several operating diesel locomotives.
It also built its own railroad, a full-size Lionel set.
They built up to nearby New York Museum of Transportation, which has several old trolley cars, and antique highway equipment, including old Regional Transit Service buses.
I picked up Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”) on the way there.
Dana is the retired bus-driver from Regional Transit with fairly severe Parkinson's disease.
Art's wife is gone, so he lives with his sister in nearby Pittsford. He's 69.
Art and I have similar interests, hot-rod cars and trains.
We drove to the parking-lot of our old union hall, 22 Fourth St. in Rochester.
Actually, it’s the hall of the local Laborers’ Union, Local 435.
We hold our union meetings therein, and our union offices are in the building.
Stuffed with donuts and coffee, we all got into our cars for convoy to the New York Museum of Transportation, which is out in the hinterlands.
Google-maps were issued with step-by-step directions.
I had brought our van for carrying people, but didn’t need to.
It was just me and my wife and Art.
Everyone went their own way. Some followed the Google-directions, but not this kid.
”Them Google-directions are not of the real world,” I said. “I know where it is, and I’m headed for the expressway.
Just follow me,” I said to retired bus-driver Teddy Dunn (“done”).
“Them Google-directions are wonky.”
On the expressway, I got jabbering with Art.
“Where are we?” I said. “I hope we’re going the right way. Teddy is still following me.”
We were, and as soon as we pulled into the NYMT parking-lot, we all started yammering at each other.
Old bus-drivers.
“Whadja go that way for?”
“Thems were the Google-directions.”
“Them Google-directions were crazy!” I said.
”I had no idea where this museum was, but I sure wasn’t driving through the city” (the Google-directions), said another.
We all went inside, and assembled in the museum store.
They had us reserved — we’d made reservations, but we had to pay the remaining balance.
Our NYMT tour-guide collected the remaining balance from the “money-man” (Frank Randisi [“rann-DEE-zee;” as in “Anne”], the Alumni vice-president).
Tour-guide explained our train ride would be by trolley-car to the end of its overhead wire (“Midway”), and then by track-speeder down to the Industry depot.
Track-speeders are tiny motorized cars for carrying section-crews for maintaining track.
They’re not full-size railroad equipment, and at first they were powered by a pump lever — humanly powered.
It’s the train-ride both museums usually give, manned by volunteers.
The guy driving one speeder had full oxygen equipment, with a tank on his belt.
The speeder has benches for sitting, and ya hope it doesn’t rain.
At least in the trolley you’re inside.


”Say cheese!” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The picture above has both speeders we used — actually the speeders are pulling trailers.
Curvature out of the NYMT is incredibly sharp; okay for a trolley, but probably too sharp for railroad equipment.
And the grade up from the Industry depot is around four percent (four feet up for every 100 feet forward); too steep for a regular mainline railroad.
But operable by Chapter diesel-locomotives.
Tour-guide and his associates were obsessed with safety, and you could see why.
Railroad operation could take a limb off.
The second problem was elderly passengers getting off the equipment.
They needed step-stools.
Perhaps 10 mph; ker-click, ker-click!
It ain’t welded rail.
It’s the old jointed rail, what railroads used to be.
33-foot sections of steel rail joined together into a continuous railroad with steel splices.
You can still find such applications, but now its mostly ribbon-rail, welded into quarter-mile lengths, perhaps longer.
The connector isn’t a serious railroad, but it’s better than nothing.
Without it the Rochester Chapter couldn’t store and maintain all the antique railroad equipment it has.
We passed a siding to their maintenance-shed, plus who knows how many old railroad cars.
Plus cars of the “Empire State Express” which they got, and use in excursion service.
The “Empire State Express” was a New York Central Railroad train of fluted-steel streamlined passenger cars, which ran across New York state.
No heat, and they’re deteriorating.
But the Rochester Chapter keeps them up — I rode a fall foliage excursion in them years ago.
But I doubt those “Empire State Express” cars could handle that curve into the New York Museum of Transportation.
The “Empire State Express” cars are pushing 80 feet; a trolley about 35-40 feet.
The trolley was an old Philadelphia & Western car, that ran out to Norristown, a suburb of Philadelphia.
It’s not Rochester based.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a Philadelphia & Western car; I also rode one down in Scranton, PA.
Apparently Philadelphia & Western hung around long after most trolley lines; in fact, Philadelphia still has a few.
But they’re five foot gauge; five feet between the rails, not standard gauge, four feet 8&1/2 inches — what most railroads are.
Some of us were told cars had to be retrucked by NYMT down to standard gauge.
What a job that must have been.
First ya gotta jack up the heavy carbody, so the five-foot truck could be wheeled out.
Then ya gotta put it all back together with a standard-gauge truck.
The New York Museum of Transportation is not a trolley shop. Heavy lifting is done by guile and cunning, and all by volunteers.
Philadelphia & Western was competition for the Pennsylvania Railroad, which had begun heavy commuter service out to the Philadelphia suburbs.
But it also served suburbs Pennsy didn’t serve, and operated trolley lines out to other suburbs.
Ride complete, we all ambled through the museum.
But not without looking at various restoration projects.
The New York Museum of Transportation has a surfeit of old trolley equipment, including some in complete shambles (especially the wooden cars).
Apparently restored was a trolley set up as a dining-car, but only wide enough for four-seat tables on one side, and two-seat on the other (seats facing each other).
Everything was dressed up pretty with checkered linen tablecloths, red on white.
The car was divided into two sections — one wonders if by sex.
We were told the Industry depot had two waiting rooms; men and women.
This was because the men often missed the spittoons, and ladies’ dresses swept the floor.
A fellow retiree and I surveyed a track-sweeper. It had giant electric motors inside, I suppose to rotate the giant sweeper-brushes under the undercarriage.
We also looked at a giant model-railroad.
Actually, there were three; two were N-gauge, the other was HO.
One was an interpretation of the infamous Rochester Subway, which was long ago installed in the abandoned Erie Canal bed that once went through Rochester.
The Subway was not like New York City. It only used trolleys, although often multipled as two.
Plus it was dedicated equipment; slightly larger than a city trolley.
It was abandoned in 1956.
“Where’s Lawyers Coop?” (“co-op”), my wife asked, pointing to model buildings next to the model Genesee River.
“Well this is Rochester in 1932,” the caretaker said.
“Lawyers Coop existed in 1932,” my wife said. “It’s not here.
I worked at that place 35 years.”
The layout was automated.
Tiny N-scale trolley-cars rocketed between stations at 89 bazilyun scale mph, and suddenly stopped at each station.
“Stop like that,” I said; “and ya throw the passengers out of the seats.”
Next stop was the mighty Calkins Road Weggers in deepest, darkest Henrietta, “The one with that silly clock-tower.”
But not without observing old Regional Transit bus #815 in a compound.
815 was a GM model “RTS” bus, wide-bodied (102 inches), with a turbocharged 6-92 V6 motor, 92 cubic inches per cylinder.
GM also sold the RTS at eight feet wide, 96 inches.
“I bet we drove that old turkey hundreds of times,” I said to Teddy Dunn.
815 was down on the ground, as dead buses always are.
The suspension is air bellows, and they leak down when the bus isn’t running.
The door was open, so I climbed aboard.
Dusty tan plastic; what I was always greeted with.
“You should get in the driver-seat,” our tour-guide said. “Little kids always do.”
We were supposed to convoy to Weggers, but retired bus-drivers don’t convoy.
I think many went directly home.
Only a few did the Weggers lunch.
We were supposed to get Alumni dollar coupons, so I asked Randisi.
He was passing out dollar-bills; cash. The food coupons.
Wegmans has a restaurant inside, its “Market Cafe.”
It’s a buffet with 89 bazilyun offerings. They sell food by the pound.
$8.61 for too much pulled-pork, and a side of macaroni and cheese.
That’s a fortune. No idea what the cost will be until you check out.
Would I recommend the train-ride?
I’ve wanted to do it for years; ever since the Rochester Chapter put up that trolley-wire.
Track speeders are a bit off-the-wall; what if it rains?
Track speeders are not a real railroad.
I rode that Lionel set years ago, and was surprised at how rudimentary that railroad was.
But it wasn’t the Arcade & Attica, which is in a creek-bed.
It’s not a commercial enterprise. The railroad went up hill and down dale. They couldn’t do extensive cuts and fills.
The grade out of Industry is incredibly steep.
But it’s a railroad.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “Industry” is small rural town south of Rochester; the location of a reform school.
• The “Genesee River” is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario.
• “Lakeville” is a small town at the north end of Conesus (“kuh-NEE-shis”) Lake, a tiny Finger Lake in Western, NY. (The “Finger Lakes” are a series of long north-south glacier-formed lakes, that appear to have been formed by a large hand imprinted in the terrain.) —Livonia and Avon are rural towns south of Industry. The original Erie Rochester branch went southeast from Avon to Livonia.
• RE: “Section-crews for maintaining track....” —The track-maintainers maintained a section of track.
• “N-gauge” is a model railroad scaled to 1:148 scale with 9 mm between the rails. “HO-gauge” is about 1:87.086 with 16.5 mm between the rails (half 0-gauge). —N is quite a bit smaller than HO, which itself is quite small.
• “Lawyers Coop” was a Rochester-based publisher of law books. It has since been bought out by Thomson West.
• “Deepest, darkest Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester. Calkins Road goes through it.
• “Bellows” are rubber bags filled with air, in place of springs. They are inflated by the same air-pump that operates the air-brakes, and the wipers.
• “Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. It dominates area grocery stores.
• “Arcade and Attica” are two towns in the southwestern part of NY. The “Arcade & Attica” is a small tourist-line that connects the two. It has restored steam-locomotives, but they’re not superheated. (Superheated is to pipe the steam back through the firebox exhaust flues, to superheat it. Superheat became the norm for railroad steam-engines after about 1910. It’s more efficient.)