“They’re jumping ahead of me.....”
....I said as I paged through my January 2017 Trains Magazine.
Fabulous photographs and many interesting articles.
I’m 72 years old; soon to be 73.
For 70 of those years I’ve been a railfan.
I guess I’m fairly intelligent.
I never was told my I.Q., but -a) my sixth-grade teacher bewailed “so much potential is going to waste,” and -b) I aced an I.Q. test in elementary school.
But only because I followed instructions to-the-letter. Which were just guess the answers, and quickly move to the next question.
So I finished the test while others were mired in thought. Apparently I guessed most right.
I never did anything with what brains I have — at least not what society expects.
In college I was told I could be a scholar; I thought like one. —I perceived new angles unthought of.
Fiddle-dee-deee. I’d rather chase trains.
My railfanning began in Haddonfield, NJ. My father took me to watch trains = free entertainment. I was age-two.
Where it all began, exactly. (Photo by Robert Long©.)
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (“redd-ing;” not “reeding”), a 1933 amalgamation of Pennsy and Reading lines in south Jersey because -a) they had too much parallel track, and -b) rail service to the Jersey seashore was faltering due to private auto travel.....
PRSL was still using steam-locomotives from the late ‘teens and ‘20s.
I was terrified of thunderstorms, but could stand right next to a panting K-4 Pacific (4-6-2) in Haddonfield station.
Then watch that K-4 blast toward Camden (NJ). Sensory overload! Often it slipped.
“Mommy, a train is in the station.” (Yank-yank.)
“Oh Bobby, you always wanna see those dirty old trains.”
My family moved to northern DE in December of 1957. I was 13.
Almost immediately I noticed Pennsy’s fabulous electrified line from Washington DC to New York City.
GG-1 electrics on 143-pound rail.
Anyone that’s read this blog knows I think the GG-1 is the BEST locomotive ever made.
Every time I saw one it was doing 90-100 mph!
WHAM! (Photo about 1960 by BobbaLew.)
There were other railroads in northern DE, like Baltimore & Ohio to Philadelphia, and a Reading branch.
In college I immediately checked out the railroad situation.
My college was Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) about 75-80 miles south of Rochester (NY), in the vast Genesee Valley (“jen-uh-SEE”), our nation’s first breadbasket.
Pennsy had a branch to Rochester, abandoned shortly after I began college.
It had been built independently mostly on the towpath of the old Genesee Valley Canal.
Across the valley Erie Railroad had a line that bypassed heavy grades near Alfred, NY. During 1960 Erie merged with Delaware Lackawanna & Western, so was Erie-Lackawanna before I started college, which was in Fall of ’62.
Instead of the grade near Alfred, cross-country Erie-Lackawanna freights went up another Erie line toward Letchworth Park and Buffalo, but then switched to that bypass before Letchworth.
College was interesting and fun, but every time I heard an Erie-Lackawanna freight grinding that bypass I looked for it.
That bypass had two gigantic trestles. One bridged Genesee Valley near Oramel (NY). The other bridged Fillmore Creek and its wide valley north of Houghton.
Eastbound at Fillmore trestle, about 1970. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
Both trestles are gone. That bypass was abandoned along with Erie-Lackawanna railroad service to Chicago.
After I graduated college I moved to Rochester, NY, to be near my wife-to-be.
Again I immediately checked out the railroad situation.
The main railroad through Rochester was New York Central, now CSX.
I was lonely and by myself. I had walked away from my family in DE.
(Photo by BobbaLew.)
Nothing like trackside to absolve depression.
Other railroads served Rochester. The ones I knew were Lehigh Valley and Erie branches.
Baltimore & Ohio also served Rochester, but first that line had been Buffalo Rochester & Pittsburgh, merged into B&O in 1932.
Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo main was also nearby, plus New York Central had lines beside its main. It had a line from Rochester to Niagara Falls known at first as “Falls Road.”
Lehigh Valley freight charges east on the Buffalo-Extension. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
Local on West Shore. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
Central also used a small portion of the West Shore to bypass Rochester to the south. The West Shore was built in the late 1800s, financed by Pennsy, to compete with New York Central, which it paralleled.
West Shore became part of New York Central after J.P. Morgan stopped construction of South Pennsylvania Railroad, financed by NYC.
South Pennsylvania was to compete with Pennsy. Andrew Carnegie was upset with what Pennsy wanted to ship steel.
There also was a flimsy New York Central branch up along Lake Ontario. It may have originally been Fonda Johnstown & Gloversville, but I’m not sure of that.
That railroad was a feeble attempt to compete with New York Central.
Just recently its decrepit swing-bridge across the Genesee outlet into Lake Ontario was removed.
That line was nicknamed “Hojack,” and was used to deliver coal to a power-plant. The line also served Xerox.
Much was abandoned years ago.
After marriage I bought camera equipment and started taking pictures. It was film back then.
Many years ago my brother from northern DE was visiting. He had his only son with him, about 5 at that time, a railfan.
How that son became a railfan I’ll never know — his father wasn’t a railfan. Nor was my father.
“Must be the steam-gene,” we’d say.
We were quietly eating breakfast at my house in Rochester, about five minutes from the old NYC main. My nephew was watching my train-videos.
I noticed it was 9:15 a.m.
“Right about now Amtrak’s Niagara Rainbow is at Rochester’s Amtrak station. In a few minutes it will be blasting past ‘the cutout’ up the street.”
All-of-a-sudden we all got up and ran to my brother’s car to drive to “the cutout.”
When we arrived the railroad signals were on. “Out of the car!” I screamed. “It’s in the block!”
I quickly hoisted my brother’s son atop my shoulders, just like my father did, and here it came, Amtrak’s Turbo, spewing exhaust — the engineer had the pedal-to-the-metal.
I grabbed my nephew’s arm, and started pumping up-and-down. “We gotta get ‘em to blow the horn!” —I used to wave at the K-4 engineers as they passed, and they whistled for me.
PRAMP! Into the sun at 65+ mph, dust flying! They saw us.
I wrote a blog about this: “The torch is passed,” I titled it.
23 years ago I had my stroke. It left me feeling things were unreal.
That is, until my brother from northern DE took me to Pennsy’s old Claymont commuter station, by then a DART railroad commuter-station.
It’s on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, the old Pennsy electrified line from Washington DC to new York City.
We stood around, and all-of-sudden here came an Amtrak Metroliner, AEM-7 on the point, 90-100 mph headed north.
It flashed by, and as it continued north up the track the pantograph (“pant-a-GRAFF”) bounced off the overhead wire causing giant lightning-bolts.
“Just like a GG-1,” I shouted. “I am indeed in the real world!”
I now drive down to Altoona, PA, to photograph trains with my Boston brother, who has become a railfan.
Altoona is where the original Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
During the early 1800s Allegheny Mountain was a barrier to trade with the nation’s interior.
I’ll soon be 73, but plan to keep going as long as I can.
There’s no experience like the real thing roaring past. (Model railroads are toys.)
My beloved wife died of cancer over 4&1/2 years ago. I was devastated, still am somewhat. But no longer continually grief-stricken.
A while ago I was referred to a counselor to talk about it.
What she tells me is how lucky I am to have a “hobby” (that’s what she calls it) independent of jobs I had.
Many of her retired clients are bored silly.
But I’m not; I’m a railfan.
My railfan nephew, now over 30, married a few years ago.
At their wedding I pulled aside his pretty young bride, and told her “Yer marrying a railfan. Ya gotta be understanding.”
“Better he chases trains than other women,” my wife used to say.
She wasn’t a railfan, but accompanied most every railfan jaunt I made.
She loved seeing me happy; we both had difficult childhoods.
I’ve subscribed to Trains Magazine since college; that’s 50 years.
I still have my first issue; it featured the GG-1 electric.
When I first subscribed, the editor was David P. Morgan, who I quickly came to appreciate.
He was much like me, smitten with the efficacy of the flanged wheel on steel rail.
That railroads have immense capacity, yet don’t require much right-of-way.
A single-track railroad might need 40-50 feet. An interstate highway needs five-to-six times that.
The other thing is crew-size. With trucking, every trailer — sometimes two — needs a driver.
On a railroad a crew of two or three might move well over 200 trailer containers. Complete highway trailers, including their road-wheels, can be put on railroad flatcars.
Current coal-cars are up to 120 tons per car. Unit coal-trains are often well over 100 cars, over a mile long. No way in a million years are ya gonna get that capacity with trucking.
That’s trucks not clogging the Interstates.
Morgan is long-gone, but he appreciated stuff like that.
And so educated me.
Trains Magazine has been through numerous editors since Morgan.
My most recent issue had photographs way better than what I take.
But I don’t think they appreciate the efficacy of the flanged wheel on steel rail, or immense capacity on little right-of-way, etc.
Lonely steam-locomotive whistles echo across vast open prairie, or up some wooded mountainous holler in WV.
“Romance of the rails” ain’t “efficacy of the flanged wheel on steel rail.”
Railroading is HUGE and mind-blowing. But it follows the rail.
Order out of chaos!
• RE: Being “a scholar.....” —After four years of college it seemed the whole point was to qualify anything you said, such that you could wiggle out of any critique. To me that was silly. An entire life of wiggling. Watching trains was much more fun than scholarly pursuit.
• RE: “Exactly where it began......” —The photo is taken at the original dead-end of South Atlantic Ave. in Haddonfield. That’s where my father and I stood. Below is the old Camden & Atlantic Railroad, later taken over by Pennsy. Across the tracks is the standpipe of a nearby water-tower. It’s where Philadelphia Marlton & Medford Railroad, a tiny farm-branch abandoned in 1931, switched off to the north. Little of the PMMR remained; only a wye in the woods near Haddonfield station. PRSL was required to run commuter-service from Haddonfield to Camden (NJ). Locomotives would pull commuter-trains to Haddonfield, then wye for return to Camden. Pennsy built a bridge across Delaware River into north Philadelphia that opened in 1896. Another line was built down to Haddonfield to connect with its Camden & Atlantic. Trains from Atlantic City, and other south Jersey seashore resorts, would stop at Haddonfield so Camden passengers could transfer. By then south Jersey seashore trains were using that bridge to Philadelphia. Wyeing steamers lasted until PRSL started using Budd-cars. I’m pretty sure I saw steamers get wyed. Steamers filled their tenders from that water-tower. Lots of action for a nascent railfan. Atlantic Ave. is no longer dead-end, and the right-of-way is now PATCO Rapid-Transit to Philadelphia. The wye is long-gone.
• “Bobby” is of course me; BobbaLew.
Fabulous photographs and many interesting articles.
I’m 72 years old; soon to be 73.
For 70 of those years I’ve been a railfan.
I guess I’m fairly intelligent.
I never was told my I.Q., but -a) my sixth-grade teacher bewailed “so much potential is going to waste,” and -b) I aced an I.Q. test in elementary school.
But only because I followed instructions to-the-letter. Which were just guess the answers, and quickly move to the next question.
So I finished the test while others were mired in thought. Apparently I guessed most right.
I never did anything with what brains I have — at least not what society expects.
In college I was told I could be a scholar; I thought like one. —I perceived new angles unthought of.
Fiddle-dee-deee. I’d rather chase trains.
My railfanning began in Haddonfield, NJ. My father took me to watch trains = free entertainment. I was age-two.
Where it all began, exactly. (Photo by Robert Long©.)
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (“redd-ing;” not “reeding”), a 1933 amalgamation of Pennsy and Reading lines in south Jersey because -a) they had too much parallel track, and -b) rail service to the Jersey seashore was faltering due to private auto travel.....
PRSL was still using steam-locomotives from the late ‘teens and ‘20s.
I was terrified of thunderstorms, but could stand right next to a panting K-4 Pacific (4-6-2) in Haddonfield station.
Then watch that K-4 blast toward Camden (NJ). Sensory overload! Often it slipped.
“Mommy, a train is in the station.” (Yank-yank.)
“Oh Bobby, you always wanna see those dirty old trains.”
My family moved to northern DE in December of 1957. I was 13.
Almost immediately I noticed Pennsy’s fabulous electrified line from Washington DC to New York City.
GG-1 electrics on 143-pound rail.
Anyone that’s read this blog knows I think the GG-1 is the BEST locomotive ever made.
Every time I saw one it was doing 90-100 mph!
WHAM! (Photo about 1960 by BobbaLew.)
There were other railroads in northern DE, like Baltimore & Ohio to Philadelphia, and a Reading branch.
In college I immediately checked out the railroad situation.
My college was Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) about 75-80 miles south of Rochester (NY), in the vast Genesee Valley (“jen-uh-SEE”), our nation’s first breadbasket.
Pennsy had a branch to Rochester, abandoned shortly after I began college.
It had been built independently mostly on the towpath of the old Genesee Valley Canal.
Across the valley Erie Railroad had a line that bypassed heavy grades near Alfred, NY. During 1960 Erie merged with Delaware Lackawanna & Western, so was Erie-Lackawanna before I started college, which was in Fall of ’62.
Instead of the grade near Alfred, cross-country Erie-Lackawanna freights went up another Erie line toward Letchworth Park and Buffalo, but then switched to that bypass before Letchworth.
College was interesting and fun, but every time I heard an Erie-Lackawanna freight grinding that bypass I looked for it.
That bypass had two gigantic trestles. One bridged Genesee Valley near Oramel (NY). The other bridged Fillmore Creek and its wide valley north of Houghton.
Eastbound at Fillmore trestle, about 1970. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
Both trestles are gone. That bypass was abandoned along with Erie-Lackawanna railroad service to Chicago.
After I graduated college I moved to Rochester, NY, to be near my wife-to-be.
Again I immediately checked out the railroad situation.
The main railroad through Rochester was New York Central, now CSX.
I was lonely and by myself. I had walked away from my family in DE.
(Photo by BobbaLew.)
Nothing like trackside to absolve depression.
Other railroads served Rochester. The ones I knew were Lehigh Valley and Erie branches.
Baltimore & Ohio also served Rochester, but first that line had been Buffalo Rochester & Pittsburgh, merged into B&O in 1932.
Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo main was also nearby, plus New York Central had lines beside its main. It had a line from Rochester to Niagara Falls known at first as “Falls Road.”
Lehigh Valley freight charges east on the Buffalo-Extension. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
Local on West Shore. (Photo by BobbaLew.)
Central also used a small portion of the West Shore to bypass Rochester to the south. The West Shore was built in the late 1800s, financed by Pennsy, to compete with New York Central, which it paralleled.
West Shore became part of New York Central after J.P. Morgan stopped construction of South Pennsylvania Railroad, financed by NYC.
South Pennsylvania was to compete with Pennsy. Andrew Carnegie was upset with what Pennsy wanted to ship steel.
There also was a flimsy New York Central branch up along Lake Ontario. It may have originally been Fonda Johnstown & Gloversville, but I’m not sure of that.
That railroad was a feeble attempt to compete with New York Central.
Just recently its decrepit swing-bridge across the Genesee outlet into Lake Ontario was removed.
That line was nicknamed “Hojack,” and was used to deliver coal to a power-plant. The line also served Xerox.
Much was abandoned years ago.
After marriage I bought camera equipment and started taking pictures. It was film back then.
Many years ago my brother from northern DE was visiting. He had his only son with him, about 5 at that time, a railfan.
How that son became a railfan I’ll never know — his father wasn’t a railfan. Nor was my father.
“Must be the steam-gene,” we’d say.
We were quietly eating breakfast at my house in Rochester, about five minutes from the old NYC main. My nephew was watching my train-videos.
I noticed it was 9:15 a.m.
“Right about now Amtrak’s Niagara Rainbow is at Rochester’s Amtrak station. In a few minutes it will be blasting past ‘the cutout’ up the street.”
All-of-a-sudden we all got up and ran to my brother’s car to drive to “the cutout.”
When we arrived the railroad signals were on. “Out of the car!” I screamed. “It’s in the block!”
I quickly hoisted my brother’s son atop my shoulders, just like my father did, and here it came, Amtrak’s Turbo, spewing exhaust — the engineer had the pedal-to-the-metal.
I grabbed my nephew’s arm, and started pumping up-and-down. “We gotta get ‘em to blow the horn!” —I used to wave at the K-4 engineers as they passed, and they whistled for me.
PRAMP! Into the sun at 65+ mph, dust flying! They saw us.
I wrote a blog about this: “The torch is passed,” I titled it.
23 years ago I had my stroke. It left me feeling things were unreal.
That is, until my brother from northern DE took me to Pennsy’s old Claymont commuter station, by then a DART railroad commuter-station.
It’s on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, the old Pennsy electrified line from Washington DC to new York City.
We stood around, and all-of-sudden here came an Amtrak Metroliner, AEM-7 on the point, 90-100 mph headed north.
It flashed by, and as it continued north up the track the pantograph (“pant-a-GRAFF”) bounced off the overhead wire causing giant lightning-bolts.
“Just like a GG-1,” I shouted. “I am indeed in the real world!”
I now drive down to Altoona, PA, to photograph trains with my Boston brother, who has become a railfan.
Altoona is where the original Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
During the early 1800s Allegheny Mountain was a barrier to trade with the nation’s interior.
I’ll soon be 73, but plan to keep going as long as I can.
There’s no experience like the real thing roaring past. (Model railroads are toys.)
My beloved wife died of cancer over 4&1/2 years ago. I was devastated, still am somewhat. But no longer continually grief-stricken.
A while ago I was referred to a counselor to talk about it.
What she tells me is how lucky I am to have a “hobby” (that’s what she calls it) independent of jobs I had.
Many of her retired clients are bored silly.
But I’m not; I’m a railfan.
My railfan nephew, now over 30, married a few years ago.
At their wedding I pulled aside his pretty young bride, and told her “Yer marrying a railfan. Ya gotta be understanding.”
“Better he chases trains than other women,” my wife used to say.
She wasn’t a railfan, but accompanied most every railfan jaunt I made.
She loved seeing me happy; we both had difficult childhoods.
I’ve subscribed to Trains Magazine since college; that’s 50 years.
I still have my first issue; it featured the GG-1 electric.
When I first subscribed, the editor was David P. Morgan, who I quickly came to appreciate.
He was much like me, smitten with the efficacy of the flanged wheel on steel rail.
That railroads have immense capacity, yet don’t require much right-of-way.
A single-track railroad might need 40-50 feet. An interstate highway needs five-to-six times that.
The other thing is crew-size. With trucking, every trailer — sometimes two — needs a driver.
On a railroad a crew of two or three might move well over 200 trailer containers. Complete highway trailers, including their road-wheels, can be put on railroad flatcars.
Current coal-cars are up to 120 tons per car. Unit coal-trains are often well over 100 cars, over a mile long. No way in a million years are ya gonna get that capacity with trucking.
That’s trucks not clogging the Interstates.
Morgan is long-gone, but he appreciated stuff like that.
And so educated me.
Trains Magazine has been through numerous editors since Morgan.
My most recent issue had photographs way better than what I take.
But I don’t think they appreciate the efficacy of the flanged wheel on steel rail, or immense capacity on little right-of-way, etc.
Lonely steam-locomotive whistles echo across vast open prairie, or up some wooded mountainous holler in WV.
“Romance of the rails” ain’t “efficacy of the flanged wheel on steel rail.”
Railroading is HUGE and mind-blowing. But it follows the rail.
Order out of chaos!
• RE: Being “a scholar.....” —After four years of college it seemed the whole point was to qualify anything you said, such that you could wiggle out of any critique. To me that was silly. An entire life of wiggling. Watching trains was much more fun than scholarly pursuit.
• RE: “Exactly where it began......” —The photo is taken at the original dead-end of South Atlantic Ave. in Haddonfield. That’s where my father and I stood. Below is the old Camden & Atlantic Railroad, later taken over by Pennsy. Across the tracks is the standpipe of a nearby water-tower. It’s where Philadelphia Marlton & Medford Railroad, a tiny farm-branch abandoned in 1931, switched off to the north. Little of the PMMR remained; only a wye in the woods near Haddonfield station. PRSL was required to run commuter-service from Haddonfield to Camden (NJ). Locomotives would pull commuter-trains to Haddonfield, then wye for return to Camden. Pennsy built a bridge across Delaware River into north Philadelphia that opened in 1896. Another line was built down to Haddonfield to connect with its Camden & Atlantic. Trains from Atlantic City, and other south Jersey seashore resorts, would stop at Haddonfield so Camden passengers could transfer. By then south Jersey seashore trains were using that bridge to Philadelphia. Wyeing steamers lasted until PRSL started using Budd-cars. I’m pretty sure I saw steamers get wyed. Steamers filled their tenders from that water-tower. Lots of action for a nascent railfan. Atlantic Ave. is no longer dead-end, and the right-of-way is now PATCO Rapid-Transit to Philadelphia. The wye is long-gone.
• “Bobby” is of course me; BobbaLew.
posted by BobbaLew at 9:38 AM
1 Comments:
Impressive story BobbaLew.. to be honest I haven't read all of it yet ... about half-way through but your writing is engaging... wanting me to go back and finish reading. Probably a good thing you didn't pursue intellectual abilities too far as it seems those who do go "mad" later in life... from mathematicians to chess masters it seems they indulged too far into their minds' abilities. Keep writing like this and you'll live to be 90!
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