Pumpkin Patch Trains

R&GV #54 climbs the hill. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

How do I say anything at all about Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum that will be perceived positively?
I been slingin’ words almost 40 years. I’ve noticed the written word is usually perceived negatively.
The exact same wording conveyed face-to-face usually is perceived positively.
Back in the early ‘70s I reported a local car-rally. My report was published in a small weekly newspaper.
The rallyists went ballistic; as if I divulged their secret little world.
Not long ago I posted a comment on Facebook reflecting my parents’ negative opinion regarding an uncle. His kids went ballistic, and started badmouthing me personally.
At the newspaper where I worked following my stroke, we called this “shooting the Messenger.” It refers to killing the bearer of bad news, e.g. a general kills the one who came bearing bad news regarding a war campaign.
Our newspaper was the Canandaigua Daily Messenger.
My brother Bill, from northern DE, and his wife Sue, came to visit.
Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum stages annual Fall-Foliage excursions on an adjacent shortline railroad. They have old railroad coaches they use for the excursions.
It was the weekend prior to my brother’s visit, so we had to skip it. R&GV also runs “Pumpkin Patch” trains on other Fall weekends. But they’re not full-boat Fall-Foliage excursions.
R&GV has its own railroad. It can’t accommodate boomin’-and-zoomin’ with big-time equipment, but it IS a railroad.
The Pumpkin Patch trains would just be a small open-air car and a caboose. A small R&GV locomotive would pull.
I got tickets for a Pumpkin Patch train-ride.
The museum has been extant 80 years, first as an early chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Not too long ago they cut ties because NRHS wouldn’t help them fund restoration projects.
I visited long ago with that same brother, plus his railfan son who at that time was 4 or 5. Back then R&GV was still an NRHS chapter, and didn’t have a railroad.
Years earlier they got an old rural depot along Erie Railroad’s Rochester branch. That branch is now Livonia, Avon & Lakeville, who helps run the museum’s Fall-Foliage excursions. South of Livonia the Erie branch is abandoned — in fact, even north of Livonia is partially abandoned.


R&GV’s ex-Erie depot. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

LA&L ran steam-powered passenger excursions at first. I did it, of course; that’s about 1970.
LA&L became a smashing success, mainly because it went after lineside customers. Now it operates far more than originally, but only freight. The passenger excursions ended, and the steam-engine was sold.
LA&L isn’t big-time railroading, but it does go right past the museum’s depot building.
When I visited in the ‘70s, the chapter had a few equipment pieces. They’ve since acquired quite a bit more, plus built an enclosed restoration shop on a hill above the depot.
Their railroad has to climb that hill, and used to connect to N.Y. Museum of Transportation nearby. The two organizations ran small joint railroad operations, but had a falling out. It was over railroad safety; N.Y. Museum of Transportation was accused of being lax.


Outside the restoration shop. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

The Pumpkin Patch trains are mainly aimed at kids. It isn’t big-time railroading, but it’s railroading. (And thank goodness it isn’t “Thomas the Tank-Engine.”)
Trainmen are dressed in railroad-garb: conductor uniforms, etc.
First we exchanged our computer printouts for actual tickets. Then we strode through the ancient depot. 1920s! Telegraph in one corner, and I noticed dusty wooden row-seats for waiting passengers. —A world that no longer is.
Outside we got in line for the open-air car, a new addition of open-air seating under roof atop an old flatcar.
The open-air car was constructed by volunteers; R&GV is volunteer.
The caboose was ex-Erie C254, steel and restored.
Our tiny two-car train pulled in and stopped amid screeching and clattering brakes. Our train was pulled by the museum’s only locomotive, R&GV #54, the only locomotive designated R&GV. There are others: Livonia, Avon & Lakeville #20, Eastman Kodak #9, ex Rochester Gas & Electric, and #1843 (ex-Army).
Their prize, “Old HammerHead,” ex-Lehigh Valley #211, was inside their restoration shop. It’s an Alco RS-3, re-engined long ago by Conrail with an EMD prime-mover.


Nickel Plate #79 (at right). (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

There also is another prize, Nickel Plate #79, stored inactive. (Big-time railroading, though only a yard-switcher.)
We rode up the hill, then backed toward the restoration shop. We could hang around and look around, and from the Pumpkin Patch watch our tiny train again climb the hill with another load of happy passengers.

• A “car-rally” is not a race, so I was told. Rally-organizers lay out a route, usually of little-used country roads, and note the time required to safely and lawfully navigate the route. The goal is for a driver/car to zero time-points set up along the route. Route instructions are handed out before the rally, with the time required to navigate each section noted. Route instructions are often cryptic, intended to put off the driver/navigator of each car. Cars usually have a driver and also a navigator, sometimes the driver’s wife — although I was told that was a good way to destroy a marriage. My rally was organized by the local Corvair-Owners club, but I rode along in a 1969 440 Barracuda. Often we went off-route, then it was PEDAL-TO-THE-METAL to get back on-route. I probably saw over 100 mph many times. Then the driver/navigator team might see a rally checkpoint ahead, and pull over to show on time. The team that won was the one closest to being on time. —What I witnessed was sheer madness: angry accusations and entrants threatening fisticuffs.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke. It slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)