Cornell Railroad Historical Society
P.O. Box 3886
Ithaca, NY14852

Cornell Railroad Historical Society Sponsors Tours
ALTOONA-HORSESHOE CURVE BUS TOUR	STEAMTOWN - ANTHRACITE MINE BUS TOUR	Buffalo Grain Elevator Bus - Water Tour
The Cornell Railroad Historical Society (www.lehighvalleyrr.com) will be sponsoring an overnight bus excursion from Ithaca to Altoona and Horseshoe Curve on August 23-24. We’ll depart Ithaca on a luxury Swarthout Coach at 7:15 AM Saturday morning and stop for lunch in State College, PA. Following lunch, we’ll visit the Tyrone Railroad Park, adjacent to Norfolk Southern’s busy former PRR mainline. After that, the group will stop at one of the model railroads in Altoona before checking-in to our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express. A block of rooms is reserved, but participants will be responsible for their own reservations and payment, and details will be sent to all registrants. Saturday evening, a BBQ dinner is scheduled at the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum, adjacent to the mainline. Members of the Horseshoe Curve Chapter, NRHS will be on hand to aid in our interpretation of the museum exhibits, all of which will be open for our inspection. Sunday morning, after the hotel’s complimentary breakfast, we’ll head to the Alleghany Portage Railroad National Historic Site in Cresson, where canal boats were once hauled over the mountain summit. After that, stops will be made at the Cresson Railfan Platform (overlooking the NS helper locomotive terminal) and the Gallitzin Tunnels, before finally reaching Horseshoe Curve, where a box lunch will be served. We’ll have several hours to view the heavy traffic that can be seen at this World-famous railfan location before starting our trip home. A dinner stop (not included in the fare) will be made on the way back to Ithaca, where our expected arrival is 10:00 PM. (Minor trip details are subject to change.) Click Here for a printable Altooona Sign-up form	On Saturday October 18, 2008, the Cornell Railroad Historical Society (www.lehighvalleyrr.com) will be sponsoring a bus excur-sion from Ithaca to Scranton, PA, featuring tours of both the Lackawanna Coal Mine (an underground anthracite mine now preserved as a park) and the Steamtown National Historic Site, including a two-hour, round-trip rail excursion from Scranton to Moscow (in Pennsylvania, not Russia). We’ll depart Ithaca on a luxury Swarthout Coach at 7:15 AM. Following a short rest stop in PA, we’ll arrive at the at the Coal Mine, where a box lunch will be served after our tour. After lunch, we’ll head to Steamtown, where the group will have ample time to view all exhibits, before and after we go on our rail excursion. A dinner stop (not included in the fare) will be made on the way back to Ithaca, where our expected arrival is 8:00 PM. (Minor trip details are subject to change.) Click Here for a printable Steamtown Sign-up form	On Saturday July 19, 2008, the Cornell Railroad Historical Society will be hosting a motor coach excursion from Ithaca to Buffalo, NY, featuring a two-hour, narrated boat tour of the historic waterfront, followed by visits to various railroad sights in the Queen City. The excursion will depart Ithaca at 7:15 AM and arrive in Buffalo at 11:00 AM, when a box lunch will be delivered. The tour group will have ample time to eat lunch and enjoy the pleasant surroundings of the Erie Basin Marina, before boarding the excursion vessel Miss Buffalo II for the harbor tour. The boat tour will be expertly narrated by members of the Buffalo Industrial Heritage Committee and will cover the extensive rail-served industrial structures of Buffalo’s Inner Harbor and the Buffalo River, specifically the numerous extant grain elevators. The waterside grain elevator was invented in Buffalo by Joseph Dart and more exist there than anywhere else. These massive structures once served as the eastern water-to-rail transfer point for grain from the US Midwest states and Canadian Prairie Provinces, but Buffalo’s importance as a grain port declined after the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959. (The Seaway substantially changed grain traffic patterns, which mostly bypassed the Port of Buffalo.) Several of the elevators are sti,ll active though, including the huge General Mills facility where Cheerios and other cereal products are made. Lake freighters loaded with grain still call on the plant, and hopefully one will be in port at the time of our visit. After the harbor tour, we’ll visit the shops of Metro Rail, Buffalo’s light rail system (tentative). Following the shop tour, we’ll board the bus for a narrated driving tour of the area’s railroad points of interest, including the massive Art Deco Buffalo Central Terminal (built in 1929), the restored Lehigh Valley Williamsville and B&O Orchard Park depots, and the former Bethlehem Steel Lackawanna Plant. A dinner stop (not included in the fare) will be made in suburban Buffalo before starting our return trip. Our expected arrival in Ithaca is 10:00 PM. (Minor trip details are subject to change.) Click Here for a printable Buffalo Sign-up form

 

April Meeting Viewed History of the Southern Tier Presented by Greg Dickinson

One of our long-standing members and our resident expert on all things locomotive and freight-car related, Greg Dickinson, covered the history of rail lines in and radiating from Elmira, NY. Greg grew up in Elmira, and has expert knowledge on historical and current-day aspects of the original rail line from the Hudson to the Great Lakes, as well as lines from the south and to the north, including the Northern and Southern Central, the Lehigh Valley and all their successor lines.He showed us a detailed overview, with maps and pictures, of how the railroads we have come to know in the Elmira area evolved.

March Meeting Sees Snow Inside, No Snow Outside

Our March meeting had sign-up sheets for working at our April Railfair (see above) and then a fine video provided by Larry Parmelee covering snow-fighting on Donner Pass. Dating from 1993, when Donner was still in the hands of Southern Pacific (though the merger with the Denver & Rio grande Western had taken place) the DVD was continuously fascinating.. Starting with amazing pictures of how the huge machine known as a flanger clears snow from both sides of the tracks, the video immediately chanced to include a derailment of one flanger and one of the four diesels propelling the work train. Later scenes showed how marksmanship brings down large icicles from tunnels and snowsheds. Finally, the increasingly heavy snow brings out the famous rotary snow plows, which hurl snow up to 200 feet from the tracks. Surprisingly, this year, with the Union Pacific in charge, the line got blocked for a time by a stalled Amtrak train. We didn't see that, but the snow was so cinvincing, members had to check the windows outside the Ithaca Sciencenter, to make sure we would get home easily!

February 2008: Summer in Duluth in the Winter

February Meeting: Jim Torgeson presented pictures of rail, marine and industrial sites around Duluth, Minnesota. Our chief executive brought photos he shot during the NMRA meeting at the one-time hub of the iron ore industry at the western end of Lake Superior. The meeting on February 12 was lightly attended due to predicted snow. However, the weather held off and Torgeson gave an excellent presentation. Members who missed it will regret this one.

January 2008 Meeting: Calendars and Art

"Passers By" by Ted Rose from the 2007 Images of Rail Calendar

January is the start of the year, and our program was a brief history of the railroad calendar by Gene Endres, along with a number of pictures of calendar paintings by two of his favorites: Ted Rose and Howard Fogg. Several members contributed comments on the railroads and locomotives shown. We also viewed some fine rail photos by Dave Sommers, shot in the New York Metro North area and also of rail action in Ithaca.

December 2007 Meeting: Video at the Fair

Our December meeting had a visit to the Central New York Chapter's 33rd Annual Model Train Fair. Steve Peck shot comprehensive video of this event, and allowed members to revisit or enjoy the premier fall railfan event in central New York.

November 2007:Frank Barry Returned With Pictures of Central Mexico

The November meeting of the Cornell Railroad Historical Society saw a return appearance and a new lecture and slide show by Frank Barry, of Lansing, New York. Frank traveled extensively in Mexico during the late 1950s, chasing the final operations of steam locomotives on the (then) National Railways of Mexico [Nacionales de Mexico or N de M]. Frank caught some of the last steam trains from Guanajuato (just north of Mexico City) up to Aguascalientes, Durango and Torreon. He rode on the trains, photographed people along the way and the crews working on their trains. His superb black-and-white prints were carefully scanned into a computer slide program, and it wasa very special program, made even better by Franks' skills at telling the stories behind the pictures.

October 2007 Brought Don Jilson Back- This Time

With His Trip on the White Pass & Yukon Railway

The Cornell Railroad Historical Society October meeting enjoyed a program of slides taken by Engineer Don Jilson and a friend from a trip to the White Pass and Yukon Railway out of Skagway, Alaska. The meeting was held on October 9, 2007 at the Ithaca Sciencenter

Finger Lakes Railway Was Featured for September 2007 Meeting

A good audience was on hand for our September meeting on September 11. Featured speaker was Deb Najarro, who represented the Finger Lakes Railway and the Finger Lakes Scenic Railway. We had originally scheduled FLRy President Mike Smith for this meeting, but Deb proved an able substitute. She showed some shots of operations on the railroad, taken by herself, and then covered some of the background of this successful local shortline. We thank Deb Najarro and the Finger Lakes Railway for a fine show.

Deb Najarro

August 2007 Meeting Was An Informal Affair At Sciencenter

The CRHS August meeting was a come-as-you-are, bring-what-you-have gathering at the NYSEG Public Meeting Room at the Sciencenter. Attendance was astonishingly large for the usual August meeting. Steve Peck showed a video of our Buffalo Harbor Tour, and various members added commentary on what was shown. Jim Torgeson was especially valuable, since he had planned and organized the tour. Following that showing and a break, we watched a DVD provided by Gene Endres, which had been assembled from a variety of older 16 mm. films and thence copied to 3/4-inch videotape. That now obsolete format was finally dubbed to DVD. The images ranged from pictures of the Pennsy Elmira branch, to a brief scene of the ALCO PA-led Black Diamond in Ithaca, to even some old Castle Films for kids about dreaming of being a railroader. Other news from President Torgeson was that we are planning additional excursions in the future, with possible destinations of Steamtown in Scranton, and perhaps the Strasburg Railroad or Horseshoe Curve in Altoona.

Buffalo Harbor Excursion Proved a Memorable Trip

Our bus tour of Buffalo Harbor on Saturday, July 21 began at 7 AM at the mall parking lot just off Route 13, Ithaca. We had a full complement of passengers and a perfect, clear morning. We pulled out right on schedule and everything went perfectly, with the arrival at the Buffalo Marina around 11 AM. Some members kept track of all the existing and abandoned rail lines passed over on the way. (Those with a rail atlas -- the one covering New York State Railroads in 1946, for example -- were able to spot these points. The tour schedule provided by our President, Jim Torgeson, gave locations to the exact tenth mile, however. Bravo, Jim!)

At shortly after noon, our cruise boat, the Miss Buffalo left the landing near the marina and cruised up a channel still serving the giant General Mills elevator. It then turned back when the channel became too narrow, and was able to loop into the Buffalo River,, which itself twists and turns several times while heading past a whole assemblage of largely abandoned elevators. All these were served by lake freighters, carrying grain from various points in the Midwest. They were also served by a huge array of rail trackage, as the grain was trans-shipped to either local mills or to other mills in the area or on the east coast. Near the drawbridge still used by the CSX main line, we again had to turn back. Beyond this point was the vast Republic Steel plant, now completely gone and a storage yard for wind turbine parts.

Grain elevators behind former Milwaukee Road Observation Cars on old ferry.

Back at the landing, we boarded the bus again and were taken on a tour of rail points of interest around Buffalo, once the second-largest rail center in the country. High point was a stop at Buffalo Central Terminal, which was the location of an antique car show on this day. The main terminal concourse was open for visitors and proved magnificent. Restoring the station is an ongoing and massive job. One hopes it can be carried out, though it will take years. Click on the panoramic view of the concourse dizzying (Flash) view.

Following that stop, we did get to the restored Lehigh Valley station in suburban Williamsville.

 

The final leg of the tour took us past the former Bethlehem Steel plant in Lackawanna, right along the lakeshore southwest of Buffalo. It is striking to see all this departed industrial might. There is still significant rail activity in Buffalo, but in years past it was far more so. Exhausted but exhilarated, we arrived back in Ithaca by about 10 PM. Thanks and gratitude go to our faithful Swarthout bus driver Jody and to Jim Torgeson for a magnificently planned tour.

July 2007 Picnic in Stewart Park, Ithaca

Our annual informal picnic meeting was held at Stewart Park in Ithaca, New York on Tuesday, July 10. We met at the northeast end of the park, near the Norfolk-Southern tracks. The day was warm and somewhat hazy, but right for a summer picnic. Shortly after 6 PM, the N-S train was spotted coming down the lake shore with a set of salt cars from the Cargill mine. It was operating push-pull, one supposes for ease in switching. A number of members fled the picnic table to grab pictures, and no TSA or local cops sprang from the bushes to stop this public photography. Pictures will be posted soon.

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Reports on CRHS Meetings of 2006-2007