Older Meetings from 2003-2006
December 2006 Brought Back Frank Barry ***Mexican Rails in the 1950s***
Frank Barry, known for his articles and photographs published nationally (Narrow Gauge steam in Chama, New Mexico in Classic Trains magazine last year) returned with a computer-based slide show of photographs he made in 1959 of steam trains on the National Railroads of Mexico (N de M). Most of the lines shown were in central and southern Mexico. Frank traveled from Mexico City to Puebla, then on a train that ran first standard gauge and then everyone switched to narrow gauge for the trip to Tezuitlan. Then back to the main line at Oriental for the traint toward Jalapa and Veracruz. Through a stroke of luck at Las Vigas on the edge of the slope down to the Gulf of Mexico, Frank got a ride with some section hands on a non-functioning track speeder to "las curvas" [the curves] where the line passes through a series of horseshoe curves as it climbs to the 8000 foot plateau. Frank's camera captured workers, local residents, kids and, of course, the trains and desert scenery. Later, he and some friends traveled from Veracruz in the direction of the Guatemalan border, but were stopped by local police. They returned to Oaxaca, and Frank managed to get photos of the now-defunct line through Tomellin canyon with remarkable results. It was a remarkable display of pictures not seen anywhere else — except for Mexico, where Frank presented his program this September and again in November.
November 2006 Meeting: 25 Years of Cornell Railroad Historical Society
During informal ceremonies at the November meeting of the Cornell Railroad Historical Society, the chapter was presented with a certificate from the national organization marking the 25th year of the CRHS as an NRHS chapter. In addition, 25 year pins were presented to members who were among the original group who joined as national members.
October 2006 Meeting Viewed Remnants of the Erie Lackawanna
The October meeting, scheduled at the Ithaca ScienceCenter on the evening of October 10. Doors will open at 7 P.M had a number of business items discussed. Nominations were entered for officers of the chapter for the coming year. David Flinn will step aside as President, while remaining Regional Director of the National organization. Jim Torgeson will stand for President, with Shawn Karney as Vice-president. Greg Dickinson will be stepping down as program chairman, and his place taken by John Marcham, who will leave the Board of Directors. Other officers will remain as at present. The nominations remain open, however, and these changes will only take place after the official election in December. Following this and further chapter business, we viewed a videotape provided by Bob Sowers of E-L Encore! —fragmentary films of the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad in its last days, from Revelation Video of Tallmadge, Ohio. Some members may have been seen quietly weeping at the end of the noble gray-maroon-and-yellow road [not].
September 2006: Off to a Slim Start with Many Members Out of Town
The September meeting of the Cornell Railroad Historical Society, usually the first of the academic year, was somewhat sparsely attended. Most of our Board of Directors seemed to be off on holiday or business, and a substitute program was found just in time. The video tape shown was "Towers: CSX's Living Relics" from Revelation Audio-Visuals, copyright 1995 -- which these days must make it practically an antique! Shots of some Armstrong-type levers being thrown,
some views of 100's of feet of pipes being shoved back and forth to mechanically operate remote switches and signals. Some overly long (time-duration) shots of trains going by a tower. Nonetheless, a once-crucial part of railroad operation and history, which is becoming extinct or nearly so.August 2006: Casual Gathering with Railroading Around Mt. Shasta
Our August meeting, generally unscheduled and informal, proved to be that as only 10 or so members turned out on an otherwise beautiful evening. There was little regular business conducted, so we turned on a videotape from Pentrex about Southern Pacific's Shasta Division, from Redding north through Dunsmuir and north through the upper reached of the Sacramento River. From there, after a hard climb, the line curves most of the way around beautiful Mt. Shasta, a typical volcanic cone, snow-covered most of the year. This was railroading in remotest California, scenic but busy. The program dated from the early 1990s, so it was all Southern Pacific. Now, the line is part of the Union Pacific empire, and Armour yellow would be the norm, but then it was all red noses and quite a few engines needing maintenance. Nonetheless, a scenic trip, and recommended to anyone taking Amtrak to or from Portland and Seattle.
July 2006 Picnic at Lyons, NY, With Lots of Trains and A Real Hot Time
A smaller turnout than we usually had, perhaps due to various members flitting about the countryside on other errands, the annual Cornell Railroad Historical Society picnic at CSX trackside in Lyons, New York, was still lots of fun and those attending witnessed lots of rail activity. Herewith, a few pictures, courtesy of Larry Parmelee, who was there.
Z from A to Z in June 2006, a Month Without an R
Our special guest for the June meeting was Ed Wolf, a former director of the Cornell Nano Scale facility and developer of the "Gene Gun", who is also interested in a far larger world, that of Z-Scale "micro-trains". Z is the smallest production scale, at least as far as most people car concerned, and Mr. Wolf gave a fascinating presentation on the development of these tiny trains and what's available now.
May 2006 Meeting Brought Rail Author and Expert William S. Young to Ithaca
William (Bill) Young, noted rail author and historian, presented some vintage slides of rare and intriguing railroad scenes at our May meeting. Young, who lives south of Ithaca near Susquehanna, PA, has edited various rail publications over the years and is author of a number of rail books. He is particularly knowledgeable on the history of both the Starrucca and Tunkhannock viaducts. The first is one of the oldest major rail bridges in the country, and the second is the largest concrete arch bridge anywhere. Young showed slides of railroads as varied as the Wellsville, Addison & Galeton, the Grasse River and the Norwood & St. Lawrence.
April 2006 Meeting:Railfair and More
The April meeting of the Cornell Railroad Historical Society involved planning and sign-ups for our upcoming Finger Lakes Railfair. In addition, we had some video on how the Norfolk-Southern Railroad coped with the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The N-S responded quickly and efficiently to the disaster, while other agencies had difficulties, to say the least. Then we were treated to the second part of the video on the Lackawanna Railroad: The West End, which particularly featured a ride on the Ithaca branch! Local aficionados were happy to see this one!
March 2006 Meeting: Right Railroad, Wrong End
Our March meeting featured a Mark I video on the Lackawanna Railroad, provided by program director Greg Dickinson. Unfortunately, in his rush here from faraway Elmira, Greg picked up the wrong end of the Lackawanna: the East End. Thus, we were treated to archival films of the Lackawanna ferries, the Hoboken terminal, the Newark station and operations about as far as the Scranton. Some members were thrilled to see these memorable sights, having ridden the Phoebe Snow in its day. Others were hoping to see the DL&W upstate, and will get the chance at a future meeting.
January 2006 Meeting: The Mystery Box
The first meeting of 2006 was a mystery box which appeared under our tree (the one next to the railroad tracks). As soon as we find the notes we took (which also mysteriously disappeared), we'll post the news right here.
December 2005 Meeting: Frank Barry And His Ecuador Trip
Our December meeting featured the redoubtable Frank Barry from the wilds of Lansing, who brought in his slides, taken this summer, of steam action in the precipitous Andes Mountains of Ecuador. Frank was featured in the November issue of Classic Trains magazinewith the lead article, and his photos, taken back in the early 1960s, of the last winter of steam activity on the Cumbres Pass to Chama, New Mexico stretch of the Rio grande narrow gauge operation are among the best ever taken there. He related stories, great descriptions and photos of the former Guayaquil to Quito railroad in Ecuador. This line, no longer carrying freight, has become a tourist attrraction of sorts, and Frank has been there.
November 2005 Meeting Visited the Syracuse Rail Show at the NYS FairgroundsThanks to Steve Peck, we watched a video of activities at the Syracuse show.
October 2005 Meeting Featured An Auction!
The October meeting of the Cornell Railroad Historical Society had an auction of a large collection of HO-gauge equipment which was donated to the chapter by the estate of Bud Miller, a man from New Jersey who came to our Rail Fair and admired the group and our activities. We will also sold off a portion of our chapter video collection at bargain prices. (We have been alerted that production of VHS video tape machines has ceased in the Orient, so get your tapes and stand-by machines now, while there's still the chance!) Anything not sold was offered for sale at the Central New York Chapter's Syracuse Rail Show, in early November.
September 2005 Meeting Welcomed New Members: Students, New Residents
Our September meeting was held on September 13 (Second Tuesday, as usual)at the Ithaca ScienceCenter. Our program this month was the video "Hudson River Thunder" from Kalmbach Video, featuring trains on both the east and west sides of the mighty Hudson River. CSX, Metro North and Amtrak trains are seen immersed in the fine scenery of one of the East's most scenic routes.
CRHS August 2005 Meeting Scheduled Member Materials
The August meeting of the Cornell Railroad Historical Society was held at the Ithaca ScienceCenter on August 9 at 7 P.M. This meeting was our most informal of the year — meaning: show or tell, slides and videos for an August evening. We saw some rail history, some photos of our July picnic and had some good conversation. Attached to this notice is a picture showing how unaware most Ithacans are of the trains that prowl the streets of our town.Take care when crossing. You never know when a big N-S diesel might be coming at you!
July 2005 Picnic at Lyons
Our usual July meeting was in the form of a picnic trackside at Lyons, NY, on Tuesday the 12th. Not a large number of members showed up, since we had already met in late June at the Finger Lakes Live Steamers grounds in nearby Marengo (between Waterloo and Geneva). The evening was quite warm and humid, but CSX provided a near-constant stream of trains, aided by Canadian Pacific and Amtrak. Some members spent part of the time at the highway bridge over the S-curve a few miles west on Route 31. Others were delayed by having to stay at work until quitting time. Despite all, it was a good time and we have posted some pictures of the passing traffic.
June 2005 Meeting featured Hobos
The June meeting of the CRHS featured a video made for Public Television about the large numbers of people who took to the rails during the Depression of the 1930s. Titled "Riding the Rails", it was produced by WGBH in Boston, with interviews with various people (men and women) who had, for one reason or another, left home to travel the country during those impoverished days. While not specifically a "railfan oriented" program, it was a tremendously interesting connection between our history and our interests.
May 2005 Meeting with Powerpoint and Real Slides!
Our May 10 meeting was held at the ScienceCenter in Ithaca. Larry Parmelee presented a series of slides (shown as a Powerpoint presentation). They included special late fall runs with the Susquehanna steam locomotive on the Adirondack Railway, fall foliage runs on the Tioga Scenic, more special runs in summer on the Adirondack and some scenes of the Finger Lakes Live Steamers visitors' day. During a break, the Norfolk Southern's salt shuttle came down from Myer's Point, and most members stepped out into the fine spring evening to watch. Then, Tom Trencansky showed some of his classic slides, including a chase of one of the final runs of the Zephyr from Denver to Grand Junction in 1983. We closed out the evening with a DVD video of a short history of U.S. railroads and the classic B&W promotional film "Flight of the Century".
October 2004 Shuffled Back to Buffalo
Greg Dickinson, our Program Director, will show some recent slides and talk about the opportunities for railfanning in the Buffalo area. Look for some special maps in the October newsletter, the Leaky Valley. Meeting will be on October 12 at the Ithaca ScienceCenter, in the NYSEG Public Meeting Room. Doors open at 7 PM, and the meeting begins promptly at 7:15 PM.
September 2004 Meeting Featured a Return Visit from President Emeritus Tom Trencansky
At the Ithaca ScienceCenter September 14 Tom Trencansky showed some of his expertly crafted color slides from both the central New York area as well as photos from all around the country. Tom last showed his fabulous photos of winter steam railroading in China. Our technology bugs plagued the meeting once again, with the projector bulb burning out just as it was turned on. However, Tom had brought another, and the evening was saved!
August Meeting:August 10, 2004
Our August meeting was an informal gathering: Gary France had some videos of CSX action along the Mohawk Valley and in Selkirk yard. After that Dave Flinn showed digital slides of portions of the activities at the NRHS National Convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. These ranged from shots of the train trip to the Twin Cities via Chicago (in a private car, no less!) to aspects of the old Lake Harriet trolley line, the new light rail system and shops and the doubleheaded steam excursion down the Mississippi valley to Winona. Thanks to all who contributed.
Our Annual Picnic Meeting July 13, 2004
Every July the Cornell Railroad Historical Society has held a "picnic meeting" — generally at a location near or along a railroad. For the past several years, we've met trackside at Lyons, New York, along the CSX mainline, and this year was no exception. Some members arrived as early as 2 PM, but most pulled up outside the aging Hotel Iroquois sometime after five PM. While early arriving people saw a couple of freights and an Amtrak train, after five there was little traffic for quite a time. Finally, the jazzy note of an air horn announced an oncoming Amtrak eastbound. This seemed to "unclog" the system, and we began to get a steady stream of trains, the first being led by threeUP engines, two of them with the "American Flag" hood. It was a mixed freight, unusual in this day and age. With passing time, more trains, and when the meeting broke up around 8:30 PM, with the light fading, between six and seven trains had passed. The newsletter editor, after talking with locals such as Sheldon King, checked out the old trolley station in the center of Lyons. This was the local stop for the Syracuse, Rochester and Eastern interurban line, and quite an elegant little building it is!
Meeting of June 8, 2004
Our June meeting included portions of a Green Frog Video called "Rails Around Buffalo", shot in 1992. Considering the end of the school year and the summer season, turnout was remarkably good. If you haven't been to a meeting lately, please come around! We welcome members and non-members alike. New ideas will widen the railroad world we see.
May 11, 2004
Our May meeting was a talk by long-time Ithaca resident Lou Withiam. His dad and mom both worked for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, starting around the time of the First World War. They met while working on the railroad, and mostly worked in Ithaca, and on various stations of the old Elmira, Cortland & Northern and the Auburn Branch. Lou's dad was with the LV for nearly 50 years, while his mom worked as an agent early on, and then later during the Second World War. Both Lou and his brother did stints as station agents and tower operators. Lou's presentation was greeted warmly and we will place some of what he said as a text transcript on this site in the near future. It was real oral history of a kind that is becoming more and more rare. Lou also brought several rail artifacts, including a dispatcher's sheet from 1916, showing the details of the kind of work done by his dad.
April 13, 2004
Our esteemed (steamed?) editor Gene Endres gave a short program on "Railroad Advertising in the 20th Century". It was a limited view (the express version?), mostly covering some of the great rail art used in the 1930s to 1950s. Later advertising will be covered in another session. In addition, President John Marcham delivered a taste of the "Tracks Ahead" video series, in case you don't have cable or your TV receiver is still due to arrive but not yet in the station.
Bill Caloroso re-scheduled his visit from January that was postponed due to miserable winter weather. He will show slides of the Lehigh Valley and other roads, and discuss how the railroads did business in New York State during the first half of the 20th century. The meeting willl be at our usual venue, the NYSEG Public Meeting Room of the Ithaca ScienceCenter, located at Franklin and First Streets in Ithaca. Take the Third Street Exit off Route13, turn left and go two [rough] blocks to park behind the ScienceCenter. Doors open at 7:00 PM and the meeting should begin promptly at 7:15 PM. We usually run until about 9 PM.
February 10, 2004
The January program was so well received by the few that could make it that Bruce Tracy agreed to repeat it with some augmentation for our February meeting. Bruce covered the first 200 slides in our permanent collection, with detailed commentary. It was good to see these "blasts from the past", such as the then brand-new ALCO PA cab units, and some trips on the former Elmira, Cortland and Northern branch up to Canastota.We also discussed specific plans for the annual Railfair at that time.
January 13, 2004
Our January meeting was scheduled to have Bill Caloroso give a talk on how the railroads, specifically the Lehigh Valley, did business in upstate New York during the first quarter of the 20th century. Unfortunately extreme cold weather and blowing snow caused us to cancel the planned presentation. Mr. Caloroso will bring his talk to us in March. Since the cancellation occurred at the last minute, not all members could be contacted, and we were able to substitute an informal showing of slides from our archives with commentary by Bruce Tracy.
William Harnden Foster
For our December, 2003 newsletter, we reprinted a picture from the 1925 New York Central railroad calendar, a painting originally done by William Harnden Foster, an American illustrator. Due to a question received at our website, we tried to further research the work of this artist, but without much success. He is not included in a recent book The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000 (Harper-Collins), and there was little information on the Internet. His style is similar to others working in the 1920s, and we have seen additional illustrations featuring trains (The Sunshine Special and NYC's Castleton Cutoff Bridge), but are seeking more information. He did a number of hunting and fishing illustrations for magazines like Outdoor Life.As a result of this small sketch, we had further information from a professor of art history. You can check her note by clicking the painting.
December 9, 2003
Our December meeting was to feature pictures from the large number of Christmas cards (winter train pictures) Howard Fogg created over some 35 years for the Leanin' Tree Company of Boulder, Colorado. Fogg had grown up in New Jersey, but later in life moved out to Colorado, where he was able to incorporate western landscapes into his many paintings. Fogg was the dean of railroad artists in recent years, but he was a descendant of painters like William Harnden Foster, Grif Teller (Teller, virtually a contemporary), Otto Kuhler and Leslie Ragan. Kuhler and Ragan mostly worked in the commercial arena, while Fogg bridged from commercial (making paintings for American Locomotive and many other rail clients for many years) to the more artistic world of galleries and fine art reproductions. Regretfully, some of the technology problems that have plagued Gene, our resident tech person showed up again. The computer worked, the projector worked, but the cable for joining them was the wrong sex!The upshot was a program showing a Pentrex video of "Those Incredible ALCOs - Volume 3" with detailed pictures of ALCO diesels from the last years of that company.
November 11, 2003
Greg Dickinson, our Program Director, ran the November meeting with slides he took over the past year. Featured among them were some ALCO (well, actually Montreal Locomotive Works) engines he spotted going through Elmira, which ended up spending the winter and part of the summer at the Bath and Hammondsport engine facility. His slides also included other shots, from our picnic at Lyons in July, and, of course, a number of oddball freight cars he has seen passing through the Southern Tier. Greg is definitely a freight car aficionado. The second half of the program was Greg's commentary on some of the many intriguing photographs in Steinbrenner's new book ALCO: A Centennial Remembrance. Packed with detail, the book was amplified further by Greg's wide-ranging knowledge of local rail history and the locomotives ALCO built to serve our region's railroads like the Lackawanna, the Lehigh Valley, the NYO&W and the New York Central. It was an informative evening.
Frank Barry has joined us in the past, last year showing pictures of his tour of Cuba. This time,he will be showing some of his photographs and telling stories, as only he can, of his adventures on numerous visits to the railroads of Mexico during the 1950s. Frank managed to have many cab rides on the steam locomotives in places as exotic as the line to Oaxaca, and in the Unidos de Yucutan. These, in turn, led to various amazing adventures, in a system which has since been either dismantled or changed beyond any recognition. While current magazine articles tell us the contemporary state of Mexican railroading, Frank Barry can tell us how it was and has the pictures to proveit.The meeting will be at the Ithaca ScienceCenter, on First Street at Franklin in Ithaca. Use the Third Street exit off Route 13. Plenty of parking. Doors open at 7:00 PMand the program starts promptly at 7:15 PM.
September 9, 2003 SeptemberMeeting: Tom Trencansky Took Us to China
Actually, Tom took us to China in February, 2003. Tom joined a small tour along with Don Jilson and another friend from the Adirondack Scenic Railway. Together, they went to Peking, and then to a small logging railroad in Manchuria. Despite bitter cold, they saw a steam operation that has since been abandoned. Following that, they went to the new railroad built in 1995 that passes through Inner Mongolia, north of Peking. The Jing Ling Pass, featured in the December issue of TRAINS Magazine, has amazing traffic of all-steam locomotives! Exclusively 2-10-2s, mostly doubleheaded (and sometimes triple!), they provided spectacular photographic opportunities in the wintry conditions. Tom also showed us scenes of the people who live along this modern yet anachronistic railroad. After meeting with some other western railfans on a similar tour, Tom got a video of some of the same scenes he shot with his still camera, and thus we were treated to moving shots of similar rail action, and, in a few instances, the same action he photographed. Altogether an exciting program.