The Society’s 2009 Calendar is now available. Our calendar is priced at $11.00 per copy, postpaid. Ohio residents must include 77 cents sales tax.
2009 METRO NORTH CROTON-HARMON OPEN HOUSE: Visit this hundred-year-old former New York Central shop facility for what could be the last time. Metro-North is curerntly constructing a new shop facility to replace the original shop complex. MTA Metro-North Railroad welcomes you to join us for our most festive occasion of the year. On Saturday, October 11th, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., bring family and friends to Metro-North Railroad's Annual Harmon Open House in Croton, New York. Metro-North's friendly and knowledgeable staff will be on hand to answer questions as you tour the railroad's largest maintenance facility, take a fall foliage train ride, and watch Metro-North workers show off their mechanical and technical abilities during an ongoing series of informative demonstrations. It's all fun, all free, and never fails to impress! Maps will be given to visitors to help guide them through the various exhibits in the 275,000-square-foot shop. Get up close to a wide variety of passenger coaches, locomotives and specialized track equipment. Operate a track switch with the click of a computer mouse and watch the rails move into position, then get onboard a diesel train for a 50-minute fall foliage train trip through the majestic Hudson Highlands right at the peak of leaf season.
Save the dates - April 17-18-19, 2009 - for the next NYCSHS convention. Host city will be Geneva, New York. Details will be forthcoming as more definite plans materialize. Watch for more info here!
Your Board met on September 25-27, 2008, and made an amazing amount of progress! The Society is facing many challenges at this point, but the Board passed several resolutions to manage and resolve our difficulties and to move ahead. Any minor differences of opinion and methods to be utilized were discussed in a friendly and positive manner, and a consensus was reached on all points. All votes were unanimous.
Major challenges include:
The delayed Central Headlight issues. Due to the illness of our editor Charles Smith, Rich Stoving has stepped up and will immediately serve as editor. He will work to create and provide the issues needed to get back on schedule.
Our original plan for an Upstate New York convention to be situated in Utica met with multiple obstacles regarding pricing, dates, and including an Adirondack Scenic Railroad excursion. Utica is therefore not an option anymore Board members Howard Fine and Hugh Guillaume have gratefully and quickly come up with a superb alternate plan to hold our convention in Geneva, NY, on the weekend of April 16 through 19, 2009. It is planned to include some excursions on the Finger Lakes Railway and several more interesting attractions. Full confirmation of the dates and of the convention hotel will be presented forthwith. I may be able to arrange another Hickory Creek charter.
Our plans for the 2010 convention in Michigan have progressed exceptionally well, due to the comprehensive groundwork of members Dick Croy and John Martin. More details about this will follow.
The NYC drawing digitization is complete with nearly 14,000 drawings digitized. Grateful thanks go to directors emeriti Charlie Smith and John Reehling. Our immediate project is to provide all members with an index that will depict exactly what each drawing relates to. Director Tom Gerbracht has spent many hours creating and composing this index for our benefit, and it should be available shortly.
Thanks to some generous friends and members, we now have the resources to move ahead with photograph and negative digitization, and arrangements are being finalized to begin this long-awaited project.
Respectfully,
Bill Strassner,
Vice president, NYCSHS
The Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway (TH&B) existed from 1892 through 1987 as a separate railway serving the Hamilton, Ontario area. It joined the lines of its corporate parents, the Canadian Pacific Railway and the New York Central. It was established largely as an alternate route for the businesses in the Hamilton area to ship their products to Canadian customers in Toronto, Montreal, and the west and to American customers via the New York Central and its subsidiaries. The railway also owned a subsidiary company to operate a rail ferry between Ashtabula, Ohio and Port Maitland, Ontario. The TH&B Navigation Company was chartered in 1916 and operated the Maitland No. 1 until 1932.
The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad was chartered in 1875. The railroad linked the "steel centers" of Pittsburgh, Pa., and Youngstown, Ohio by 1879. The New York Central took an interest in the road early on, and by 1879 had a 15 percent interest. In 1881, the Pittsburgh, McKeesport & Youghiogheny was opened as a joint venture between the P&LE and the NYC. This line constituted the majority of trackage south of Pittsburgh. By 1889, NYC took full control of the P&LE.
The P&LE owned a one-third stake in the coal-hauling Monongahela Railroad. The P&LE also controlled stakes in the Montour Railroad and the Lake Erie & Eastern. In 1934, the Baltimore & Ohio negotiated trackage rights over the P&LE between McKeesport and New Castle. B&O's long-distance passenger trains were also moved to the P&LE's station in downtown Pittsburgh.