(rshsdepot) Train fan's book spotlights part of Hudson Line

["Bernie Wagenblast" <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

From today's Journal-News.

Bernie Wagenblast
Transportation Communications Newsletter
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-communications/

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Train fan's book spotlights part of Hudson Line
      By CAREN HALBFINGER
      THE JOURNAL NEWS
      (Original publication: December 29, 2004)

      The first Lionel train set Tom Panettiere received on Christmas 
morning when he was 6 years old sparked his lifelong love of trains.

      Like many who share his enthusiasm, Panettiere, 44, has been 
photographing locomotives and passenger trains for years, gathering bits and 
pieces of lore about Metro-North Railroad and the railroads that preceded 
it.

      Six years ago, he decided to turn his admiration for diesel 
locomotives into a book about the railroad. It was part fascination, part 
relaxation from his job as associate director of financial aid at Purchase 
College, SUNY. Panettiere, a Peekskill resident, chose to begin with 
Metro-North's Hudson Line because, he said, it had been "the most 
underreported over the years."

      Once he'd been working on the project a while, Panettiere discovered 
he had so much material it would take two books to do justice to this most 
picturesque of train lines. The first part, "Metro-North's Hudson Line: 
Poughkeepsie to Oscawana," was recently published as part of the "Railroads 
Over Time" series by Depot Square Publishing, a boutique publisher in 
Loveland, Ohio, that specializes in books about railroad history. Panettiere 
is at work on the second part, which will cover the Hudson Line from 
Croton-Harmon to Mott Haven Junction in the Bronx. Other books on the Harlem 
and New Haven lines could follow.

      Panettiere's book is organized by station stops, starting with 
Poughkeepsie, the farthest point north on the Hudson line. It finishes with 
Oscawana, a station that no longer exists, but was located south of 
Cortlandt.

      Panettiere shares the story of Oscawana's origin and demise. It was 
built to accommodate a "prominent gentleman whose estate stood east of the 
mainline" so he could commute to and from his Manhattan office. Railroad 
lore has it, Panettiere relates, that the station remained open long after 
the well-connected gentleman stopped commuting. One Friday, former New York 
Central Railroad President Alfred E. Perlman spotted the station from his 
private rail car, "alighted from his car, strode inside the building, took 
one look at the agent behind the ticket window and promptly posted a notice 
closing" the station that day. The station was bulldozed to remove its tax 
liability, returning it to undeveloped property.

      Panettiere's book is attractively laid out, with never-published 
photographs of some hard to reach and now inaccessible locations, such as 
Anthony's Nose tunnel south of the Bear Mountain bridge, shot from railroad 
property that is now barred to trespassers. It also includes a photograph of 
tunnel excavation work in March 1989 that was intended to carve a greater 
clearance through Middle Tunnel to allow new car shipments via rail from the 
General Motors plant in Tarrytown. Within a year of the project's 
completion, Panettiere noted, the work was obsolete because GM closed the 
plant.

      Some of the 276 photographs are drawn from lovingly preserved private 
collections, including those taken by Panettiere and other rail fans, while 
others were culled and copied from local historical societies. There are old 
black and white photos of steam engines billowing black smoke in their wake. 
The accompanying text explains that management preferred that locomotives 
emit a light exhaust to demonstrate that the engine was burning an 
economical amount of coal and chemically treated water. The "firemen" 
usually tried not to generate heavy exhaust, to avoid getting suspended. But 
since most rail photographers loved recording locomotives spouting vast 
plumes of smoke and steam, the firemen would put on a little show.

      "It's a nice history of this part of the Hudson Line," said Walter 
Zullig, a retired counsel for Metro-North and a rail enthusiast and 
photographer who loaned his ticket stub collection and photographs for the 
book. "He really did a lot of digging around. I think the book will be of 
interest to railroad enthusiasts and historians and to anyone interested in 
the Hudson Valley. I think there will be a lot of people who will enjoy that 
book."


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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1055
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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org