The photographer; David Plowden. If you like it as much as me, you can buy a copy. Not from me, from Mr. Plowden.
The year was 1964. The occasion is the westbound Phoebe Snow's daily stop in Scranton, while on its way from Hoboken to Chicago. (The original Phoebe Snow was a Hoboken to Buffalo train.) The location is what is now The Radisson in Scranton, which was then a railroad station and division headquarters for the railroad. Mr. Plowden was traveling aboard The Phoebe Snow that day and stepped off long enough to take this photo. When he did, I doubt he gave much thought to this scene someday disappearing.
In six short years, this scene would become no more than a memory. The Phoebe Snow, a memory. Passenger rail service through NE PA, a memory.
To the left is Miss Phoebe (foamer-talk) zipping across the Pocono Plateau at 65-70mph in 1954. Passengers and crew aboard that day could probably in no way envision a time when this train would be unavailable for thier travel needs. The last train to stop in NE PA did so on January 6th of 1970.No sooner did it pull from the station, the same one so marvelously captured above by Mr. Plowden, than advocacy groups began popping up to lobby for the restoration of service. One group is still active, and they have nothing but my best wishes for success.
38 years later and...and nothing. Nothing, still no service. Worse yet, my optimism that we will ever again see rail service has evaporated like a puddle after a steamy July downpour.
Soaring gas prices, green initiatives, the billlions to update interstates, are all great arguments for a return of service. Funny thing, these are the same arugments made over 30 years ago for bringing back "the train." They continue to be great arguments, but it's unlikely they'll work any better than they did in 1970. We lost trains here even before Amtrak emerged and most all the rest of the country was left trainless.
It's not very risky saying that more of America is without service than with; to millions of Americans, the passenger train is no more than a vague rumor. The vast majority of Americans under the age of 50 have never seen a passenger train, never mind ridden one.
Amtrak did, though, have a secondary plan, a "Wish List" of routes they hoped to reestablish once things became profitable. The words Amtrak and profitable are not to be found in the same sentence. Had profits ever materialized, Scranton would have seen the return of service via a daily train from Hoboken to Buffalo, which was the original route of The Phoebe Snow.
After all other railroads had abandoned moving people to and through the Scranton and Wilkes-Barre area, The Erie-Lackawanna maintained, if only with what had become marginal service. The origins of that service are found in The Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, The DL&W, hereinafter referre
d to as The Lackawanna.
d to as The Lackawanna. The Lackawanna marked the approach of its 100th Anniversary in 1950 with, among other things, a brand new train called The Phoebe Snow. This was not a brand new train in name only, it was literally a brand new train.
New locomotives, new coaches, new diners, and what would become a Lackawanna trademark, brand new tavern-lounge cars, one of which you see at right. Much of this new train was built in Berwick by ACF, American Car and Foundry. Two complete
train-sets; one for Buffalo to Hoboken, one for Hoboken to Buffalo.
The Phoebe Snow rolled out onto the mainline and into the hearts of Lackawanna travelers in 1949 as the best daylight streamlined train from metro NYC to Buffalo. Miss Phoebe replaced the Lackawanna's premier name train of longstanding, The Lackawanna Limited.
Running time from beginning to end was about eight and a half hours. Certainly nothing to brag about in today's terms of air time aboard a jet between the same two places. Factor in getting to an from an airport, late departures and arrivals, traffic tie-ups, blah, blah, blah, and the train still doesn't win any arguments. If all goes okay, flying from Newark to Buffalo takes an hour and a half.
Expediency is not among long-haul rail travel's many charms.
Short-haul is a much different deal. A train from NYC to Stroudsburg, Mt. Pocono, Scranton wins a lot of arguments. It makes a ton of sense.
A little rail-weenie history, with your indulgence.
In 1960, The Lackawanna entered a merger with its former avowed rival The Erie Railroad. The result was The Erie Lackawanna Railway Company, many vestiges of both predecessor railroads and the merged railroad are to be found across NE PA this day. These two railroads had what were darned near parallel routes between the tidewater of New Jersey and Buffalo. Erie's distinction was that it kept on going after Buffalo and stretched all the way to Chicago. At Chicago, Erie Lackawanna used Dearborn Station, where you could literally walk across a platform and step into The Santa Fe's Super Chief and complete a trip to Los Angeles.
From merger day on, the new railroad wanted out of the passenger business. Carrying passengers is a money-losing proposition. It's safe to say that no railroad made a nickel on moving people from probably WWII forward, or at least you'd never find a railroad to admit that it did. In 1969 Erie Lackawanna Railway Company, Inc. petitioned the ICC to discontinue long-distance passenger service. That petition was granted.
It was over. No more trains to, from, or through anywhere in NE PA.
About 20 years ago things began to look, feel, and smell right for the return of rail service between Scranton and Hoboken, followed by a quick PATH connection through the Hudson Tubes into Manhattan.
Ten years ago, things looked, felt, and smelled even better. I was a believer, convinced it was a given, it was undoable, that the train would be back.
Today, I doubt it. Today, I can't much see me and Carol taking the train into NYC any time soon to shop, catch a show, have dinner, whatever. There are two chances it'll ever happen; slim and none.
The most widely accepted excuse for the lack of progress in restoring service is The Lackawanna Cut-Off, an engineering marvel that runs from Port Morris, New Jersey, to Slateford Junction
here in Pennsylvania. You can read tons about the Cut-Off elsewhere, if you're so inclined. For present purposes, though, let's just say that the Cut-Off is still there...trackless. Still in place, but with no tracks. Ties? Yes. You can see that in the relatively recent photo to the right. Tracks? Not a one.
Where'd they go?
Conrail tore them out in 1984, claiming they needed the rail for use elsewhere in their system.
Rubbish.
Conrail tore them out to eliminate the possibility of any competition using this route as access to the Port of New York. But that is a long story best told another time.
Putting the Cut-Off back together would be one daunting task, and mighty expensive, but it is a project that can be completed with enough money. The entire project of restoring service from Hoboken to Scranton, including a re-tracking of the Cut-Off, is an estimated $551 million dollars.
We spend $341.4 million per day, PER DAY, on the war. A day and a half or so of no war would put the train back in place, giving Pocono commuters one heck of a viable alternative for getting in and out Manhattan day and night.
It would also, and perhaps more importantly, reconnect NE PA with the rest of the USA through public transportation. Many of the largest metro areas in this country would be hours away, and very accessible via rail connections in NYC.
It's never going to happen.
Sadly, there are other considerations, other roadblocks to the train coming on back. For instance, every town along the right of way in PA expects any train that does return to stop there. The only stops that would make the train viable are Scranton, Mt. Pocono or Tobyhanna, and East Stroudsburg. Adding stops means slowing the schedule. Even the the leanest and most optimisic running time between Scranton and Hoboken is three hours.
Three hours makes the train an attractive and viable mode of transportation. Any longer and the train becomes a novelty.
Tiny steps are always being taken, but the project remains unfunded by the feds. Unfunded means not much of a priority. Unfunded means "dream on" for now.
In 2005 an environmental study was completed and submitted to the feds. It's 2008. Nothing has happened. Nothing will.
The project I once believed was unstoppable has been stopped, or at least solidly stalled until someone, some entity, has the guts to pronounce it dead.
New locomotives, new coaches, new diners, and what would become a Lackawanna trademark, brand new tavern-lounge cars, one of which you see at right. Much of this new train was built in Berwick by ACF, American Car and Foundry. Two complete
train-sets; one for Buffalo to Hoboken, one for Hoboken to Buffalo.The Phoebe Snow rolled out onto the mainline and into the hearts of Lackawanna travelers in 1949 as the best daylight streamlined train from metro NYC to Buffalo. Miss Phoebe replaced the Lackawanna's premier name train of longstanding, The Lackawanna Limited.
Running time from beginning to end was about eight and a half hours. Certainly nothing to brag about in today's terms of air time aboard a jet between the same two places. Factor in getting to an from an airport, late departures and arrivals, traffic tie-ups, blah, blah, blah, and the train still doesn't win any arguments. If all goes okay, flying from Newark to Buffalo takes an hour and a half.
Expediency is not among long-haul rail travel's many charms.
Short-haul is a much different deal. A train from NYC to Stroudsburg, Mt. Pocono, Scranton wins a lot of arguments. It makes a ton of sense.
A little rail-weenie history, with your indulgence.
In 1960, The Lackawanna entered a merger with its former avowed rival The Erie Railroad. The result was The Erie Lackawanna Railway Company, many vestiges of both predecessor railroads and the merged railroad are to be found across NE PA this day. These two railroads had what were darned near parallel routes between the tidewater of New Jersey and Buffalo. Erie's distinction was that it kept on going after Buffalo and stretched all the way to Chicago. At Chicago, Erie Lackawanna used Dearborn Station, where you could literally walk across a platform and step into The Santa Fe's Super Chief and complete a trip to Los Angeles.
From merger day on, the new railroad wanted out of the passenger business. Carrying passengers is a money-losing proposition. It's safe to say that no railroad made a nickel on moving people from probably WWII forward, or at least you'd never find a railroad to admit that it did. In 1969 Erie Lackawanna Railway Company, Inc. petitioned the ICC to discontinue long-distance passenger service. That petition was granted.
It was over. No more trains to, from, or through anywhere in NE PA.
About 20 years ago things began to look, feel, and smell right for the return of rail service between Scranton and Hoboken, followed by a quick PATH connection through the Hudson Tubes into Manhattan.
Ten years ago, things looked, felt, and smelled even better. I was a believer, convinced it was a given, it was undoable, that the train would be back.
Today, I doubt it. Today, I can't much see me and Carol taking the train into NYC any time soon to shop, catch a show, have dinner, whatever. There are two chances it'll ever happen; slim and none.
The most widely accepted excuse for the lack of progress in restoring service is The Lackawanna Cut-Off, an engineering marvel that runs from Port Morris, New Jersey, to Slateford Junction
here in Pennsylvania. You can read tons about the Cut-Off elsewhere, if you're so inclined. For present purposes, though, let's just say that the Cut-Off is still there...trackless. Still in place, but with no tracks. Ties? Yes. You can see that in the relatively recent photo to the right. Tracks? Not a one.Where'd they go?
Conrail tore them out in 1984, claiming they needed the rail for use elsewhere in their system.
Rubbish.
Conrail tore them out to eliminate the possibility of any competition using this route as access to the Port of New York. But that is a long story best told another time.
Putting the Cut-Off back together would be one daunting task, and mighty expensive, but it is a project that can be completed with enough money. The entire project of restoring service from Hoboken to Scranton, including a re-tracking of the Cut-Off, is an estimated $551 million dollars.
We spend $341.4 million per day, PER DAY, on the war. A day and a half or so of no war would put the train back in place, giving Pocono commuters one heck of a viable alternative for getting in and out Manhattan day and night.
It would also, and perhaps more importantly, reconnect NE PA with the rest of the USA through public transportation. Many of the largest metro areas in this country would be hours away, and very accessible via rail connections in NYC.
It's never going to happen.
Sadly, there are other considerations, other roadblocks to the train coming on back. For instance, every town along the right of way in PA expects any train that does return to stop there. The only stops that would make the train viable are Scranton, Mt. Pocono or Tobyhanna, and East Stroudsburg. Adding stops means slowing the schedule. Even the the leanest and most optimisic running time between Scranton and Hoboken is three hours.
Three hours makes the train an attractive and viable mode of transportation. Any longer and the train becomes a novelty.
Tiny steps are always being taken, but the project remains unfunded by the feds. Unfunded means not much of a priority. Unfunded means "dream on" for now.
In 2005 an environmental study was completed and submitted to the feds. It's 2008. Nothing has happened. Nothing will.
The project I once believed was unstoppable has been stopped, or at least solidly stalled until someone, some entity, has the guts to pronounce it dead.
As much as I love train travel, as much as I would like to see service back once again, as easy as it would be to hop a train and go visit family in New Jersey, or maybe ride into NYC for no more than lunch, or to shop, as much as passenger rail service would enhance the improving quality of life here, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about. And there are several reasons for that.
And leave room for the pigs, they'll need space to take-off and land that day.
I do have to split a hair here. Although Mr. Plowden has always referred to the train in his magnificent photograph as The Phoebe Snow, I would suggest it may not have been such. Following the Erie and Lackawanna merger in 1960, The Phoebe Snow came and went several times. The train service continued, but the train pictured changed names, equipment, and schedules a number of times before passenger service ceased in 1970. Being the consummate rail-weenie, I do know that the smooth side coaches in the picture were indeed part of the original Phoebe Snow train-set. Despite that, the train could have been the westbound Lake Cities, which, to confuse things even more, became yet another named-train as it rolled eastbound from Chicago. In 1964, there was a world's fair in Flushing Meadow, NY. Erie Lackawanna then named the Chicago-Hoboken train The World's Fair.
The last train I did ride from Scranton was just that train, The World's Fair, and it was in the Summer of 1964.
