Anyone Going to the Moon Soon?

The locomotive on the front of this post card could have helped you get to the moon if you were going there in 1985, the year that this post card was published. It is a picture of an ALCO S-1 switcher.

Our friends at Wikipedia tells us this about the S-1s: "The ALCO S-1 and S-3 were 660 horsepower diesel-electric switcher locomotives produced by ALCO and their Canadian subsidiary Montreal Locomotive Works. The two locomotives differed only in trucks, with the S-1 using ALCO's own Blunt trucks, and the S-3 using AAR type A switcher trucks. The S-1 was built between April 1940 and June 1950, with a total of 543 completed. The S-1 and S-3 are distinguishable externally from the very similar S-2 and S-4 1,000 horsepower switchers in that they have a smaller exhaust stack with a round base and a smaller radiator shutter area on the nose sides. The S-1/S-3 radiator shutter area is taller than it is wide, while the S-2/S-4 radiator area is wider. The smaller stack is due to the lack of turbocharging." The specific S-1 shown on the post card is described by this website, https://wearerailfans.com/c/article/alco-s-series :"NASA Alco S-2 No. 2 was originally built for the United States Army and was one of a group of Alco switchers assigned to work at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Recorded in this photograph at the historic space center from which Apollo moon missions and Space Shuttle flights departed, the Alco served decidedly uncommon tasks, including the transport of spacecraft components and fuels. Today, the Alco is preserved at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum in the Miami area."

The post card was published by Mary Jayne's Railroad Specialties, Inc. in 1985. I have 243 post cards that were published by her. She ranks second in the number of post cards from the same publisher.

Still Going Strong since 1903

This locomotive on the front of the post card is seen on the stormy evening of July 26, 1988. It is at Whippany, New Jersey for the National Railway Historical Society Convention. The locomotive was originally built for the

New York Central Railroad in December of 1967. It is an ALCO Century 430 owned by the Morristown & Erie Railway. This short-line (very short line, I might add) railroad company still operates today. Because they are still alive today, I took the history of the company from their website: https://www.merail.com/about The story of the Morristown & Erie – now over a century long – has always been that of overcoming obstacles and adapting to changing times. Since its founding, the M&E’s small but dedicated team has been big on personable and professional service to its diverse set of customers, living up to its slogan, “Service is Our Business.” The Morristown & Erie (M&E) is a short-line with a long and proud history of serving the communities along its rails in Morris and Essex Counties, in northern New Jersey. For more than a century, the M&E has hauled freight down its short but vibrant mainline, built originally to serve the paper mills in Whippany, NJ. The progenitor of the M&E, Robert McEwan, was no railroad baron. McEwan was a Scottish immigrant who had come to the United States in early manhood, penniless. Through hard work and determination, he and his seven sons developed a thriving set of paper mills in Whippany, New Jersey. The McEwans realized the continued growth of their enterprise was hindered because the nearest railroad, the Lackawanna Railroad in Morristown, was four-miles distant over poor roads, making transportation costly. To bridge this gap, the McEwans retained a local railroad contractor to construct and operate their railroad named the Whippany River Railroad, for the meandering river it was to follow. The contractor had employed such crude and haphazard methods in the railroad’s construction that, within a year, its route had to be largely realigned and rebuilt. The McEwans took charge and sought to grow their little railroad and tap new markets. They formed another company, the Whippany & Passaic River Railroad, to construct a six-mile eastward extension. The new line tapped the Erie Railroad in Essex Fells, NJ, affording the railroad’s growing clientele access to more competitive freight rates. The two Whippany railroads were merged on August 28, 1903, forming the ten-and-a-half mile long Morristown & Erie Railroad, so named as it connected Morristown with the Erie Railroad. Passenger service was operated, too. The railroad’s genial conductors would entertain their passengers with harrowing tales of the railroad’s earliest days, endearing themselves to the local populace. The M&E even ferried passengers in a self-propelled railbus, for a time. Passenger service was discontinued in 1928, when increased automobile competition prompted its cessation. In 1929, the Great Depression struck the nation with devastating effects. Through their resolute determination, and that of the McEwan management, the railroad overcame the economic calamity. In 1940, the M&E proudly announced that it had paid off the last of its indebtedness. In 1944 and 1946, the M&E purchased the three most powerful steam locomotives in its history. After WWII had concluded, the railroad continued to prosper. In 1952, to reduce costs, the M&E retired its three costly steam locomotives and replaced them with a diesel-electric locomotive, purchased new the American Locomotive Company (ALCO). The McEwan family, by then in its third generation, invited businessmen, from outside the rail industry, to join the M&E’s management team. They were moderately successful in attracting new rail customers; however, an attempt to diversify the M&E’s earnings led to the investment in numerous non-rail business ventures, which proved calamitous. The M&E declared bankruptcy in 1978. A group of local businessmen, driven by a desire to revitalize the railroad and their own passion for the industry, acquired the railroad in 1982. Led by Benjamin J. Friedland, these businessmen worked to reinvigorate the railroad and its image. Over the ensuing years, with its big red ALCOs (longtime favorites of local rail buffs), the M&E grew to become a vibrant and visible part of northern New Jersey’s railroad freight operations. Ben Friedland, whose efforts to revitalize the M&E made him a well-respected member of the short-line railroad industry, suddenly passed in 1998. Changes in circumstances led to the last railroad operating contracts to conclude in 2017. Again, in the face of adversity, the M&E’s dedicated employees and management, now led by the Weis family, persevered. In the past several years, the M&E has refocused its efforts on developing and diversifying business along its original stretch of track, between Morristown and Roseland, NJ. The M&E has turned its Morristown, NJ, shop complex into a nationally respected passenger car rebuild and repair facility. The shop complex, coupled with the redevelopment of the Whippany, NJ, yard as a private car storage facility, makes the M&E a premier location for Amtrak-certified private passenger cars. The M&E operates, annually, The POLAR EXPRESS™ train ride for Rail Events Productions, one of their most successful operations nationwide. Also, the M&E had been a proud participant in the preservation of railroad history, frequently working with the Whippany Railway Museum, United Railroad Historical Society of NJ, and Tri-State Railway Historical Society, all 501c3 nonprofits, to support their efforts.

The photograph was taken by Steven Hepler. The post card was published by Audio Visual Designs out of Earlton, New York. They are the source of almost 10% of my post card collection. I have 333 post cards from them. This is understandable because they were founded to share pictures of trains. AVD was started in 1964 by Carl Sturner for the sole purpose of providing railfans with sound recordings of locos and trains as well as with photochrome postcards of trackside photos. These stunning color images were taken all over the country by some well-known photographers such as David Sweetland. The history and product line of AVD can be found on the company's website at www.audiovisualdesigns.com

I Think They Liked ALCO

The two ALCO C-420 units on the front of this post card are passing in front of what was once the General Office Builing of the Lehigh & Hudson River Railway in Warwick, New York on June 11, 1976.

This excerpt of the history of the Lehigh & Hudson Railway was taken from this website; it is a good read, I recommend that you go there. https://www.trains.com/ctr/railroads/fallen-flags/remembering-the-lehigh-hudson-river-railway-a-history/ L&HR’s origins date to 1860, when arrival of the New York & Erie Railroad (NY&E), at Greycourt, New York, 10 miles north of Warwick, prompted construction of the Warwick Valley Railroad under the leadership of Grinnell Burt. The Warwick Valley (WV) operated as a 6-foot-gauge feeder to the same-gauge NY&E, using the big road’s equipment for two decades. Around 1880, WV assumed its own operations, was standard-gauged, and built the 11-mile Wawayanda Railroad, which tapped agricultural and mineral sources at McAfee, New Jersey. The two competitive lines were combined as the Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad, extending from a Pennsylvania Railroad connection at Belvidere, New Jersey, on the Delaware River, to Hamburg, New Jersey, where three miles of isolated Sussex Railroad track linked it to the Warwick Valley. In 1882 the extensions were folded into the 61-mile Lehigh & Hudson River Railway. Trackage rights were obtained from the Pennsy over 13 miles of its Belvidere-Delaware Division (“Bel-Del”) to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. There, disconnected subsidiaries undertook bridging the Delaware to access Easton, Pennsylvania, and the Jersey Central and Lehigh Valley. The bridge also opened in 1890, creating a three-state route of about 85 miles. The L&HR thus fulfilled the prescient vision of the line’s 1861 directors, who reported, “It was well understood by those . . . promoting the construction of the Warwick Valley Railroad, that in all probability it would be but a link in a great chain destined to be one of the most important thoroughfares, and to effect an important influence upon the commerce and manufacturers of an extensive section of our country . . .” Additional links soon extended the chain of this “important thoroughfare.” In 1950, it replaced 16 steam engines, including the 6-year-old 4-8-2s, with 11 Alco RS3s; two more arrived in 1951. Radio communication came in 1958. Alco’s first two production C420 diesels arrived in 1963, and seven more by mid-1966 shared assignments with the six remaining RS3s. In 1976 the federal Regional Rail Reorganization Act that created Conrail took in most northeastern bankrupts including L&HR, and CR’s management proved as committed to abandonment of the Maybrook Gateway as PC’s had been. The former L&HR, reduced to a Conrail branch, limped along, bearing slight resemblance to its former proud, busy self as a few of the remaining C420s served a dwindling customer base. Rail movement of zinc ended in 1980, and the track between Limecrest and Belvidere was removed a few years later. To the credit of its president, W. Gifford Moore, and trustee, John G. Troiano, L&HR paid off its creditors and entrusted its historical records to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

The post card was published by Mary Jayne Rowe's company "Mary Jayne's Railroad Specialties, Inc. When I realized that there was a numbering system (MJ629 in the stamp box) to her post cards I wrote a letter to her. I told her that I was cataloguing my post card collection and asked if she had an index of her publications she could share with me. I have 243 post cards that she published in my collection. Her beautiful response was to tell me that it was such a polite request that she sent it to me for free; all she asked was that I make a donation to a local charity. I made a donation to "Feeding Hungry Minds" endowment fund that provides funds for feeding free lunches in schools.

Alcophile???

The back of this post card tells us that the ALCO C-424 locomotive on the front of this post card, while now belonging to the Green Bay & Western Railroad, is still wearing Wisconsin Rapids Railroad colours.

A couple of weeks ago I posted some information about the Green Bay & Western Railroad. Today, I will provide all the information that I could find about the Wisconsin Rapids Railroad. There is a private Facebook page that contains this information: "Wisconsin Rapids Railroad, L.L.C. ("WRR"), a non-earner, hereby files this notice of exemption under 49 C.F.R. § 1150.31, et seq. to lease and operate a rail line of Wisconsin Central Ltd. ("WCL") extending from approximately milepost 0.4 to approximately milepost 1.5 in Biron, Wisconsin, a distance of approximately 1.1 miles (the "Biron Lead"). Based on projected revenues for the Biron Lead, WRR expects to be a Class III rail carrier.” And this site https://railroadfan.com/wiki/index.php/Wisconsin_Rapids_Railroad tells us the following: “The Wisconsin Rapids Railroad is a short industrial railroad running from Wisconsin Rapids to Biron. The railroad is owned by ND Paper and operated by Watco. WRR interchanges with CN at Wisconsin Rapids.” The caption on the back of the post card reads like this: Attention Alcophiles! The green Bay & Western has long been an all-ALCO Diesel railroad, making it a must visit for die-hard ALCO fans, better known as Alcophiles. C424 #312 still displays vintage colors of Wisconsin Rapids in 1969. This post card is published by RAILCARDS.COM, that ever-elusive publisher of 204 of the railroad postcards in my collection.