The one and only time I ever ate in an EL diner was during a grammer school field trip when I was in the second grade and the class rode what we were told was the Pheobe Snow (it was actually the "Erie-Lackawanna Limited" at that time of May 1963, but I didn't figure that out until years later) between Hoboken and East Stroudsburg. We rode a chartered bus from Saddle Brook,NJ to Paterson,NJ to get on a commuter train to Hoboken where we got on the Erie Lackawanna Lmt. Our teacher took our lunch orders about 2 weeks before the trip and sent them in to the railroad ahead of time. We had a choice of a ham sandwich or a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. I had cheese. I can remember looking out the right side diner window, past the flower in the vase, as we pulled into a big station (later to be identified as Dover). We obviously were given an early seating (11:22 by the timetable) to 1) get us fed before Stroudsburg and 2) get us out of there before the real patrons were called. We were given a tour of the train, the only part of which I remember was looking out the back of the Tavern Lounge at the scenery rapidly receding in the distance. I remember standing on the platform at E. Stroudsburg and watching the Tavern Lounge disappear around the curve in the distance and waiting a very long time (to an 8 year old) before an eastbound train arrived to pick us up. It was actually only about a half hour before the "Pocono Express" showed up at 12:48PM (I do have a timetable open in from of me. I had no idea what time it was). Back in Hoboken, we all ran screaming down the platform on tracks 1 or 2 for the engineer of our commuter train back to Paterson to wait and not leave without us. He wasn't going anywhere, and smiled down at us from his cab seat as we climbed into the first car. I remember watching that yellow Erie diamond and wings rocking back and forth thru the open front door all the way back. This teacher, Mrs. Korte had a lot of class. We "studied" several different forms of transportation that year including trains and ships. During our ship lessons, we were taken to Hoboken by bus, rode the EL ferry over to New York and were given a tour of a passenger ship, S.S. Atlantic, which was docked in New York at the time. I wonder if she had any idea what an affect this was all having on me? Mike Galesi ELHS #145 ------------------------------------------------------------ Visit the erielack photopage at http://el-list.railfan.net ------------------------------
This HTML page is © 2000-2009 Blue Moon Online System and The Railfan Network
This page and the data contained therein may not be reproduced
for any form of commercial use without the explicit permission
of J. Henry Priebe Jr. or his duly authorized agent.