RE: (erielack) What Locals Called the Railroads

[Chris Thurner <chris.thurner_@_adelphia.com>]

Also, she may have referred to it as NJT, as it has been the RR for the last
20 years there.  Probably the longest stretch of any during her lifetime.
Let's look

	Born, say 1950 - 52.  

	Erie 50 - 60 	8 - 10 years (Also, remember she probably didn't
recognize the Erie until she was 4 or 5.)
	EL   60 - 76	16 years (See comments below)
	CR  76 - 82	  6 years (I think.  I'm not sure 82 is correct, but
even if its 81 or 83 its only in the 5 - 7 yr range.)
	NJT 82 - 02	20 years

However, you would think that for the 16 years the EL was there she would
have remembered it.  But 2 mitigating factors, one: she may have been in
college or graduate school in the late sixties through early 70's (i.e. in
68 she would have been 18, 72 - 22, grad school after that), also, two:
since the mid 60's or so, the EL, along with the other commuter lines in NJ
were de-emphasizing their commuter ops and trying to get the NJ Dept. of
Trans. to absorb more costs and take over more operations (e.g. the U34CH
'bluebird' scheme that emphasized the NJ Dept. of Trans, and had only a EL
logo on the nose.  My guess is if she remembered these trains, she would be
far more likely to say these were NJ Dept. of Trans, not EL).


Well.  My $0.02.

Regards,

Chris
 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Tom Beckett [mailto:tabeckett_@_stny.rr.com] 
Sent:	Tuesday, January 29, 2002 12:45 PM
To:	Ken; Tupaczewski, Paul R (Paul); 'A Samostie';
erielack_@_lists.railfan.net
Subject:	Re: (erielack) What Locals Called the Railroads

I have a feeling that to most people who were not connected with railroad in
some way, or not in a town where the railroad dominates, it's just "the
train station". If she was 50-ish, she would have been about 10 at the time
of the EL merger, late 20s, maybe 30 at the time Conrail was formed, so
remembering the Erie may have been a stretch. Seems to me, once railroads
got out of the passenger business, there was not the incentive to remain in
the public eye, and indeed, many did a good job of keeping a low profile. I
don't know if EL was one of those, but it also seems to me they'd be hard to
ignore in the commuter zone, where delay reports are heard twice daily. Keep
in mind also, NJ Transit has done a fairly good job of creating "brand
recognition". But then, many people just aren't paying attention to such
things.

TAB
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken" <lackawanna_@_iname.com>
To: "Tupaczewski, Paul R (Paul)" <paultup_@_lucent.com>; "'A Samostie'"
<quahog_@_sprint.ca>; <erielack@lists.railfan.net>
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 5:44 AM
Subject: RE: (erielack) What Locals Called the Railroads


This past April, my professional society held a conference in Mahwah, and I
asked someone at the company which hosted the conference how far the
Sheraton Hotel was from the Erie station.  She had no idea of what I
meant.  She said that there was an NJ Transit station about 11/2 miles away,
though.  And she was in her 50's and a lifelong Mahwah resident.

How quickly people forget!

Ken Bush (pronounced the same way as the President pronounces it)

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