(erielack) Hometown RR Depots

[WSmith5957_@_aol.com]

     Most of us can still remember the railroad stations in our hometowns. 
Railroads did not begin phasing them out until the late 50s & 60s. After that it 
was like the falling of autumn leaves - one day they're here & when you look 
again, they're gone.
   It was thus with DL&Ws West Pittston, Pa. station. The town fathers gave 
it to the fire department to burn 'for practice'. Along with the building went 
all the records, old rolltop desks, wooden filing cabinets (filled with the 
reciepts & waybills that portrayed business for the local area). One waybill I 
remember in particular was framed by a long-ago agent who found it behind a 
desk. He realized the historical significance of this little piece of paper. It 
was dated 1856 & was a LACKAWANNA & BLOOMSBURG RR form showing a bill for 
shipping of 100 cwt of cotton cloth to Bloomsburg, Pa.  I wonder if anyone had the 
foresight to preserve this from the fire, but I doubt it. I saved a few 
things, including a small hardcover binder of waybills from the 1950s.LCL shipments 
of tools to LUDWIGS HARDWARE in Pittston, Pa., merchndise to the W. T. GRANTS 
store in Pittston, Carloads of new Chevrolets to ROY STAUFFER CHEVROLET, and 
many cars of coal to the local dealers that warmed the nearby homes.
       I began hanging around the depot when I got my first 2-wheeler (1948) 
at age 11. At that time, the DL&W line to Northumberland still had passenger 
service (2 trains a day pulled by one of their 1100 class 4-6-2 Pacifics). As 
one of my more sophisticated uncles put it "The Little Garden Village. 2 trains 
a day and the station closes down!".  He lived in Allentown - served by the 
Lehigh Valley and the Reading........THE BIG TIME. I usually sat on the loading 
platform at the South end of the station to observe the action and 
occasionally wandered into the waiting room (dominated by a huge potbellied stove in the 
center)at the North end just to sit on the benches and pretend that I'd be 
getting on the train & going somewhere.  
       By 1953  I was in high school and I had a morning paper route (The 
SCRANTON TRIBUNE) which by coincidence included the station agent a Mr. Ryder. By 
this time the passenger trains were gone and Mr. Ryder had no objection to my 
entering the inner sanctum of the agents office to get warm on a snowy 
morning. This room also had a big potbellied stove (about these stoves - the 
railroad must have gotten a hell of a deal on them from the Pittston Stove Works. 
Many of them had raised lettering on the firedoor that, in the quaint advertising 
of the 19th century said"IF I AM GOOD, PLEASE TELL OTHERS ABOUT ME") and 
served as the gathering place for the section gang that covered the 10 miles or so 
from Kingston to West Pittston. On these bitter cold mornings, the men would 
have a pot of coffee on top of the stove to warm them before getting on their 
unheated motorcar or into the back of the Blue GMC ton & one half truck with 
the square LACKAWANNA RAILROAD logo to go about their duties of keeping the 
track up to the standards of the DL&W RR. Among other duties of the agent was the 
distribution of paychecks to the gandy dancers every two weeks and this 
bought a scene which sticks in my mind to this day......a recent arrival to these 
shores from Central Europe was unable to read or write & would go around with 
his check asking other men including Mr. Ryder to endorse it so he could cash 
it.........."You sign??, you sign??'"  Ryder - "No, Goddamnit, I WON'T sign, 
you better learn to read & write!"  I often wondered what the poor guy did - I 
imagined a huge pile of paychecks in some boardinghouse. The Company would get 
after you if you didn't cahs your checks. I later had the experience of firing 
for an engineer in Binghamton who let them pile up & he got an angry letter 
from the Superintendents office inScranton about it. 
      After graduating highschool and four years in the USAF, I hired out on 
the ERIE in Ohio & after the merger transferred to Scranton and lived in the 
hometown. I would go to the old depot to use the Company phone thereby saving a 
toll call when I had to check on the availability of jobs in Scranton. By now 
the agent was a man named Harry Logan from Clarks Summit. A longtime DL&W 
employee, Harry had many stories of service as an operator including his being on 
duty at the tower at Lehigh when the helper engine (a 4-6-2) on an Eastbound 
passenger train exploded due to low water in the boiler. This occurred in the 
cut just West of the tower and Harry said it shook the windows in the tower. 
Occasionally, I'd bring my daughers Mary Ruth and Terry with me and while I 
cranked the old magnetophone to check in, Mr. Logan might find them some hard 
candy from a stash he kept for himself.
       All good things must come to an end and my final visits to the station 
were in the late 60s when I was working in Binghamton, New York. I only 
visited the old depot when I was seeing my parents and had to use the Company phone 
to check in with the Binghamton crew dispatcher. Mr. Logan was gone now and 
the agent, Mr. Capone, was another longtime DL&W man. He lived in Scranton and 
told me that as a child,he had watched the building of the DL&W station. What 
a memory to have. Later as an agent on the 'Bloom' as the Northumberland 
branch was called, he bounced from one station to the other as the Company 
eliminated the agencies. West Pittston was his last stand as he was getting on in 
years. He showed me a set of brass doorknobs he'd salvaged from one of the other 
agencies Obviously turn-of-the-century, they had raised brass lettering in 
curved letters proclaiming DL&WRR - the letters all intertwined. I would say 
pre-Truesdale.
      Seeing the writing on the wall and suffering the torments of RFE Sammy 
Milller, I resigned and hired out on the (old) Auto-Train in Sanford, Florida. 
While working there, I recieved the sad news of the town Philistines burning 
the station 'for practice'.
I thank God I had the foresight to take a few photos of the old place.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
Regards to all,
Walter E. Smith

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