(erielack) Re: EL List Daily V3 #1615

["J.Mceachen" <jmcea_@_sbcglobal.net>]

Here is a post I got from a person (who may or may not want to be named) 
but I am grateful to him for this, and he may be a M-N employee by the 
sound of his post. Here is the scanned Lackawanna ad he sent me (with 
underscores.)

http://www.erie-lackawanna.com/images/NYT_T-L_Article.jpg


April 10, 2005, Sunday    Late Edition - Final
Section 14CN    Page 1    Column 5     Desk: Connecticut Weekly Desk    
Length: 838 words

COMMUTER'S JOURNAL; A Train That Carries You Back
By JACK KADDEN

E-mail: kadden_@_nytimes.com

WHEN the people who run Metro-North leave Manhattan to inspect a new 
bridge or a renovated station, they don't climb aboard the same trains 
that you and I ride. They travel in relics of a golden age.

The Metro-North inspection train is made up of three cars that are far 
from opulent, but are rich in history.

One of them is a former New York Central coach from a train called the 
Empire State Express. The other two are tavern-lounge cars built in 1949 
for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad's premiere train, the 
Phoebe Snow, which ran from Hoboken, N.J., to Buffalo. The name came 
from a character -- dressed all in white -- in an ad campaign dating to 
the early 1900's, touting a train that ran on clean-burning anthracite 
coal. (The singer Phoebe Snow, born Phoebe Laub, took her stage name 
from the train.)

I was introduced to the Phoebe Snow cars last October when the 
Connecticut Rail Commuter Council held a meeting aboard one of them 
while it was parked on Track 34 in Grand Central Terminal.

As unhappy commuters relayed complaints to the earnest members of the 
council, I savored the chance to explore this vintage car, where 
passengers once sat in easy chairs or at tables in a dining area set off 
by glass walls. It is a far more spacious and genteel environment than 
one finds on a commuter train.

I had seen the sleek stainless-steel cars in the terminal before and 
always wondered what they were. Apparently, others shared my curiosity. 
''When they are on a train platform in Grand Central, the throngs of 
world-weary commuters will stop and gather and peer into the windows and 
try to sneak inside,'' said Dan Brucker, a Metro-North spokesman. ''It 
draws you back into a world where train transportation was a 
significantly different experience.''

Jack W. Swanberg, a railroad historian from Branford and a retired 
Metro-North official, has known the cars in at least two of their 
incarnations.

''I rode those on the Phoebe Snow in 1966,'' he said. ''I was a 
management trainee on the New York Central, and we knew it was going to 
go out 0f service, so we rode it every chance we could get.''

Later, when Metro-North started using the cars on its inspection train, 
he was a regular passenger. ''Whenever it was in my territory, I had to 
ride it,'' he said. ''They're nice to ride.''

''Being that these train trips will go for an entire day, they often 
serve lunch,'' Mr. Brucker said. ''But the food is as utilitarian as the 
Naugahyde chairs.'' Or as another railroad official put it, ''They 
always serve the same cruddy pasta salad, the same lousy Danish.''

The cars have changed hands several times. After the Phoebe Snow was 
discontinued in 1966, the cars were sold to the Long Island Rail Road, 
which used them as parlor cars on trains to Montauk and Greenport, said 
Walter E. Zullig Jr., a railroad historian from Ossining, N.Y., and 
former legal counsel to Metro-North.

When the railroad replaced its parlor cars in 1981, they were sent to 
Conrail, which used them as bar cars on the Hudson and Harlem lines. 
Back then, Mr. Zullig said, ''we were scrounging around for every bit of 
equipment we could get.''

When new cars arrived in 1983, the Phoebe Snow cars were removed from 
regular service.

Today, besides being used for inspection trips, the vintage cars serve 
as a ''Christmas party on wheels'' for Metro-North employees during the 
holiday season, said Kyle McCarthy, the railroad's manager of special 
events. The train visits outlying work sites, and employees are invited 
aboard for refreshments and for holiday greetings from senior staff.

Lately, however, Metro-North has caught on to the public's interest and 
the public relations value of the cars.

They are being offered for charter, and officials said several trips 
were under discussion. Last fall, the Phoebe Snow cars were a special 
attraction on an excursion sponsored by Metro-North for railroad 
enthusiasts.

Called the Beacon Line Rail Fan Trip, it included travel on a section of 
track from Beacon, N.Y., to Danbury that doesn't normally have passenger 
service.

''It was really a lovely trip,'' said George Okvat, the railroad's 
deputy director of customer service. ''We featured these cars and we 
sold them as first-class seating.''

Coach seats for the trip sold for $75, but riders in the Phoebe Snow 
cars paid an extra $100. Still, those 60 seats sold out almost immediately.

Jim McCormack, administrator of customer service technology, understood 
why. ''They're great cars,'' he said, and with their large windows and 
all-glass rear doors, ''they're perfectly equipped for exactly what we 
used them for.''
NYTimes Connecticut section, 4/10/2005
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>EL List Daily         Sunday, April 10 2005         Volume 03 : Number 1615
>>From Archives_@_Railfan.net
>Message-ID: <4257E71C.2030506_@_sbcglobal.net> 
>Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2005 10:30:52 -0400
>From: "J. McEachen" <jmcea_@_sbcglobal.net>
>Subject: (erielack) Re: Phoebe Snow observation cars
>
>The NYTimes Connecticut section for Sunday, April 10, 2005, has a front 
>page, lower right quarter, story on the Phoebe Snow observation lounge 
>cars now owned and operated by Metro-North. A Lackawanna passenger train 
>ad is reproduced in the article showcasing the Phoebe Snow's service to 
>Buffalo (my copy, delivered Saturday, was blurred.)
>The reporter says that M-N now realizes the treasures they have and will 
>use the cars for charters. The article is quite favorable, the reporter 
>did a good job. I am not sure if the CT section is available on-line.
>Joel McEachen in CT
>
>------------------------------
>

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