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Re: (erielack) pecking order/members ages



I'm not too young to remember the E-L, but my memories of the Erie are pretty much limited to seeing "Erie" painted on rolling stock instead of "E-L".  I didn't know Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western from bupkis until just a few years ago.

I grew up in Leavittsburg, so the EL was always "my" railroad even though I didn't realize it at the time.  I learned the names of the railroads from the standards on the sides of freight cars, but it never occurred to me that the particular railroad that I was gawking at was owned and operated by just one company.

I recall being fascinated by an article in Popular Science (or was it Popular Mechanics?  I can't recall...) when I was a kid.  The article was on Mallet locomotives (meaning articulated locomotives, really), and I suppose I was drawn to it for the same reason many kids are fascinated by dinosaurs...man, those things were BIG!

I was never any sort of train, railroad, or even model railroad buff as a teen.  But, since the EL had a yard right behind my old High School, I sure got to see enough of it in action even though I didn't understand or appreciate what I was looking at!

In college, I studied engineering, and was interested in both history and technology.  It was only natural that I was also interested in the history of technology.

I graduated and moved to Texas, and remembering the magazine article, drove a few miles out of my way to see the UP Challenger when it passed through my neck of the woods one day.  It occurred to me that with my engineering background, I was in a much better position to understand how steamers work than I was as a boy.  It also occurred to me that a little practical "hands-on" experience would do wonders in that regard.  I started looking for a steamer to get to know "up close and personal", and found a 2-10-2 in a park in Houston.  About this time I was kindling an interest in railroad operations, and started to investigate model railroading.  I never got into that hobby too deeply (was too busy working in 12"=1' guage!), but all my research in that area got me thinking about railroad operations in my old home town.  Now, what was the name of the local railroad again?  Oh, yeah, EL...

So I surfed around until I found George Ellwood's old web site and this list, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Oh, and the 2-10-2 was moved out of the park last night after sitting there for about 48 years, and is next to the local baseball stadium (which incorporates part of the old Union Station in its construction).  Now if I can just find that old Erie steamer that was shipped off to Korea...

Jeff Larson
ELHS #2683

erie910 <erie910_@_fastmail.fm> wrote:

>For those of you who are too young to remember the Erie, Lackawanna, or 
>E-L, what is the attraction that brought you to one or both of the E-L 
>societies and this website?
>
>
>Ken Bush


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