(erielack) Dining car society-article

[KSmollin_@_aol.com]

BY DAVID SINGLETON 




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STAFF WRITER

For the Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society, this weekend is 
merely an appetizer.

The main course will arrive next summer.

That’s when an authentic Erie Lackawanna diner the society is having restored 
in Kansas City, Mo., will roll into Scranton. If all goes as planned, the 
organization will offer the public a chance to experience fine dining on the same 
tracks the car plied during its heyday by the end of 2006.

“We want people to come, ride the train, have a meal and feel to some extent 
that they’ve experienced the real thing,” Timothy Stuy of Allamuchy, N.J., 
the organization’s secretary, said as the 4-year-old society opened its first 
convention at the Hilton Scranton and Conference Center on Friday.

About 80 rail enthusiasts — some members of the society, some not — have 
registered for the conference, which runs through 1 p.m. Sunday with everything 
from a class on air brakes to the personal recollections of people who worked 
for the Erie Lackawanna Railway Co.

For the public at large, the society is throwing open its vendors room. Mr. 
Stuy said the society is inviting visitors to peruse — and it hopes buy — 
faithful reproductions of the china and flatware in use on Erie Lackawanna dining 
cars that passed through Scranton on a daily basis through the 1960s. The 
society uses the proceeds from the sale of the merchandise to finance the ongoing 
restoration EL 741, the dining car it plans to bring to Scranton next year.

The reproductions can be a little pricey. A single china place setting with 
the Erie logo will set you back $66. A set of four sells for $240. A 
reproduction of a Delaware, Lackawanna & Western crystal water pitcher goes for $215.

But there are also items for people on a budget.

One of the specialties of the Erie Lackawanna’s dining car service was Krusty 
Korn Kobs, corn muffins baked in molds shaped like ears of corn. The society 
has recreated the batter mix, which it sells for $4.50. For $15, you can buy a 
package of mix plus bakeware with the corn-shaped molds.

The Erie Lackawanna was formed through the 1960 merger of the Erie and the 
Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroads. 

Although he was more familiar with diners on other railroads, convention 
attendee Jim Guthrie, 57, of Brooklyn, N.Y., recalls dining during special 
excursions the Erie Lackawanna operated out of Hoboken, N.J., during the 1960s. You 
could always count on a fine meal, he said.

“They accommodated people with food service right up to the end,” Mr. 
Guthrie said of the Erie Lackawanna. “The other railroads didn’t do that.”

Contact the writer: dsingleton_@_timesshamrock.com 


	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	Sponsored by the ELH&TS
	http://www.elhts.org

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