Hi all, I just got the new "Trackside in the Northeast" from Morning Sun the other day, and managed to actually read the whole thing last night (waiting up for baby's feeding at 1 AM gives me a lot of "rest time" to fill :) The book is part 1 of a five-volume (!) set of photos from Vince Purn and John Knauff. Never heard of 'em? That's because they were members of the New York Railroad Enthusiasts, a pretty tight-knit group as it would seem. Their collection is now being published in these Trackside volumes. The book starts off with some neat shots of the NY Society of Model Engineers layout in Hoboken Terminal (Vince Purn was a member of them as well) Then off we go to Canada, and for the first 3/4 of the book we follow the various railroads south until we reach... The Erie! Three shots of Pacifics at Glen Ridge and "Bloomfield" (though this sure looks like Glen Ridge to me, can anyone confirm?) Then we jump to the DL&W with some nice MU-in-the-snow shots, a Pacific going past the Pasterson station, and then the shot that was on Morning Sun's website - an A-B-A set of immaculate F3s at Denville (though I wish this one was two full pages, but hey :) We jump back to the Erie with some very clean units at the Port Jervis roundhouse (diesels, that is) and a two-page spread of a gleaming Erie bay-window caboose trailing an eastbound at Hancock, NY. Then some more neat Erie stuff (including a loaded Erie gon of railfans - now THAT's funny looking!), and then an Erie PA fantrip. Jumping back to the DL&W, we have a real neat shot of an F3A-B leading a Pocono through Paterson. Then we jump to Scranton on a fantrip and see a nice view of the steam power lined up there, and a two-page spread of DL&W 803A-B-C in brilliant sunlight (it's also a good photo to show what "DL&W yellow" truly looks like). Some more steam shots follow, and a two-page spread of an FTA-B set ready to push a freight out of Scranton. There's a great "mood shot" of Scranton from the back of the Phoebe Snow, and a great shot of DL&W HH600 #401 shoving clean and sparkling plow 95912. Some more shots from the back of the aforementioned Phoebe along the right of way follow. Finally, there are a few photos of one of RRE's Rail Camera Safaris, also with a loaded gon of folks (though the DL&W gon wasn't as packed-to-the-gills as the Erie one was), and a photo stop at Tunkhannock Viaduct It's also a neat variety of late 1940s/1950s imagery around the Northeast (lot of good New England stuff). One interesting thing I noticed was the prevalence of DL&W boxcars in other photos (or maybe I'm just looking for those? :) And the one frustrating thing for me is that photographer Purn was a lifelong resident of Lodi, NJ - you'd think he'd photograph the hometown Susquehanna??? Maybe he did, but sadly it wasn't in this book. :( Anyhoo, it is a nice selection of "classic" DL&W stuff, and I found it quite enjoyable. - Paul The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org To Unsubscribe: http://lists.elhts.org/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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