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RE: RDC/DMUs was (erielack) BINGHAMTON-NYC

> -----Original Message-----

Rick Sedlisky asked
> 
> By the way, when did you leave Binghamton and was that before the merger of
> afterwards?

Some time ago there was a thread wherein people gave a short autobio sketch.  In that light:

I left Binghamton for the first time, to go to Syracuse University, in the fall of '66.  I left for
good after school in '72. (Not slow, I got a Master's degree).  I then, after working in Cortland
and Binghamton for a few months, moved to Colorado (Steamboat Springs) and became a much better
skier (back then, not now!).  Then to Oakland and San Francisco, and returned to Massachusetts in
'76, and have lived in Cambridge and Newton ever since.

But to put all that in the context of the EL, when I was in elementary, grade and high school, I
liked the railroads well enough.  I got my first Lionel when I was three.  I was constantly
pestering the folks to stop at the Lackawanna Station as it was (and is) right off Chenango Street,
and we lived north of town, so we drove by it constantly.  I was occasionally humored, and that set
the hook, deep.  But not about the DL&W, or ERIE, or EL.  Just about trains.  My only recollection
of something specifically relating to the EL as a company was to comment to my dad one Saturday
morning that whoever came up with the "broken E" in the EL Diamond was a graphically clever guy.
Both roads in a single logo, cool.

But architecture school pretty much demands a total commitment, so trains just faded while I was in
college.  And then, of course, there's girls.  Can't live with . . . oh, never mind, you all know
about that.  

So, I was working for an architect in Oakland CA, and we decided we needed a model of a building.
And to build this building model, I was going to need a good bit of stripwood.  And there was a
hobby shop about three blocks away, Reed's Hobby Shop.  Well known in the Bay Area, it was a
well-stocked HO Model Railroad Store.  Not large, but friendly, and a pleasant place to be.  I left
with the stripwood, all right, but I also had a Quality Craft D&H caboose kit, in O scale, plus the
trucks and couplers.  And it all came back with a bang.  My next kit was three QC ERIE caboose kits,
and I wrote to the Erie Railfan Society to see if they had plans for the interiors, which (as I
recall, this IS a long time ago!) they did in an issue of ERIE Railfan.  I joined the ERS then, and
by then lived in SF with my girlfriend (now wife).  (BTW, SOMEday I need to finish those kits!!)

The funny thing is that my interest in the ERIE/DL&W/EL didn't come from the fact that I grew up
with them;  I didn't pay much attention to them as specific railroads then.  It all really started
when I was 3000 miles away, and by the time we came back in late '76, it was all over.  So, I never
consciously railfanned an EL train, much less an ERIE or DL&W train while they were "alive."

So, Rick, there it is.  Probably way more than you (or any of the rest of the list) wanted to know,
but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

SGL


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