Re: (erielack) DL&W archives -- was Alco Farewell / Economy Changes

[walter smith <wsmith5957_@_yahoo.com>]

I sure wish I was still up there to help out with it. BTW....a friend from West 
Pittston - Richard Kither - used to trainwatch at the Exeter Ave. Crossing on 
the 'Bloom' when we were kids. He took a degree in chemistry and worked for Wise 
Potato chips in Berwick. After retirement, he became a volunteer at Steamtown 
and worked as trainman on the excursions. He sent me a great foto of the 
Canadian 2-8-2 outside the roundhouse doors with a bunch of the employes posing 
in front of the engine.....just like 100 or so yrs. ago. Such is loyalty.

Regards,

Walt Smith




________________________________
From: "mdelvec952_@_aol.com" <mdelvec952@aol.com>
To: erielack_@_lists.railfan.net
Sent: Tue, December 14, 2010 11:05:18 AM
Subject: (erielack) DL&W archives -- was Alco Farewell / Economy Changes

Very interesting, Walt.  I can't imagine what was lost, and so much more than 
that was elsewhere.

But we at Tri-State were given the opportunity by NJT to clean out the Hoboken 
records building in 1985, and we did, removing truckloads of stuff that was 
mostly the Chief Engineer's files.  We've paid tens of thousands of dollars over 
20 years to store the stuff, and we were able to move it to Steamtown to become 
a big part of its archives.  More than 100,000 rolled maps and nearly an acre of 
file space were part of it.&nbsp; Some bits in the 1990s went to the ELHS which 
are now in its archival collection.

Still, all was not lost and the Cheif Engineer's files are now open to the 
public thanks to a herculean effort from the Tri-State volunteers and Pat 
McKnight's own team.  The volunteers are still sorting and cataloging, but so 
much new information has surfaced thanks to that collection.

          &nbsp;      ....Mike Del Veccho

- -----Original Message-----

From: walter smith <wsmith5957_@_yahoo.com>

To: EL Mail List <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net>

Sent: Mon, Dec 13, 2010 10:53 pm

Subject: Re: (erielack) Alco Farewell / Economy Changes

    Very concise, Tim....Thanks.  I'm just pissed that I didn't know about 
theauction.
  I WAS lucky enuf to be giving an AMTRAK friend a tour of Hoboken when 
theCompany was throwing out all the stuff from the legal dept on the 2nd floor 
ofthe Terminal. They'd cut a hole in the floor and put a dumptruck under it 
(inone of the roads to the ferries) and would get an old wooden filing cabinet 
on a
dolly and 'CRASH' into the dumptruck. I sent my pal to get boxes and we 
filledthem and lugged them onto one of the AMTRAK trains in Newark. Man, it was 
acircus....there was a fleamarket dealer and a EL conductor taking stuff from 
the
drawers trying to beat the laborers. That's where those 1918 track blueprints of
the ERIE came from that I finally sold on the list after my wife threatend 
mewith torture if I didn't get them out of the front bedroom closet.
      I wish I'd had the brains to tell Bill to get a rental truck & then 
bribethe laborers to load it up. Can u imagine what one of those oak 5-drawer 
filingcabinets is worth now.....not to mention the contents. Well - at least the 
oldblueprints have found good homes. Think of what was lost, tho. The laborers 
were
taking it all to 'the Meadows' to be burned. Kind of like the remnants of 
PennStation.

Walt Smith

________________________________
From: Tim Stuy <njmidland_@_verizon.net>
To: EL Mail List <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net>
Sent: Mon, December 13, 2010 2:59:27 PM
Subject: Re: (erielack) Alco Farewell / Economy Changes

That is correct.  The estate of the L&HR sold off the remaining assets,
mainly the Warwick office building and various real estate not taken by
Conrail.  In 1982 they had a huge auction in Warwick where they essentially
sold off the contents of the building.  I was there and bought a lot of neat
stuff.  Walter Rich of Delaware Otsego fame, brought a truck and bought a
lot of the really nice office furniture.  He got the prize fan item, a 16 mm
film that the L&HR had done of the conversion from steam to diesel.  I spoke
with someone up there about 2 years ago and they are aware of it and may
eventually release it on DVD as a fund raiser for the Walter Rich museum in
Franklin, NY.

Once the settlement came from the federal government for what was taken by
Conrail, the L&HR paid off all of its debts at 100 cents on the dollar and
had cash left to pay the stockholders about $68 per share.  95% of the stock
was owned by its connections, including about 25% owned by EL.

Tim

On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 2:46 PM, Tupaczewski, Paul R (Paul) <
paul.tupaczewski_@_alcatel-lucent.com> wrote:

> > Nothing so far on what happened to L&HR, other then merged
> > into Conrail.
>
> I thought I recently read an old Block Line from the 1980s that showed
> everything from the L&HR offices and their stockholders were paid for their
> shares of the company, effectively dissolving the corporation.
>
>        - Paul
>
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