over a year before work could start. It was also mentioned that the NYS&W Railway had donated the NYS&W Railroad’s archives, mostly silk drawings of various facilities. These turned out to be far more problematic that one might think. In 1990, New Jersey Transit tried an experiment in conjunction with the NYS&W. They ran the Ski Train up the Main Line to Hawthorne, where I lived, and then up the Susquehanna to Vernon for lodging in the old Playboy Club site. The Society was asked to staff the trains along with another group. Our people came prepared with a list of explicit instructions for car attendants. The other group mostly sat around the bar car having coffee and doughnuts. Unfortunately, the new owners of the Playboy Club were trying to condo it out and spent much of the travelers’ time with a sales pitch. The weather didn’t cooperate either and I learned something about skiing. We had a boxcar on the train for baggage that was little used as skiers rent the skis when the conditions could prove to be a bit rocky (literally). See, there was a cold snap near the end of both weekends, but no snow. What was there was artificial, laid down when the temperature finally dropped. Most passengers agreed, the weekend was a flop, but they were so happy to be back on the train. We were on our way at hosting such events. Later in the year, the United Railway HistoriTWENTY YEARS OF THE NEW YORK SUSQUEHANNA & WESTERN TECHNICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC. By Martin Den Bleyker, #163 T he clock keeps ticking. The calendar pages keep turning. Lo and behold, we have reached a milestone, our twentieth anniversary. This group has been preserving and reporting the history of our namesake railroad and related topics for two decades. And, yes, our historical group at twenty years can now say we are making history as well. As such, I am very pleased to present you this story. I’ve been there almost from the beginning. At the time, the Hoboken Festival was being held in the spring, rather than the autumn. So it was that in 1989, I wandered over to the NYS&WT&HS’ table in front of a Budd RDC only a few months after the formation of the group in November the previous year. The RDC had been stripped of any graffiti and cleaned, then given a maroon letter board with a silver “SUSQUEHANNA” across it. Being a long-time fan of this underdog railroad that lived across the street from my home of so many years, it required an investigation. The car was dark and dingy inside, yet familiar, as I had ridden it, or one of its sisters, regularly on the old Erie Main Line to work a couple of years earlier. I bought a newsletter, which told me about their meetings. I invited two of my friends, ex-Morris County Central alumni all of us, to go to the meeting in a Wyckoff ambulance hall. Little did I realize the germ of progress I had just seen. It was at the meeting we found out about the effort to create a state museum of transportation and that the RDC, now back in its original designation of M-1, was given to the Society on lease to restore for the effort. Volunteers were being recruited to do the work. I quickly enlisted. It would be 3 cal Society (URHS), owner of M-1, signed a lease on the old Morris County Central engine house in Newfoundland. I remember a trip up there, peering into the darkness through the door and seeing the shiny end of the car finally delivered. How ironic shortly after, as four former members of the MCC went to work on M-1 that July 14th. In order to raise funds, the Society drew on its experience with the Ski Train and ran an excursion up the Susquehanna that included full dining service, complete with NYS&W china we had made. A side tour to the Ogdensburg mine was made out of Franklin and the seats that emptied were filled with local customers for a short trip to Warwick. A somewhat toned-down version ran for two days the following year with a substitute attraction. When passing the MCC engine house, we had the M-1 rolled out for inspection as we made significant progress on it by then. In order to accomplish these trips, the Society re-created Susquehanna Transfer, under the I-495 approach to the Lincoln Tunnel and prepared the Ridgefield Park Station for passenger loading. A few months later, September 12, 1992, we requested a crew from the NYS&W to perform a shakedown cruise to Sparta with M-1. It was with great pride, after all the work we put it, that I opened the controller on our way to Sparta under the NYS&W pilot’s direction. We had a transmission overheat that shut down one engine, but the other carried us back up the mountain and home without issue. Shortly after, the car appeared once again in Hoboken and those that remembered it from its previous trip were astonished at the change. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but there was an immediate interest in RDCs as a tourist conveyance that followed. We became known as the “RDC gurus.” We took the M-1 to Steamtown and on to Syracuse to demonstrate the future RDC service there. Our purpose then was to run RDC trips, which started September 26th 1992 in Whippany. We soon ran into a problem. When running our last Christmas trip out of Newfoundland, we had people on the platform crying that we (Continued on page 4)
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