were sold out. That was the adults, they didn’t want to tell the kids. The people already on the car insisted we get them on and we’ll find room, such was the cozy atmosphere. We stuck kids five across in the seats and used the ticket sellers’ folding chairs but we squeezed 117 people into that 88-seat car. Here began the impetus to get more RDCs. With a priority to get an RDC-2 or –3, I began shopping. I made trips to Baltimore and Montreal in the process, but it was my trip to Tennessee that yielded the M-2 and M-4. In a both-or-not deal, the Society bought the M-2 while two of our members bought the M-4. This was the second piece of equipment we owned, as we already obtained the ex-MCC locomotive #18 in the Newfoundland shop. But in the process, we hit our first major downside. In making improvements to the shop in Newfoundland, a heavy snowfall brought down the roof before we finished the supports. The building was condemned and razed. In looking for another home, we had investigated the mine site at Ogdensburg, with thoughts of operating on the Hanford Branch, but the NYS&W took out the rails at the same time. In running the stack trains, they wanted the building gone and a siding installed with that rail. It was graded, but never installed, and we had three homeless RDCs. Thus began the next phase. We went back to The beautifully restored Maywood Station in Maywood, New Jersey Photo: Ed Kaminski Two major events then started about the same period. running large trains, with M-1 as a coach. Meantime, the Susquehanna had purchased the Mikado #142 from Valley Railroad and we had to share track time. It was a replacement for #141, which sank in 6000 feet of ocean while being delivered. We then became known as the “Techies” in a cartoon that showed our people in diving gear on our “first excursion” to salvage it. Back to reality, we helped run the 142 trips and occasionally one of our own in the autumn. Eventually we were the operators of 142 to Baird’s Farm on our excursions. We also ran it on New Jersey Transit’s Raritan and Boonton lines. We were raising money to construct a new engine house, and the site in Butler was chosen. But then an event that shocked the country, indeed the whole world, occurred with the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center, something much too close to home for me, being a PATH employee. It was to affect the Society history as well. At first it was the inconvenience of having the Dunellen Railroad Days trips on the Raritan Line cancelled. We would return the following year. Soon after, certain powers decided we needed almost a half-billion dollars in liability insurance to run a steam engine. I recall the estimated premium to be somewhere between $350,000 to 450,000 yearly. The Susquehanna opted to sell us the engine it couldn’t use on its own track. We then leased their cars, or those of another tourist line, and continued on New Jersey Transit. But, while still close to “home rail” if not on it, the writing was on the wall. Still, we proceeded with the construction of a new shop in Butler. 4 Maywood was getting tired of the run-down eyesore of a station and wanted it demolished. A home-grown committee wanted to save the building, but the mandate was that only the Society would be involved with such a project. The committee became Society members and, working as an autonomous group within the Society (even to the point of their own web page), got the building an historical designation and raised money to restore it. It is now one of the finest examples of such work in the entire country. Another facet of this benefited our archives. After so many years, we finally had a home to store and display them, as well as members willing to catalog them. The start of the other event was far more complicated. With the need to raise funds ever present, we continued to run trips, but New Jersey Transit’s rates for movement and inspection and requirements for insurance were all rising. If we wished to continue improving ourselves and restoring equipment, we needed to find a permanent home. This also prompted an effort to find equipment of our own to run with the steam engine. At first we came across MetroNorth’s SPVs, a more modern form of the RDC. Restoring one or two to full operating condition would be nice back-up to M-1, but we mostly wanted them to be coaches. They turned out to be a logistical nightmare, still unresolved at this writing. We then found five Long Island coaches, slightly newer then the series the Susquehanna was using. They reside in Butler for now as we then came across Metra (Chicago) bi-levels. We obtained several and ended up trading four of them for the NYS&W’s coaches and keeping three. We now had two locomotives, 3 RDCs, 7 SPVs (two were sold already), 10 LI coaches, three bi-levels and a leased car to power them… and still no real home. The effort to create the state museum, always part of our goal shared with other societies, was not going well. The site was picked as Phillipsburg, with Port Morris a very close second and probably developed as a satellite site. But the (Continued on page 18)
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