wise, to try it. We then took on the task of running trips ourselves to raise money for the RDC. Once it was ready, we ran trips on several rare mileage lines with the Budd. We used the RDC in Morristown, Chester, Dover, Scranton and Syracuse as well as on the NYS&W. It would appear in a Heineken TV commercial and a low budget film patterned after the Long Island massacre. When we realized a one car train limited our resources, we obtained the M-2 and M-4 but lost our shop in Newfoundland to work on them. For a time, we had a replacement shop in Butler, but those Budds never got into it. Soon after, the Susquehanna Railway entered the SILVER EDITION When I think about it, it’s been an amazing journey. November 2013 marked this Society’s 25th anniversary. May 2014 marks the tenth anniversary of the Delaware River Railroad Excursions. I joined the Society about a half year after its inception so I’ve been there pretty much all the way and it’s staggering the steps we took. When you watch the movie, The Station Agent, it opens with a scene of railfans sitting around a projector watching pictures of trains. It is a familiar scene. It is where we started. We had four meetings a year, but would later make it bi-monthly. We’ve held those meetings in five different venues, the current one being Maywood library where the meetings continue. As one of our objectives was to support the formation of a badly needed transportation museum in New Jersey, in 1989, we were assigned the M-1, an original Susquehanna Budd RDC and thus was born our Mechanical Department. It was quickly given an exterior paint job, which consisted of removing any paint on the car and placing a maroon letterboard stripe with silver SUSQUEHANNA upon it. It was then displayed in the Hoboken Train Festival and that’s when and where I joined the Society. It wasn’t until the following year we had a place to do further work, the former Morris County Central enginehouse in Newfoundland. Newfoundland station was the central site of The Station Agent and one other film used the locale during the period it was owned by one of our members. It would not be our last involvement in films. We went to work on the RDC in July of 1990 and in September, 1992 we rolled it out for its shakedown run. It returned to Hoboken for the Rail Festival, which was then in the autumn, and those who remembered it from its 1989 appearance were stunned at its “new” look. Our Operating Department tourist market in New Jersey when they acquired Mikado 142 from the Valley Railroad. In the process, it would be used in the film Cider House Rules. We naturally took to assisting the railway in running their program. Eventually we were leasing the engine and coaches to run trips on New Jersey Transit Boonton and Raritan Valley lines. Then came the day we could no longer run on the Susquehanna. Rather than be depressed about it, we looked for a new home to run 142 permanently. This was not an easy task. As it turned out, the still unfounded museum was to be placed in Phillipsburg. With no progress being made, the town asked the Black River Railroad, owners of the Belvidere & Delaware Railway, if they could start an operation there. They intended to run a Brill motorcar. That is when we asked the Black River where we could run and next you know, we started running there May 1st, 2004. We had bought the engine from Steam locomotive #142 poses with Tobey Maguire on the cover of “The Cider House Rules”. Our locomotive was in several scenes in the movie as well. started with our staffing of the New Jersey Transit Ski Trains in 1990. It was an unsuccessful attempt to demonstrate rail service to the Vernon ski area. They picked a poor year, weather18 the railway but we also needed cars. It was not the first piece of rolling stock we obtained. During the work on M-1 we got the Plymouth 18 ton engine to make shop moves. We would add another engine to our roster when we put S-2, 206 on display at Maywood Station. We leased cars from the NYS&W and the Adirondack Railroad but we needed our own equipment. When an opportunity came up to acquire ten Budd SPVs, we took them. Moving them turned out to be a logistical nightmare and in the end they were scrapped. We purchased 5 World’s Fair series Long Island cars from Cape Cod. But before we could do much with them, we then got an opportunity to purchase 9 bi-level gallery cars from Chicago Metra. We sold two and swapped four for the NYS&W Long Island coaches. Four of the newer L.I. cars eventually would be scrapped as well. The Long Island had a habit of pouring tons of salt on the stairwells in winter, which left them in rough shape. We also acquired a baggage car for head end power for the bi-levels. When we started on the Bel-Del, it was with 3-1/2 miles of track running hourly on weekends while the Brill ran Thursdays and Fridays in summer for two years. During that time, we supplied a crew for a freight train used in another film, The Mercy Man. It was an independent film that was apparently released in 2009, but probably only in the Los Angeles area.
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