Erie-Lackawanna

The Erie-Lackawanna was my second railroad. My first was the PRR; I was born in Philadelphia, and a very early memory is of riding from Johnstown back to Philadelphia on a PRR train. Later, we moved to a central New Jersey town along the Amboy Secondary. But in 1957, we moved to Chatham, on the then-Lackawanna Morris & Essex Division. Our house was about two blocks from the tracks, and I could hear the Owl coming down the hill from Summit at night, dynamics whining.

My family has Lackawanna and Erie connections that go even farther back. The Bruce side was in Newark for two generations starting about 1900; my paternal grandmother was born in Campgaw on the then-Erie subsidiary NYS&W. My uncle began his working career as a steam fireman on the Lackawanna; he eventually rose to become CEO of Illinois Central; before that, he worked for Mr Perlman on Western Pacific.

By the time I was taking Latin in the 8th grade, the classroom windows overlooked the Chatham Lackawanna station. By then, it was the E-L, but the westbound Phoebe Snow went by at about 10:30, and if I turned around in my seat, I got a great view out the window. The problem was that this irked Mrs Wirsz, the Latin teacher. Finally, when the time came around and you could hear the diesels approaching, she would say, "All right, class, we're going to take a short break while John turns around to watch the train." I did OK in Latin, still speak it in church.

Not long ago, I ordered Revelation Video's Before The Hyphen, a DVD with archival footage of Erie, Lackawanna, and early E-L trains. This had footage of both the Lackawanna (Owl) and Erie (Atlantic and Pacific Limited) mail-express trains, which lasted through the mid-1960s and often had PA-1s, although usually mixed with Es. I'm still working out how I'm going to run a mail and express train on my layout, and this got me to pull a Proto 2000 E-L PA out of the display case and install DCC:

As you can see, I also have some Northwest Short Line brass Erie Stillwell coaches to go with it. The P2K is a very easy DCC conversion, so the next time I order decoders, I'll probably put one in its mate and run an A-A set. It'd be great, though, if one day someone would come out with an E-L E8. Meanwhile, I need to dig out some of my E-L head end cars.

There's a very good rundown of E-L passenger service here. During my time in 8th grade Latin, the Phoebe often had three units, one of which would be a PA, usually trailing. By then, the E-L was turning it into a mail-express train as well.

A few more E-L models that have gone through decoder installs:

A 1990s Walthers caboose kit I pulled off the back burner after seeing the new video: