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I Remember Pennsy By Don Wood 1973 DJ PRR
I Remember Pennsy By Don Wood
168 Pages Reflections from the lights on some photos
Copyright 1973 FIRST PRINTING
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket .
CONTENTS
Foreword 7
The New York Division 11
The New York & Long Branch 27
Philadelphia, PRSL, Wilmington & Baltimore 59
Color Photo Supplement 73
Harrisburg, Enola-Rockville 79
Along the Susquehanna 103
The Old Middle Division 119
Altoona & West 143
LCL (Less than Chapter Lots!) 159
Acknowledgments 167
DUST JACKET INTRODUCTION: It is not really surprising that I REMEMBER PENNSY is now a reality. Rather, you expect that a volume of this nature should come from Don Wood sooner or later. Wood's association with the former Pennsylvania Railroad has become legend with the multitudes of loyal PRR advocates who attest that the Keystone style was paramount in big time railroading.
Wood's scintillating camera artistry stands alone in this, his first book. I REMEMBER PENNSY is not another in-depth look at PRR, nor is it a photographic catalogue of the giant carrier's motive power. It DOES portray one man's photographic memories of the railroad he loved. I once asked Don to what he attributed his photographic success in committing the railroad scene to film, no simple task, as those who have tried their hand can attest. His reply was simple: "I'm a rail buff all the way, and when dealing with my favorite subject, I know immediately what I like and dislike. Being a photographer by trade, overcoming the technical difficulties in rail photography is not a major problem, and I can concentrate on turning the camera to the subject in the manner I prefer. Fortunately, most recipients of my work agree with my tastes". So many, in fact, that Audio-Visual Designs' all Pennsy Calendar, now after many years, is one of the most popular items of all time in the Railroadiana retail sales market. Conceived by Wood and myself, and featuring his photos and captions, the Pennsy Calendar made its first appearance in 1966 when it took the faithful by storm! The rest is history.
Wood's first public recognition came as a result of photos published in TRAINS magazine in the early fifties. Numerous articles and photo stories later (not to mention 20 covers!), the name Don Wood became synonomous with photos of Eastern Railroading to the many readers of TRAINS and RAILROAD magazines. Don was "Interesting Railfan" No. 63 in Freeman Hubbard's series in RAILROAD. How does Don Wood receive all this notoriety? He steps politely aside: "If I am doing something others enjoy ... that's great, because I enjoy doing it. If, on the other hand, some do not care for it, that's okay too ... but I'll still go on doing it my way".
Wood currently heads up the Photo unit at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, N.J. He has been in one branch or another of AT&T for better than 30 years.
I REMEMBER PENNSY represents a fabulous find for the dyed in the wool PRR advocate, as well as to members in historical and technical societies, since 85 to 90% of the better than 220 photographs have never before been published, or even seen for that matter!
Sit back now, with your copy of I REMEMBER PENNSY and enjoy ... but don't get too close to lineside ... the publishers do not want to lose you under the driving wheels of a K4s!
Carl H. Sturner
Foreward...
THE photographs in this book depict the Pennsylvania Railroad in disguised descent. In the years following World War 11, years when Don Wood was at PRR lineside with his camera, the system was not in its noontide of influence or usefulness. It had ceased to refer to itself as The Standard Railroad of the World. The westward tide of catenary had stopped for good in Harrisburg. The locomotive testing plant in Altoona was still. The great halls of Penn and 30th Street and Union no longer were scrubbed. The longest continuous dividend record in American history remained intact, but the annual payout had dropped to as little as 25 cents.
A measure of the railroad's former greatness is the fact that the human eye and the camera lens either seldom saw or safely ignored the arteriosclerosis of the Pennsy. In the obstinate refusal of steam to leave the property, we saw evidence of the system's heritage of independence and size. In the intruding ranks of E's and F's, sharks and C-Liners - yes, and GGI's with simplified single stripes and enormous keystones - we thought we saw the rebirth of the railroad assuring that it would remain the biggest, would ever cast the decisive vote on the AAR board.
For those who witnessed Pennsy, this pictorial will serve as record and reminder. More important, however, Don Wood's pictures will attest to both new and unborn generations that such an extraordinary institution as the PRR did indeed exist and will evidence the style of its operation.
Pennsy was (oh, the depression caused by that past tense!) different. Different in detail (keystone-shaped whistle signs), different in decor (tuscan-red passenger equipment), different in design (Belpaire boilers). In an earlier season, Pennsy was different because it was better in terms such as strength of car construction, weight of rail, standardization of motive power, capacity of terminals. In a later season, Pennsy was simply different (take the case of a mechanical department chieftain who studied with interest a builder's proposal for a new electric only to sweep the blueprint from his desk when he was informed that such a locomotive had been built for a subsidiary of the New York Central).
Pennsy was huge. What other railroad operated four tracks wide across the mountains, or carried more coal than any of the Pocahontas Region lines, or dominated an industrial complex the size of Pittsburgh. Pennsy was so huge that we were obliged to identify its engines by class rather than by number series - and not only because of the perversity of a system which strung out the road numbers of a set of 81 identical engines from 13 to 6513. Even in its decline, when it was just going through the motions, Pennsy was big enough to sustain Baldwin in the road diesel business; to create a national piggyback car pool; and unhappily, to shape Eastern ratemaking policy.
Now - and this is the point of this pictorial -the Pennsylvania Railroad managed to be different
and huge and engaging. Oh, there were those train-watchers who disparaged Pennsy for its admitted arrogance or its atypical locomotion; but I suggest that in their heart of hearts even these folk were moved by a brace of K4's coming to grips with the Liberty Limited out of Englewood or by a squat B6 shifter parting weeds on light iron in Jersey.
I am glad that the big system attracted a photographer with the enthusiasm, the energy, and the skill of Don Wood. PRR deserved no less. Indeed, after the collapse of the railroad's once peerless publicity force, the photographic record of the Pennsy in the region of its highest density of multiple track and traffic would be tragically lacking if Don, boy and man, had not so assiduously monitored the property. His work brackets an extraordinary - and as it turned out, the final-chapter of PRR history. His photos portray Pennsy from the time the weary giant emerged from the 19411945 war (surely the road's wartime role was its all-time contribution to America) to the hour it lost its identity in an unhappy, ill-fated merger with its arch rival. In retrospect, PRR's position-light signals were set at angled caution from 1945 on, but many of the illustrations in this book show otherwise. They depict traffic tides that recalled steam from storage; the influx of hundreds upon hundreds of diesels of diverse make and model; and the innovation that included Aerotrain, experimental electrics, piggyback, import-ore trains, a stainless-steel Congressiona/, and finally, the Met roliners.
In that season Pennsy was soft light and roast beef in the twin-unit diner of the Broadway. hammering Pacifies on the New York & Long Branch, awesome 4-8-2's with lengthy trains on the Middle Division. the incomparable GO I in varied attire on varied consists, the smoke and shops of Altoona, and the uncountable other impressions and vistas of a magnificent transportation property thrust against its will into a time zone with which it ultimately could not cope.
Remember Pennsy: the title is Don's and it is a good one. But it goes for all of us for whom the keystone always will imply a railroad rather than a commonwealth or a bridge.
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