Lehigh and New England by Ed Crist & Krause Soft Cover 1980 80 Pages L&NE
The Lehigh and New England Railroad by Ed Crist with John Krause
Soft Cover Stapled
Copyright 1980, 1992
80 Pages
Contents
Introduction
A brief history
At Pen Argyl
Pen Argyl to the cement region
Pen Argyl to the coal fields
Pen Argyll to the New ENgland gateway
The aftermath
The idea for a book on the Lehigh & New England began a few years ago when the authors undertook their book on the Susquehanna. The joint trackage of the two roads suggested treating them in a single book, but it quickly became apparent that it would be impossible to do justice to either road in the space allotted. Initially we were concerned about finding the material for the book, for the L&NE had not been receptive to visitors on their property and many of the oldtime photographers shied away from the road. Our fears proved groundless, for we were to find that a great many people had visited the road over the years and that there was a considerable pictorial record of the line.
As the case has been with nearly every other book we have done, our first stop was veteran dispatcher Bob Collins, who followed the road in the late 1930s and 1940s. Susquehanna maintenance supervisor John Treen had seen plenty of the L&NE as a Susquehanna conductor working to Hainesburg on the joint track. Hal Carstens visited the L&NE in the postwar years and again in the last few years of operation. During a phone conversation with artist Howard Fogg, an offhand mention of the L&NE disclosed the fact that Howard had visited the road in 1948 for the American Locomotive Company and had photographed the very brief co-existence of steam and diesel on the road. Former New Haven superintendent Sam Fredericks visited the road on its first fantrip in 1938. Photographer Rod Dirkes visited relatives in the L&NE's territory during the mid-1930s when he was just beginning in the hobby of photography, and his photos are some of the earliest scenes on the L&NE that we encountered.
One of our sources of information was Craig Ealey, a native of Pen Argyl whose father worked for the road. He in turn introduced us to Sherwood Singer, a former L&NE engineer now running for Conrail on portions of the old L&NE track. Sherwood was able to elaborate on many of the photos and gave us a much better perspective on the entire road. Another railroader, retired CNJ engineer John Scharle, also contributed photos, anecdotes, and little-known facts about the railroad. Many of the photo contributors are familiar names from our other books and are representative of the many people that it takes to make a work like this: Bill Price, Mary Cohen, George Krumm, and Jim Shaughnessy. Many old friends pitched in: Fred Springer, Jay Diamond, and Railfan and Railroad editor Jim Boyd. New faces appeared to add spice to the pot: Gene Collora and Norm Cole. As they have so often in the past, the industry people graciously lent a hand. The Lehigh-Dodgson Company, successor to Lehigh Coal & Navigation, made a rare contribution of their entire corporate record of the canal, mining, and railroad operations to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The archivists of the State Historical and Museum Commission have done an excellent job of cataloguing and maintaining the collection and were most helpful. Officials of the Lake Superior & Ishpeming and the Boston & Maine Railroads both assisted in tracking down the disposition of some of the L&NE's equipment.
All in all, researching the book provided a lot of fun despite the hard work involved. New friends were made and new facts uncovered. We hope that we've shed some light on a road that was largely unremarked upon in its own time. We also hope you will enjoy discovering, as we did, what was remarkable about the Lehigh & New England.
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