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Trains Album of Photographs #14 Erie Railroad Spiral Bound 1946 20 single side p
Trains Album of Photographs #14 Erie Railroad Spiral Bound 1946
20 single side pages of photos. Measures approx. 10 X 14 inches.
Covers development, locos, and rolling stock with emphasis on its feature job of hauling western fruit.
The Erie Railroad is best known as a freight railroad, yet its route offers one of the prime scenic rides in the East. The mountains of northern New Jersey, the valleys of the Delaware, the Susquehanna and the Genesee, and such historic structures as the great Starrucca Viaduct all contribute to the picture one sees from Erie windows during the wonderful daylight ride across lower New York state.
The trains upon the Erie are comfortable and homey, but they are neither the fastest nor the most frequent between East and West. Many a man who unquestioningly writes "Erie" upon his bills of lading rarely thinks of the Erie when he buys a through Pullman ticket for himself. He does not know what he misses.
For the Erie is really many kinds of railroad in one. It was originally built to six foot gauge and the resulting wide clearances make it a pre-eminent carrier of heavy freight. It pioneered in refrigerator transit and long years of experience has brought it the distinction of carrying 98 per cent of the western auction fruit into Manhattan. The Erie Limited, a recent (1929) entrant in the Chicago-New York field, is a through passenger train of comfort and the Atlantic and Pacific Expresses are heavy haulers of mail and express. In the suburban area of northern New Jersey the Erie is a transportation utility which daily carries more than 21,000 commuters.
This commuter train show is one of the Erie's best acts. The real show starts soon after four o'clock every weekday afternoon. Before the rush has eased some 50 trains have departed from Jersey City for the suburban towns nestled along the network of lines extending north and northwest. This demands the closest of timing and utmost of mechanical and human perfection in performance, for regularity is everything to the commuter. Erie maintains an on-time percentage of 99 in this critical field.
Originally the Erie did not even enter New Jersey. It was completed in 1851 as a strictly New York project, running across the southern tier of the state from Piermont, on the west bank of the Hudson just above the New Jersey Line, to Dunkirk on Lake Erie. Where bluffs along the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers forced the line to dip into Pennsylvania at two places concurrence of both the Pennsylvania and New York legislatures was necessary.
The formal opening trip, with President of the United States Millard Fillmore, the attorney general, the postmaster general, the secretary of the navy, and with Secretary of State Daniel Webster sitting on a rocking chair fastened to a flat car so he wouldn't miss any of the scenery, it was indeed a gala enough occasion to draw all the dignitaries Washington afforded. It was the first long distance railroad trip in the United States. Here was an entire railroad, the biggest in the world of that day, opened to traffic at once, not a slow growing project and not an amalgamation of many small and formerly independent companies. Gauge was not the only thing big about the new Erie.
It was inevitable that this railroad could not be confined to a single state. Acquisitions and agreements were made until the broad gauge lines connecting with the Erie extended way to St. Louis. The Erie itself went southwest only to Dayton, but after the broad gauge era a main line was pushed into Chicago. Branch main lines also put the road into Cleveland and Buffalo, which had so far outstripped the original terminus of Dunkirk. And along the main line the small towns which were hardly big enough to welcome the original railroad grew into cities whose names are familiar in our everyday life: Binghamton for photographic supplies, Jamestown for furniture, Akron for rubber, Youngstown for steel, Corning for glass. Salamanca, which did not even exist when Daniel Webster rode his flat car, is now a busy division point and junction.
The Erie has suffered much both financially and in reputation from the degradations of early and unscrupulous financiers like Daniel Drew, Jim Fisk and Jay Gould. Those days are, thank goodness, gone forever, and recent reorganization has left the Erie strong financially while aggressive and capable management has given it good reputation.
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