May 2002 Newsletter

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Phillipsburg Railroad Historians, Inc.
PO Box 5104, Phillipsburg, NJ 08865

MAY 2002 NEWSLETTER VOL. XII #5

Entertainment this month features:
Video by Ed Beers

The May monthly membership meeting of PRRH will be held on Wednesday night May 22 at 7:30pm at the Alpha United Presbyterian Church. Refreshments will be served as always and are brought to you this month by Bill Pensyl and Rick Glosser. Entertainment will follow the business portion of the meeting and will be a video feature by Ed Beers.

It is truly refreshing to see the advent of Spring with the arrival of daffodils, tulips and dandelions. We can stay out later now without a sweater and cook hamburgers on the grill while we sip a cold brew. Early morning light comes quick and do you think I can sleep late anymore??! Our Tuesday work party is taking advantage of the extension of daylight as we go about the business of impi7ovirig our facilities. Our volunteer attendance is growing steadily and the labor hours we are experiencing seem to be heading for an all time high. We spent the better part of April doing track maintenance on the Centerville & Southwestern mainline. Two mainline turnouts were renewed with the new ties we acquired last fall. Ballast spreading and surfacing were accomplished in time for May. We have made steady progress on the monumental task of cleaning up the rear of the museum building, relocating items to the storage seaboxes and enginehouse. Eventually, we will open up the flood gates to a sea of interpretive material begging for exposure to those curious enough to explore railroads' roots. Many items in our grasp remain stored for lack of usable space to display. Our steady progress in this project will yield the harvest all can benefit from for years to come.

This newsletter comes to all of you on the heels of our first Open House of the season held on Sunday May 5. 2002. Cobalt blue skies and comfortable temperatures greeted the steady stream of visitors that came to experience the sight and sound of railroading. The Centerville & Southwestern functioned as the people mover to the enginehouse site as passengers detrained to review the Public Service trolley 2651 being restored by the North Jersey Electric Railroaders. They have made good progress in re-attaching the nose that had been removed for restoration. I had the opportunity to show several people just how much interest is put into these projects by dedicated preservation groups and PRRH is proud to host them. Also in the enginehouse was member Earle Brotzman's circus operating layout with animals to enchant the kids. We had the repeat visit of Bob DeSanto's plush GM bus cruiser tastefully transformed into a home on wheels. We showed off our new Bachtold Brothers' Hi Wheel Brush Cutting Machine. Passengers waiting for tickets would have noticed the bold new sign proclaiming the Centerville &- Southwestern ticket office, brought to you by the diligence of Steve and Matt Winter. The gift shop did a brisk business with videos in continuous showing. Ed Beer's tot railroad was well received by our visiting little engineers. Ed Meyers supplied doughnuts and beverages a day. We did heritage interviews with several local families that had railroad men as fathers, husbands, and grandfathers. Videographers Pete Blaess and Rick Glosser were put to the task as recorders of railroad history in this oral history project that "I expand soon. In addition to those mentioned above, I would like to thank the following volunteers that made our sunny day a true success: Louie Badolato, Bob and Evelyn Bennington, Charlie Bowlby, Paul and Meg Carpenito, Jim Mack, Bob Marinelli, Tom N4amoli, Glenn Terminelli, Pete Terp, Ron Adam, John John, Bob and Rob Hooper, Alan Jenson, Jim Tomczyk. Becky and Sharon Winter. I also need to thank Bill Pensyl for the plant sale and the time he took to transport the material to and from. Patrick Graham for doing electrical work to make our lives a bit easier, trackwork done by Bud Sauselein, John Boner, Rich Frantz and Tom Sharpfe, all of whom contributed volunteer labor to make everything run smooth and Sharon Winter who arranged for the free Just Born candy given free to the children. A sincere thank you to all of the above for your proven dedication to this organization time and again. 101 riders rode the train and gift shop sales were very encouraging. You all made it happen.

Jim Anderson, Rick, Steve and Matt have been de-foliating the north side of the track with chain saws that are uncovering the long forgotten foundations of CNJ structures once in use at Phillipsburg. PRRH thanks Steve and Matt Winter for a generous donation of a new Sears chain saw that was immediately put to good use.

Our C&S locomotive 1503, now widely known throughout the news media has received a new fuel pump, battery. tank, and re-upholstered seat in anticipation of a heavy operating season. It performed flawlessly on May 5 and purred like a kitten. Did you know that the Centerville & Southwestern will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its last run at the Becker Farm this September. Your directors will discuss an appropriate way to observe this date.

JANUARY- FEBRUARY man-hours report by Ed Beers.
In January, we had 8 volunteers at the site donating 34 hours for tarping the cabooses and retrieving the donated baggage wagon. Steve Winter donated 32 hours for updating PRRH web site. Jim Mack, Meg, and Paul combined for 13 hours for newsletter/ membership functions. Total January hours combined: 79.
February hours were 13 for newsletter/ membership functions; none were used at the museum.

MARCH REPORT by Ed Beers.
In March, we had 11 members and 2 non-members donating 77 man-hours. These were for Mother Seton show: travel / setup / display manned / teardown. Also hours used for moving 33 lengths of M-size rail, and for cleaning up museum building. There were 14 hours for newsletter/ membership/ treasury/ secretarial functions. Year to date totals are 169 hours.

We are initiating a program to capture oral history. The intent is to attract and obtain stories relating to railroading history both past and present. We believe there are many present and former railroad men and women or their survivors in our area that could assist us record, for posterity, material of essential interest to our community. If any of our readers might be willing to locate these people, we will follow up on making contact with them. Much precious history has been already lost due to those individuals that have passed on without ever having dictated a story for us to keep. Please think about helping if you can.

The HUDSON FLYER trip set for June 16 is now packing a second bus. The cutoff date for your ticket order is the May membership meeting.

FRIENDS of the New Jersey State Transportation Heritage Center will be having an open house on Sunday June 2 at their Phillipsburg location at the pump house. We are planning to be open on that date.

You may have noticed at the museum that the memorial case has been installed and labeled due to the work of Pete Terp. There are two categories that present themselves to the observer. A memorial side pertains to dedications paid on behalf of retired and deceased railroaders that you can sponsor by filling out an application with a monetary donation pledge. The other category honors those benefactors that have made significant contributions to our organization both in monetary and in material ways.

Author Ray Haight has visited the Centerville & Southwestern twice while in the process of doing an article that will appear in print at a later time. Haight is an expert in the miniature railroad field and publishes a magazine to that effect. We will keep you updated as to when this article might appear.

PRRH welcomes new members Dr. Wolf of Phillipsburg and Patricia Laubach of Alpha.

To all of you a good day and I look forward to your presence at the meeting.

~ Paul Carpenito ~

PC/ab/sdw