Re: (erielack) Historic artifacts

["Bill K." <pontiac_@_dreamscape.com>]

While not all EL related, some "artifacts" I'm aware of being lost or 
liberated:

- - the Lehigh Valley Dining car shop in Easton.  After it was bulldozed, 
someone exploring the rubble discovered there apparently had been a lot of 
leftover china in there which was all destroyed with the building.  Seen 
what old railroad china sells for these days?

- - the Lehigh Valley station in Geneva.  Loaded with old records upstairs.  A 
local finally wrestled the building away from Conrail in 1983; by then the 
records were scattered about from vandalsim and so forth.   Because they 
were a fire hazard, into the dumpster they went except for some select 
things.  However:  Someone, perhaps several someones, swiped files out of 
there - I bought them from two different dealers over the years on eBay, 
including one woman who bought a couple boxes at a MD or VA flea market.

- - the Lehigh Valley 1967 yard office in Ithaca had papers, mostly early 
1980s Conrail stuff, but a few old LV bills from the early 1970s I 
personally liberated before the building was torn down.   Wish I'd nabbed 
one of the sections of lockers.

- - the LV-NYC station in Auburn:  I'm told when it was torn down they cleaned 
it out first.  A crude chute into a dump truck was set up and boxes of glass 
plate negatives apparently covering every structure that ever was on the 
division - you got it, CRASH into the truck and off to the dump.

- - same goes for the NYO&W station in Norwich.  Glass plate negatives and no 
one dared take any.  In 1957 you probably could have offered the estate $50 
and bought them all.

- - the DL&W Baldwinsville (NY) Freight station had desks and file cabinets 
inside when it burned.  I don't know what was in them.  I should have asked 
the engineer I knew to have a look - they had keys because they stashed a 
spare locomotive M/U cable in there just in case it was needed.   An Erie 
boxcar door lay at the end of it, number still stencilled on it, too.

- - DL&W Syracuse div. signal 274: standing on the side track into General 
Chemical and one of the yards in Solvay, the mast eventually rotted out and 
it fell down.  Instead of just loading it up, we tried to be honest and ask 
about it - and someone with the railroad hauled it away.   Well, at least 
it's not scrap like the one the other side of Willis Ave. became.

- - there was a lot of stuff visible through the broken windows of the Erie 
freight house in Binghamton, including old caboose lanterns, before it was 
knocked down.

One more:  A friend has tons of New Haven engineering department records - 
he got them from a building in Selkirk when he worked for Conrail. 
Eventually the building was torn down, with whatever was left in it.  Some 
of the prints were huge large-scale drawings of steam locomotives.


Unfortunately I was 2 when Conrail came about, or I would need a warehouse 
for all the crap I would have packed away, and I would be retired and 
selling the things I saved full time on eBay or elsewhere.  Just the LV 
records I bought I was able to sell copies of and come out ahead on - and 
the New Haven stuff I outright sold went for good money, too.  Some of the 
records I was unable to buy sold for literally stupid money, I remember one 
small file for an obscure location went for nearly $200.

In this modern era, you can't condone those kind of actions, especially 
since 9/11 it's liable to land you in the middle of a federal investigation. 
But 25+ years ago or more, a lot of this stuff was just garbage to the 
railroads, and if anything by taking it you were doing them a favor.  My 
rule of thumb would have been to be sure what I took was obsolete and would 
not cause a safety issue or hazard once removed.


Bill K.



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