(erielack) Amateur question about MUs (fwd)

[gelwood <gelwood_@_dnaco.net>]

Anybody help?

George Elwood
http://www.dnaco.net/~gelwood

- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 21:45:49 -0400
From: "Forstchen, Bill" <BForstchen_@_montreat.edu>
To: "'gelwood_@_dnaco.net'" <gelwood@dnaco.net>
Subject: Amateur question about MUs

Hope you don't mind this question from an amateur when it comes to train
history.   I grew up in Millburn NJ in the 1950s and even as a child was
captivated by the MU trains.   They were magical, mystical machines that I
would watch go by from my bedroom window.   Whenever my folks weren't
watching, I'd slip down to the tracks to crush pennies and play in what I
guess had been an old side line and warehouse about a quarter mile west of
the Millburn station.

My question:   Just how old were the MU cars?  I well remember their smell,
the sound as they braked to a halt, the thrill of climbing aboard and the
feel of the old cane wicker seats.    Also, where might I be able to find a
good book on the history of the old Lackawanna rail line thru Millburn?  I'm
actually a professor of history now, and intrigued by the early history of
railroad development.   I remember seeing a painting dating to about 1860 of
a train coming in to Orange Station and would like to learn more about what
I guess was one of the earliest commuter lines in the country.    Finally, I
remember a beautiful diesel engine train that would come thundering through
Millburn every morning around 10 AM or so.   My mom called it the Phoebe
Snow and I wonder if that indeed was the name of the train.   A special
treat was to walk to the old station with mom and watch it come roaring
thru.

Funny, even as I write this note I hear a train whistle blowing.   I live in
Western North Carolina now, just a few hundred yards from the
Norfolk-Southern route that comes up through Swannanoa Gap, one of the most
beautiful climbs in the East with a couple of gorguous horseshoe turns and
half a dozen tunnels.

Hope you don't mind the questions from an amateur but got hit by a bout of
nostalgia and curiousity tonight and figured a web search might turn up some
answers to old questions.

Sincerely,

Bill Forstchen
Black Mtn. NC

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