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From: bernard rudberg brudberg AT optonline DOT net
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2015 20:25:06 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Upcoming Lloyd Historical Society Program
"Hopewell_Depot_c.1905.jpg" - image/jpeg, 1349x705 (24bit)


Town of Lloyd Historical Preservation Society


12 Church Street-Highland, NY 12528


CONTACT: Donna Deeprose

(845) 255-7742


ARTICLE AND PICTURE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Note: as usual, the attached word file contains the same text as below.

Lloyd Historical Society to Sponsor
Speaker on Hopewell Depot Restoration

Bernard Rudberg, retired IBM engineer and railroad enthusiast, writer,
and lecturer, will speak at the December 7 program of the Town of Lloyd
Historical Preservation Society (TOLHPS). Past president of the
Hopewell Depot Restoration Corporation, he will describe how he and a
group of fellow railroad and history buffs restored the abandoned and
partially burned depot at Hopewell Junction. The program will be held
at 7 pm in the Vineyard Commons Theater in Highland.
Rudberg is the author of three books, Twenty-five Years on
the ND&C: A History of the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut Railroad;
Hopewell Junction, a Railroaders Town; and Hopewell Depot, Railroad
Years and Restoration.
He grew up in New Jersey, the son of Swedish immigrants
whose family ties to railroads in rural Sweden went back at least three
generations. His great grandfather was stationmaster in a small town
called "Polcirkeln" where the tracks cross the Arctic Circle on the way
north to Narvik on the Arctic Ocean. His grandfather was foreman of a
station in a junction town near the Arctic Circle. So perhaps he
inherited the passion that inspired him to try to restore the Hopewell
Depot that had been built in 1873 and deserted in 1982, a few years
after the 1974 closing of the Poughkeepsie-Highland Bridge brought local
train traffic to a near standstill.
Restoring the depot faced big obstacles, not the least of
which was the damage from a fire set by arsonists in 1986. But with the
formation of the Hopewell Depot Restoration Corporation in 1996,
fundraising and construction went into full swing, culminating in the
opening of the Rail Trail Visitor Center in 2012 and Hopewell Depot
Railroad Museum in 2013. The restored depot is at the eastern end of
the Dutchess County Rail Trail, which flows westward onto Walkway Over
the Hudson to meet up with the Hudson Valley Rail Trail in Highland.
Rudberg’s efforts on behalf of the depot led him to the
Beacon Historical Society, where he discovered 48 volumes of ledger
books, each 700 pages, handwritten on onion skin paper and containing
everything that happened to the railroad that ran across Dutchess County
from 1879 to 1984. Rudberg read every word. As he tells it in the
Hudson Valley Institute’s Oral Histories of Walkway Over the Hudson,
that included “whose pig got run over” and when the washroom sink got
clogged up. Based on these extensive records, Rudberg wrote Twenty-five
Years on the ND&C, detailing the stories of the numerous small railroads
that used to link up to move goods and people throughout Dutchess and
Colombia Counties, south into New York City, eastward into New England,
and west across the Hudson to the rest of the country, first on barges
and later over the Poughkeepsie-Highland Bridge.
While Rudberg will focus his presentation on the Hopewell
Depot, he might be persuaded to tell some of his Walkway stories too,
like the one about the fireman who was afraid of heights and hid under
the consul every time his train crossed the bridge 212 feet above the
water.
Vineyard Commons, where the December program will take
place, is at 300 Vineyard Avenue, about a mile and a quarter from the
Hamlet of Highland on Route 44/55, just south of the Hudson Valley
Rehabilitation Center. The program is free and open to everyone. To
reach the theater, turn into Vineyard Commons and follow signs to
Building 6. Early arrivers get the best parking spaces. Free
refreshments will be available.
For more information, call 845-255-7742, visit the TOLHPS
website at www.tolhps.org , or look for Town of
Lloyd Historical Preservation Society on Facebook.

Photo Captions

Bernard Rudberg, with his wife, Celeste, in front of the Hopewell Depot
Railroad Museum. Rudberg will speak on the restoration of the depot at
the Dec. 7 program of the Town of Lloyd Historical Preservation Society
in Highland.

The Hopewell Railroad Depot in 1905. Bernard Rudberg will speak on the
restoration of the depot at the Dec. 7 program of the Town of Lloyd
Historical Preservation Society in Highland.






_______________________________________________
The Stationmaster - Hopewell Depot Restoration Corp. News
http://hopewelldepot.org * info@hopewelldepot.org * 845-202-0990
https://www.facebook.com/hopewelldepot
To subscribe or unsubscribe visit http://stationmaster.hopewelldepot.org
Hopewell Depot Restoration Corp is a NYS registered 501(c)(3). Our mission is to preserve and restore the last railroad building in Hopewell Junction, NY.

Hopewell_Depot_c.1905.jpg

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