Phillipsburg Railroad Historians, Inc.
292 Chambers Street, Phillipsburg, NJ 08865

JANUARY 2000 NEWSLETTER VOL. X #1

The January meeting of PRRH will be held on WEDNESDAY night January 26 at 7:30 PM at our NEW LOCATION, ALPHA UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH at 859 High street. If you're coming in from route 22, the traffic light adjacent to the Wal-Mart plaza is County Road 519. Following 519 south you will reach High street and see a US FUEL gas station on the left and HERITAGE CLEANERS on the right. Right onto High St. The church will be at the top of the hill on the right. Drive to the rear of the church and enter door at rear and proceed downstairs.

In club happenings, we are in the process of covering the cabooses and flanger. We should have a definite word on the status of the enginehouse bid by the time the membership meeting comes. Modifications to the original specs have taken place and it is necessary to get state approval before the project can move forward. We anticipate good movement after this hurdle is overcome. We are also studying our copy of the PU Tower lease to see if terms are acceptable.

I would like to acknowledge Dave Palmer for his 200.00 donation to the dub. Thank you Dave. Volunteer work hours are as follows: October 57 hours; November 200 hours; December 26 hours. Thank you to all the PRRH and NJER people who gave of their time to obtain ties for our use. These ties were removed from Conrail's former E&N branch. We were granted permission to scour the right of way for items useful to the dub.

Please do not forget our new location for the meeting and that we are back to Wednesday. If you still are not sure of directions, call me at 610.826.2580. There will be entertainment after the business portion, or course.

As I began typing in the date for this message to you, brothers and sisters, I was mpmentarily taken back by the intensity of that dateline above. It is said that time marches onward and that no man can control or stop it. While this fact is certainly true, the members of the Phillipsburg Railroad Historians are making a dent in the annals of time. With the persistence of a group of hard working and dedicated volunteers, our group is overcoming the hardships that any organization must inevitably endure on the road to success. The slow protocol of government makes those goals we seek to attain just out of reach sometimes, but if you examine our track record over the years, you will find satisfaction in the fact that we march forward, albeit slowly at times. This fact became apparent to me one night recently when I unwittingly happened upon a slide of our museum site I took at the beginning of 1998. It seemed a bit stark to my eyes, and then I realized that it does not look like that anymore. Looking further into my file box of PRRH, I found a recent slide of our site and I realized what changes have taken place since. And it is all because of you, the members of this organization. The changes sometimes come agonizingly slow, but when they happen, they are permanent and for the good of our cause. Your hard work, good will and support, your donations and dues, and the extreme generosity of our patrons and benefactors have made and shown a difference. And I know you all have faith and are in this for the long haul. As your president, I am particularly impressed at the crossing of cultures that this group has to its credit. It is truly a blessing when a bunch of guys from different backgrounds can have a session and come out with some results that are enviable. I don't always find it an easy task to call the boys for a work session because I know a lot of you have families. When the wife answers, I almost expect to get a lecture on the more urgent tasks to be addressed. But you know, that has never happened to me yet and everyone has been very kind to me. It is truly my pleasure to be with you all.

You know, your officers work hard to please you. It is not always easy to please everyone, but we all have your best interests in mind. I am some- what of a conservative, so I hesitate before I act, and ultimately the officers discuss the pros and cons before we make a decision. Some of the directors meetings last quite late.

In retrospect, 1999 was an interesting year. We started the year off on a good note with our first Cornerstone Grant from GPU. We also obtained a semaphore signal from the old CNJ right of way. We maintained a table at Mother Seton in early March, and it was there that we discovered and acquired several priceless Becker milk bottles. Conrail's excavation and subsequent dumping of dirt gave us a glut of usable dirt which we ultimately would use in our enginehouse project. It will also fill a purpose as we lay C&S mainline toward the west. Our April banquet was well received at Flynn's where good food, cameraderie, and superb entertainment made for a memorable evening. By May, we had entered into a cooperative agreement with FRIENDS to build a 100 foot enginehouse, thanks to a fusion of grant monies. Also in May, we arranged layout tours to various local homes and our members enjoyed these tours and had opportunities to share tips and ideas. June heralded the beginning of spring and the opening of our museum site. Our members worked hard for this and both the C&S and our HO scale railroad clickety cracked down their tracks to the enjoyment of visitors. THE NORTH JERSEY ELECTRIC RAILROADERS spruced up their sweeper trolley and prepared to help PRRH begin the full scale track building project. Alas, the extreme heat of sumrner put the skids on further construction as temps in the nineties made any labor unbearable. Nevertheless, PRRH attended to the weekly task of greeting visitors. NORFOLK SOUTHERN became our new neighbor and wild and colorful lashups made the site even more desirable. August was a banner month as the retaining wall project was completed. Our lighting at the museum was improved to deter the local vandals from taking aim at our equipment. BELL AND HOWELL gave us a generous grant to further our cause and we applied for a T21 grant for future needs, especially with consideration to our expansion plans. Your group also obtained a mechanical track spiker to speed up and make easier the laborious task of track construction. This work by PRRH and NJER has advanced well this year on our display tracks. In a marathon evening session, PRRH men moved our seaboxes into their new positions and the C&S was put away for the winter. This was accomplished in September followed by the preparation of the enginehouse site. Brush and debris removal was arranged through the YOUTH CORP group and our museum site now has received a virtual face Iift. THE BLACK DIAMOND SOCIETY OF MODEL ENGINEERS donated a large collection of magazines and books to our collection. Further we visited their fine club layout and a good time was had by all who attended. We welcomed Harry Wyant as our new mayor and wished Tom Corcoran well in his future endeavors with a sincere Thank You for all the help and cooperation he gave us during his service to the community. In the same vein, it is necessary to extend our deepest gratitude to the Town of Phillipsburg and Bob Mantoni for their extraordinary cooperation in helping us. Herb Fischer got our restoration off to a jump start with a whopping donation. The lease for PU Tower finally was granted to the town by NEW JERSEY TRANSIT. A massive late season work party enabled us to acquire over 150 ties from the defunct right of way of the E&N. As you can see, we accomplished a sizable amount of work this year despite a late start. The enginehouse project remains on the front burner despite technical delays. We will see this through and will one day marvel at its creation. There were numerous small projects not specifically mentioned, and the full size equipment got periodic attention as time and availability allowed. Our members trimmed and kept clean the rounds.

As we enter the year 2000, we will together work to attain our own goals as well as help the cause toward the creation of the state transportation museum. Along with those plans, we will work towards our mandate to extend the CENTERVILLE & SOUTHWESTERN to the Delaware River Park. We will meet in our new location and will restore the old familiar visitor friendly environment which many of you remember. Refreshments and a secure location will improve the quality of our monthly meeting. Seeing young members among us will ensure that PRRH is here to stay. What promise the future holds for all of us as a group will be experienced and realized as we move proudly forward. The community knows us the railfan fraternity knows us, and government knows us.

We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Please always feel free to discuss any issue with me. I look forward to working with all of you as I begin my second term.

Paul M. Carpenito January 2000

Home | Officers | About Us | Meetings | Photos | News | Gift Shop | Join
Centerville & Southwestern | Open Dates | Links | Newsletters | Archive

Copyright © 2000 , Inc. All rights reserved.