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Back in the day my hometown was served by 5 class 1 railroads.  The Erie being one of them.

These two Steamers were long before my time but both unique in their own right.

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One of the other 5-roads was the P&LE.  In the day the P&LE pulled the "Steel King" passenger train three times a day from Pittsburgh to the P&LE's terminus point in my hometown.  There they handed off their consist to the Erie with an additional Erie consist to continue on to Cleveland.  This is were the Erie used Alco RS-2's to pull the consist.  As I said three times a day in both directions.  The RS-2 was fitted with call and marker lights welded to small structural steel brackets.  This train to Cleveland is how I got to see the Indian's play ball.  Unfortunately none of our toy train makers make a RS-2 so this RS-3 has to be close enough.

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Than a somewhat standard freight diesel.   This is probably similar to the power pulling a hot metal car through town when the load was dumped at a road crossing.  Wish Rich Melvin would jump in here with the details of that event.

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Ron

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@Paul Kallus posted:

I appreciate Erie Steam Power...and Erie models by MTH and Lionel make up a good part of the heavy steam on my railroad.

Here's one of the short videos I made of Erie Steam: https://youtu.be/84OZA8UM9LI

BTW: "Erie Steam" - volume I has some great double and triple-heading action of Erie steam back in the day.

 

Paul Easier to view

@bluelinec4 posted:

Will 

is that layout in Columbia nj

Yes it is, or was. Looking for photos of this, I found out that there were still operating sessions at least until 2018. But unfortunately Harold died last December at the ripe old age of 98. I don't think I had seen him or the layout since the 90s. I expect the house has been sold and the layout dismantled by now. Railroad Model Craftsman was also in NE New Jersey, so a lot of the top HO guys like Tony Koester would show up there.

@Will posted:

Where are you from? Back in the 90s, I had the opportunity to operate and make a few structures for Harold Werthwein's Erie layout. He modeled Port Jervis to Binghamton. The layout was featured in many publications and is considered one of the great prototypical layouts. Here is a photo by John Edwards from 2007. Erie001

Will:

     When my sister and I were small, our parents took us to The Glenwood Hotel in Mill Rift (now Millrift), PA. Mill Rift was a flag stop for vacationers who were staying at the hotel and wanted to get back to the city. When I was 6 or 7, the station master(?) handed me the flag to flag down the next train so that the train would stop and the vacationers could go home. He sent me out on the tracks and I waved the flag back and forth a few times and then QUICKLY got off the tracks as the Erie diesel approached. I don't think that any railroad official would have a 6 or 7 year old do anything like that today! Liability? Danger? Death?

    I would sit up on the hotel property with my mother and count the cars on the freight trains as they went by. 100 or more cars was common. We even have picture of a steamer on those tracks from the early 50's. I believe I got my love of trains from the 3-4 years we stayed in Mill Rift.

   An Erie RS-3 would take us from New Jersey up to Port Jervis and the hotel would pick us up at the station and bring us to the hotel some five miles away, across the river.

    John

Nice stuff. I have a place reserved in my affections for Erie engines... but not just any Erie engine. No sirree... THESE Erie engines:

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Yup, the lowly little Lionel cast-frame FA's. I know they're not accurate models, I know the paint scheme is a foobie... but they have such a handsome simplicity that I find very appealing.

Unfortunately, I no longer own the above pair of Erie FA's. They were sold off some time ago.

Andre

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Last edited by laming
@laming posted:

Nice stuff. I have a place reserved in my affections for Erie engines... but not just any Erie engine. No sirree... THESE Erie engines:

FA_Pic1

Yup, the lowly little Lionel cast-frame FA's. I know they're not accurate models, I know the paint scheme is a foobie... but they have such a handsome simplicity that I find very appealing.

Unfortunately, I no longer own the above pair of Erie FA's. They were sold off some time ago.

Andre

When I was a kid I inherited a 2056 Hudson that my father had bought for my sister  That was my only train until one of my Uncles gave me a pair of Lionel Erie FA's that he found in the garbage  He was a garbageman in Edison NJ and gave me many more train he found that people would throw out.   That FA though was pretty beat up  I took the subway to Manhattan to Madison Hardware and had that guy with the rubber apron rebuild the whole thing  It was always my best running and most liked engine after that

Last edited by bluelinec4

After initially posting a contribution to this thread on Friday morning, I came back just now (Saturday morning) and was looking forward to seeing more Erie trains...alas I couldn't find the thread on the main forum, looked all over and finally found this sub-forum - in the basement of OGR so to speak. Its kind of a shame how interesting model RR threads get "moved to the basement" while the main forum is cluttered with a variety of detail-oriented posts. Anyway, I am glad I found this sub-forum where model trains in-action are featured. You guys have great layouts and Erie Power (the latter being a great book BTW).

And, thanks Blueline4 for altering my YouTube to a easier to view format. How is that done, exactly?

Here's a shot of an Erie Berk blasting out of the tunnel in my old Christmas village:

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Last edited by Paul Kallus
@bluelinec4 posted:

When I was a kid I inherited a 2056 Hudson that my father had bought for my sister  That was my only train until one of my Uncles gave me a pair of Lionel Erie FA's that he found in the garbage  He was a garbageman in Edison NJ and gave me many more train he found that people would throw out.   That FA though was pretty beat up  I took the subway to Manhattan to Madison Hardware and had that guy with the rubber apron rebuild the whole thing  It was always my best running and most liked engine after that

That's a neat story, Ben. The 2056 is one the coolest PW steam engines Lionel produced.

There's just something about those old Lionel Postwar trains that is timeless. Even though I did not have a Lionel set when I was kid (had a hand-me-down Marx 3/16" litho set), and though my "serious" model railroading roots are in HO... I will always and forever have an appreciation for much of Lionel's Postwar products. (And even Marx, to boot!)

Erie diesel power: Their original diesel schemes were absolutely, positively, one of the CLASSIEST schemes to have ever graced a diesel locomotive, regardless of engine type.

Andre

Last edited by laming

I can only recall a few carbody look deisels ever. Soo, Mac, and Erie, mostly Eries seen floating across the fields (and one red nose beast whose horn blast had me too shook to recall much else,lol)

I only own one, a lowly switcher. I don't even like them much, but this is my best puller of the lot, and I do run it while others sit idle. Especially in October.

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