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From 1828 to 1953
Tuesday Go Fund Me Update
The Historians Podcast fund drive has raised $4580 so far. Our most recent generous contribution came from retired Montgomery County Historian Jackie Murphy. We still have a long way to go to reach our $7000 goal by year’s end, a little more than two months away. Please donate online now: The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore
The Mohawk Valley Limited of 1968
By Bob Cudmore
In 1968 a steam locomotive-hauled passenger train had not passed through the Mohawk Valley for seventeen years.
Railfans were ecstatic and the general public became interested Saturday morning, October 12, when a 19-car excursion train was first pulled by an electric locomotive from Grand Central Station in New York City north to the railyards at Croton-Harmon.
Waiting there was a Berkshire-class steam locomotive, number 759, which had hauled freight for the Nickel Plate Road in its prime. Coupled to the excursion’s passenger cars, number 759 soon was chugging north toward Albany’s Union Station, slated for closure in a couple of months.
The Berkshire class of steam engines were named for the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts where they were used on the hilly Boston to Albany run. Berkshire locomotives had two forward wheels, eight driver wheels and four trailing wheels.
Berkshire engines were at first manufactured by American Locomotive (ALCO) in Schenectady. Later models, including 759 built in 1944, were made at the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio.
Ross Rowland, a commodities broker in New York, was at the throttle of 759 when it arrived in Albany in 1968. Rowland had founded the High Iron Company to organize a series of steam-powered passenger train excursions with the goal of maintaining steam on the main lines of the railroads in the eastern United States.
Over a thousand passengers had paid $37.95 each for the round trip from New York City to Niagara Falls on the Mohawk Valley Limited.
The train’s arrival in Albany was covered in the Sunday Times Union of October 13. The father of young Amsterdam railfan Emil Suda saw the story. They had missed the train going west but decided to watch it Sunday on the return trip.
“What a fine autumn day it was, sunny and warm,” wrote Emil Suda. “As the hour came and went, it appeared the train was running late!”
Slowdowns for passing trains and unscheduled stops for water and coal slowed the excursion train.
Suda said there were a few others on hand as dusk was coming in at the old downtown Amsterdam train station, “The Mohawk Valley Limited appeared and rumbled down the track—not even slowing down for the onlookers who gathered!
“Regardless it was a sight, seeing those four main drivers of the engine roll along, and the coaches going by, and of course seeing some cinders fall to the ground from the smokestack.”
Some of the passenger cars were modern and some old style. At the rear was an open platform observation car from the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. There was a dining car, a restored Jersey Central baggage passenger car, and a Pullman lounge from Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited.
A private car up front carried Penn Central and Norfolk & Western Railroad executives. The Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central had merged earlier in 1968 and faced considerable financial problems.
U.S. Senator Frank Moss, a Democrat from Utah, was one of the private car passengers. Moss was a member of a Senate committee looking into the decline of passenger rail service in America.
In an article on the Mohawk Valley Limited’s visit to Rochester, reporter John McLoughlin in the Democrat and Chronicle wrote that “grown men and women” stuck their heads out of open windows on the train with goggles on so they could smell the smoke. The goggles protected against cinders causing eye injuries.
Locomotive 759 today is a static display at the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Suda, a model train enthusiast, has an O gauge model of a Berkshire locomotive like 759.
Historic Amsterdam League presents Ghosts of the Past haunted history tour of Green Hill Cemetery this past weekend
https://dailygazette.com/
AMSTERDAM — The city’s oldest residents will share their stories from beyond the grave when the Historic Amsterdam League presents…
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
From the Archives- February 3, 2023-Episode 460-“When Mommy Was a Commie” is a comic novel set in Schenectady in the 1950s, inspired by episodes from America’s spy war with Russia. Author Jon Sorensen was a newspaper reporter for The Schenectady Gazette, Buffalo News and New York Daily News.
Thursday, October 26, 2023
From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Amsterdam leader lamented the loss of trees
Friday, October 27, 2023
An encore performance of Historians Podcast Episode 416 from April 1, 2022-Neil Lanctot is author of The Approaching Storm: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jane Addams and Their Clash Over America’s Future. The book recounts the debate over whether America should enter World War I.
Our New York City correspondent Jim Kaplan will be the guest on Historians Podcast Episode 498 on November 10th with the story of the life of General Horatio Gates who won the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.
Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, October 24, 2023
37 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 5:40AM
Patchy dense fog before 9am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 59. Calm wind becoming southeast 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon.
Tonight
Mostly clear, with a low around 42. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
Wednesday
Partly sunny, with a high near 69. Southwest wind around 6 mph.
Mohawk Valley News Headlines, Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Daily Gazette
Support Local Journalism
To subscribe https://dailygazette.com/subscribe/
Paper-Paper, On-line and e-edition
When Credibility Matters
State police: no new release on Johnstown police-involved shooting
JOHNSTOWN — State police have declined to release any more details regarding a fatal encounter between a Bleecker man and…
EDITORIAL: Governor can save lives by raising minimum age for ATV operation
If you look at all the unpleasant tasks that a governor must undertake, you’d wonder why anyone even takes the…
https://dailygazette.com/
RecorderNews
St. Johnsville’s new police chief ready to lead, serv
A sign welcomes travelers to the village of St. Johnsville. (Tyler A. McNeil/The Recorder) ...
Amsterdam awards contract to demolish former strip mall at Five Corners intersection
https://www.recordernews.com/
Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day
https://www.leaderherald.com/
View all episodes
By Bob CudmoreTuesday Go Fund Me Update
The Historians Podcast fund drive has raised $4580 so far. Our most recent generous contribution came from retired Montgomery County Historian Jackie Murphy. We still have a long way to go to reach our $7000 goal by year’s end, a little more than two months away. Please donate online now: The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore
The Mohawk Valley Limited of 1968
By Bob Cudmore
In 1968 a steam locomotive-hauled passenger train had not passed through the Mohawk Valley for seventeen years.
Railfans were ecstatic and the general public became interested Saturday morning, October 12, when a 19-car excursion train was first pulled by an electric locomotive from Grand Central Station in New York City north to the railyards at Croton-Harmon.
Waiting there was a Berkshire-class steam locomotive, number 759, which had hauled freight for the Nickel Plate Road in its prime. Coupled to the excursion’s passenger cars, number 759 soon was chugging north toward Albany’s Union Station, slated for closure in a couple of months.
The Berkshire class of steam engines were named for the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts where they were used on the hilly Boston to Albany run. Berkshire locomotives had two forward wheels, eight driver wheels and four trailing wheels.
Berkshire engines were at first manufactured by American Locomotive (ALCO) in Schenectady. Later models, including 759 built in 1944, were made at the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio.
Ross Rowland, a commodities broker in New York, was at the throttle of 759 when it arrived in Albany in 1968. Rowland had founded the High Iron Company to organize a series of steam-powered passenger train excursions with the goal of maintaining steam on the main lines of the railroads in the eastern United States.
Over a thousand passengers had paid $37.95 each for the round trip from New York City to Niagara Falls on the Mohawk Valley Limited.
The train’s arrival in Albany was covered in the Sunday Times Union of October 13. The father of young Amsterdam railfan Emil Suda saw the story. They had missed the train going west but decided to watch it Sunday on the return trip.
“What a fine autumn day it was, sunny and warm,” wrote Emil Suda. “As the hour came and went, it appeared the train was running late!”
Slowdowns for passing trains and unscheduled stops for water and coal slowed the excursion train.
Suda said there were a few others on hand as dusk was coming in at the old downtown Amsterdam train station, “The Mohawk Valley Limited appeared and rumbled down the track—not even slowing down for the onlookers who gathered!
“Regardless it was a sight, seeing those four main drivers of the engine roll along, and the coaches going by, and of course seeing some cinders fall to the ground from the smokestack.”
Some of the passenger cars were modern and some old style. At the rear was an open platform observation car from the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. There was a dining car, a restored Jersey Central baggage passenger car, and a Pullman lounge from Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited.
A private car up front carried Penn Central and Norfolk & Western Railroad executives. The Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central had merged earlier in 1968 and faced considerable financial problems.
U.S. Senator Frank Moss, a Democrat from Utah, was one of the private car passengers. Moss was a member of a Senate committee looking into the decline of passenger rail service in America.
In an article on the Mohawk Valley Limited’s visit to Rochester, reporter John McLoughlin in the Democrat and Chronicle wrote that “grown men and women” stuck their heads out of open windows on the train with goggles on so they could smell the smoke. The goggles protected against cinders causing eye injuries.
Locomotive 759 today is a static display at the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Suda, a model train enthusiast, has an O gauge model of a Berkshire locomotive like 759.
Historic Amsterdam League presents Ghosts of the Past haunted history tour of Green Hill Cemetery this past weekend
https://dailygazette.com/
AMSTERDAM — The city’s oldest residents will share their stories from beyond the grave when the Historic Amsterdam League presents…
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
From the Archives- February 3, 2023-Episode 460-“When Mommy Was a Commie” is a comic novel set in Schenectady in the 1950s, inspired by episodes from America’s spy war with Russia. Author Jon Sorensen was a newspaper reporter for The Schenectady Gazette, Buffalo News and New York Daily News.
Thursday, October 26, 2023
From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Amsterdam leader lamented the loss of trees
Friday, October 27, 2023
An encore performance of Historians Podcast Episode 416 from April 1, 2022-Neil Lanctot is author of The Approaching Storm: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jane Addams and Their Clash Over America’s Future. The book recounts the debate over whether America should enter World War I.
Our New York City correspondent Jim Kaplan will be the guest on Historians Podcast Episode 498 on November 10th with the story of the life of General Horatio Gates who won the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.
Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, October 24, 2023
37 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 5:40AM
Patchy dense fog before 9am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 59. Calm wind becoming southeast 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon.
Tonight
Mostly clear, with a low around 42. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
Wednesday
Partly sunny, with a high near 69. Southwest wind around 6 mph.
Mohawk Valley News Headlines, Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Daily Gazette
Support Local Journalism
To subscribe https://dailygazette.com/subscribe/
Paper-Paper, On-line and e-edition
When Credibility Matters
State police: no new release on Johnstown police-involved shooting
JOHNSTOWN — State police have declined to release any more details regarding a fatal encounter between a Bleecker man and…
EDITORIAL: Governor can save lives by raising minimum age for ATV operation
If you look at all the unpleasant tasks that a governor must undertake, you’d wonder why anyone even takes the…
https://dailygazette.com/
RecorderNews
St. Johnsville’s new police chief ready to lead, serv
A sign welcomes travelers to the village of St. Johnsville. (Tyler A. McNeil/The Recorder) ...
Amsterdam awards contract to demolish former strip mall at Five Corners intersection
https://www.recordernews.com/
Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day
https://www.leaderherald.com/