The next post series features images and ads from the Erie Railway brochures, 1874 to 1889.
“The train speeds over the landscape, along mountain sides, through valleys, over bridges, and across broad meadow lands with the speed of a winged charger, pausing only at long intervals, and then pushing on again farther than before, seemingly grudging its few lost moments of unavoidable delay.
“The traveler meanwhile ensconced in his cosy drawing-room or easy-chair, protected from dust and cinders, looks out upon the rapidly-changing landscape with undisguised delight as in a varied picture of town, city, hamlet, forest, and farm-land it passes before him.
“Here, from amid all the luxurious surroundings of a first class hotel, he looks out alike upon nature’s wildest haunts and the cultivated homes of man, and wonders the while at the changes and improvements that man’s genius and energy have wrought. Hour after hour brings him many miles nearer his goal, and lo ere daylight has departed the wonderful journey has been accomplished.
“It has been to him one continued, unwearying scene of entertainment and enjoyment…”—The 1874 Erie Railway Tourist, pp. 20–1.
“There is no Railway Company in the country which provides better accommodations for its patrons, or which keeps its passenger equipment in better condition, than the Erie Railway.
“The Drawing-room and Sleeping Coaches which are attached to Express trains, both west and east, are, as is shown in the illustrations given, perfect paragons of beauty and models of comfort and luxury.
“Indeed, the entire passenger equipment of the Erie Railway is unsurpassed, and contributes in no small degree to the wonderful growth and increase of its passenger traffic.”—The 1874 Erie Railway Tourist, p. 21.
We moved from Barryville to Port Jervis in the late 50’s and I remember watching the locomotives on the PA side chugging by. Coal smoke coming out. Or am I mistaken? I know our furnace, in the parsonage, was coal. They were really long freight trains. Fun to watch as a kid.
We would take the Erie to Shohola in the 1950s, still a very pleasant ride.