I think that "Garden State in Eighty-Eight" was also the convention where a featured speaker was effectively bypassed by the changes in events and showed up to give his program to an audience of one person, and that person fell asleep halfway through the presentation.

PC

Fortunately, you phrased this in a way I spent hours struggling to figure out how to do without invoking personal attacks, profanities, and insulting truths.

The last time I heard someone in such oblivious, blithering denial trying to change the subject, I was watching press conferences by Saddam Hussein's press secretary, "Baghdad Bob."

If you want to know why the national NRHS is too often regarded as a joke................

I did not attend the 1988 NHRS Convention. As I recall the post-convention article in Railfan Magazine referred to it as "Garbled State in '88." Jim Boyd lived in North Jersey and worked for Carstens in North Jersey.

A friend from Maine was riding the "Readingburg" trip and we were to meet at the service stop at Temple on the BM&R. As I recall the plan was to go via the ex-RDG from Bound Brook via the New York Branch and New York Short Line to West Falls (Philadelphia) then Main Line to Reading and Lebanon Valley Branch to Harrisburg. Return was direct ex-RDG "Crossline" and LV via Allentown. There was to be a service stop at Temple on the BM&R which knew something about large steam engines. NHRS riders could make a turn to Hamburg on BM&R's train behind 2102.

Somebody realized this was too ambitious and the new plan had the NHRS train turning at BM&R Temple. It was an operating success on the new schedule.

I understood at the time there were no buses available in Reading at the time so they offered the Amtrak riders a cab ride. Taxicab, that is. (that was Boyd's pun)

As I understand there were no photo stops on the NHRS trip.

Phil Mulligan

As for another potential answer to the question:

Back when the initial announcements of the Garden State '88 Convention were out, we were all basking in the afterglow of the utterly epic 1987 Roanoke convention--the one that featured a 611-hauled passenger train leapfrog-pacing a coal train hauled by N&W 1218 on a nicely-spaced double-track main--back when you were still allowed to open a vestibule door or lean out a window, enough said. By sort of coincidence I joined the local NRHS Chapter (and the national NRHS) the same time as that convention, to the surprise of members who thought I had already been a member for several years for helping out at their annual train shows! This was also the same era when PRR 1361 was being fired up and tested, and when the Blue Mountain & Reading was running main line excursions on Conrail with Reading 2102 and Lackawanna MU cars. Optimism abounded.

When the dates of the Garden State '88 were announced, I immediately scheduled ten days of vacation from work and started making "crash pad" arrangements in Joisey.

One of the proposed events that was at least being rumored, of not outright promoted, was a return of a PRR K4s to the New York & Long Branch--PRR 1361. On one of my trips to Altoona in that time frame, I asked Railroaders Memorial Museum personnel about preparations for that, and was told "They haven't asked us about bringing 1361 over...." That was about the point where I smelled over-ambition and started looking for Plan B, just in case.

Plan B eventually turned into a road trip down the Atlantic Coast from Barnegat Lighthouse to Hunting Island, SC photographing lighthouses by both day and night with a supply of the same big flashbulbs folks like Jim Boyd were using at railroad night photo sessions, then back up through the Chesapeake Bay and its lights. I was accompanied during three stages by friends, but did the North Carolina part of the junket solo. A couple of the shots I got during that trip still rate among my best photos ever.

Word of mouth quickly spread, pre-public-Internet, after the Convention as to the fustercluck it had turned into, with the major magazines only reporting the aftermath with a degree of polite diplomacy in the autumn issues, and Railpace spouting an account of the travails and cancellations.

To be fair, a lot, if not all, of the scheduled "rare mileage" and "side trips/tours" that weren't canceled in advance for low ticket sales--shop tours, Black River & Western, Winchester & Western-NJ, LIRR, etc.--went off without a hitch, probably because they were "turn-key" excursions administered by the lines or other Chapters.

At least one maverick was selling computer-printed bumper stickers at train shows afterwards stating "I SURVIVED THE 1988 NRHS CONVENTION"........... the one that went on my car as I chased PRR 1361 on its "York 150" excursions out of York, Pa. had neatly penned in small print on the white space at the bottom: "I Went To The Seashore Instead!" (Jim Boyd and I both also had bumper stickers on those chases for WPRR FM 100, souvenirs from the Sheetz across the street from the shops where 1361 had been brought back to life, albeit briefly.)

There were two trips to Temple. The first was the circle trip you describe that went out via the ex-RDG and north Philly with a side trip on the BM&R and the PA Dutch lunch.

One week later there was a planned trip to Harrisburg via Temple, using the ex-LV both directions. This was the "Readingburg" trip as it was cut short at Temple account of a late start. The people planning to connect to the Broadway at Harrisburg were given taxi transportation from temple to Harrisburg, giving rise to bad "cab ride" jokes.

I recall hot temperatures added to the fun.

What is a Dutch Lunch? I keep seeing this term crop up when talking about the Readingburg trip but I can’t find any reference to what was actually served…

Reading Company ran an annual Iron Horse Ramble on the Perkiomen Branch with a "Touch of old Dutch Dinner" at Schwenksville, serving PA Dutch food. The Perk had no other traffic on weekends so the Ramble could hold the Main Track as long as they wanted to.

In 1964, the Perk needed trackwork it wasn't going to get and the Dutch Dinner was at Macungie on the East Penn Branch.

This would have repeated the Ramble theme 25 years (!) later. If it were on the BM&R there would have been a T-1 present as well.

Phil Mulligan

And since then, the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society took rigorous control and oversight of all future excursion operations after that point.

Internally, it's remembered as the time that 765 "spent a year in New Jersey one weekend."

That article was in the November 1988 R&R. I just dug it out and re-read it.

At the time, when my memories were fresh, I was livid at the miserable experience that was "Garden State in '88." For example, I rode both 765 trips to Temple and the only reason I booked the "Readingburg" trip was to ride the Temple-Harrisburg trackage we didn't cover the previous week. Obviously, I was pissed that the trip was cut short although looking back it made sense given the reality by midday. My parents, who flew in during that week, bailed out (probably sensing disaster).

Even now, I still bristle at the mention of the Tri-State chapter, NRHS. That's not fair to current chapter leadership, but I note that the chapter never apologized to NRHS for the convention debacle.

PTJ's coverage of the convention was harsher than either Trains or R&R, and it reflected my attitude at the time. Boyd's article was a bit more even-handed, most likely since ne knew people at Tri-State and didn't want to ruffle feathers.

Looking back 30+ years later, one can appreciate Boyd's even-handed approach. When you edit a major publication, you should be somewhat objecting unless you're writing an editorial. The article confirms my memory of the NY&SW trips-the Wednesday trip, which I was on, ran well and it was the Thursday excursion that hit the truck.

On the plus side, the railroad show at the Somerset Hilton was excellent. My greatest regret was not purchasing an original Howard Fogg painting at a very reasonable price. I also was able to move some of my extra items from the basement.

I really enjoyed the first 765 trip as we covered a lot of routes that I was familiar with. That trip seemed to be fine if I am remembering correctly. I also rode the last 765 trip and that one was a mess when it ran late. I have NO regrets that I rode both of those trips. Mainline steam does not exist today.

Yes, it does not compare to the 1987 NRHS convention and I am SO glad that I was there. We will never see anything like that again.

As I get older, I try to focus on the positive and I am glad that I got to enjoy many mainline steam trips thanks to the High Iron Company, 614 on the Chessie trips, the 765 group, and the NS! It was great while it lasted.

The classic "Dutch family-style dinner," as marketed to tourists, is a room-sized smorgasbord with long/large tables (think twelve to a table or more), with platters of ham, turkey/chicken and stuffing/filling/dressing (I'm not getting into that "religious" war of what to call it!), mashed potatoes, green beans, chow-chow (look it up), pickled beets, macaroni salad, casseroles, and the like, to be passed around at the beginning and through the meal from person to person for them to help themselves as they choose.

It's also the common format to church suppers with many denominations in eastern/central Pennsylvania. Grace/prayer before eating is mandatory before diving in at REAL Pennsylvania German/"Dutch" dinners, but gets skipped for the tourist places.

Such dinners combine the speed of serving and ease in serving and bulk food-prep of a buffet with the formality of a group sit-down dinner, and therefore the concept has remained popular for decades with tourist bus tours, club banquets, and the like. I'm more than a little surprised that some tourist RR hasn't partnered with such a place for a dinner train--or maybe it has and I haven't heard.

I'm not sure what a Dutch Lunch is supposed to be, but what they served that day was a piece of chicken in a thick gravy with peas and a very hard piece of cornbread and a really bad interpretation of "Shoo Fly Pie". The real debacle was that 600 or so people got off the train at the north end of the BM&R line, Hamburg, expecting this lunch. I happened to be standing near where they set up the food when someone put their hand on my head and said "This is the front of the food line!". The rest of the people started to form a line behind me. The next thing was where to sit - there were like 4 picnic tables which then left 500+ people with the issue of finding a place to eat. About half of the people got served before they blew the whistle to get back on the train, leaving more than half of the people unfed.

This was also long before cell phones, so there was also quite the line for the two pay phones. My traveling partner was one of them, changing has Metroliner reservation back to Washington to a bedroom on the overnight Executive Sleeper as we were going to miss the last Metroliner departure.

Here is a video showing some of the aforementioned NYSW excursion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKrDWyO_L8M

And a Flickr gallery showing the actual moment of impact: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffs4653/albums/72157621845214192



And the 765 excursion on former Reading trackage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wkxi3_iBfA

One of the sore points in the post-mortem analysis was that "there were no run-bys."

Not quite. There were run-bys scheduled on most/all of the "side" excursions, such as the Winchester & Western, Black River & Western, etc. It was the main-line trips where either run-by accommodations were refused by the host railroads, or they were scrubbed as delays continued to snowball.

Boyd reported that the 765 trip to Port Jervis did a runby at Arden, "to the delight of the riders."