I was told BM&R made sure the hungry passengers knew the NHRS Chapter had arranged the meal and not BM&R.

It's interesting to think 765 and 2102 probably pulled the same trains. NKP and RDG were at opposite ends of the famous "Alphabet Route" of fast merchandise trains. Cars out of Chicago on NKP used RDG en route to Philadephia, New York and New England.

Alphabet Route? Chicago-Boston: NKP-W&LE-P&WV-WM-RDG-L&HR-NH.

Sounds like too many cooks? These loaded merchandise cars carried a high freight rate so nobody wanted to delay them. The shipper got consistent service and the car showed up on time.

Phil Mulligan

They can be glad the Amish and Mennonites, as a rule, don't sue.

This comes as no surprise whatsoever.



Not in 1988. The 765 remained in Temple for servicing while the foamers rode BM&R side-trip.

This is what a "Dutch Lunch" is supposed to be:

https://www.facebook.com/LehighValleyHi ... 899791903/

The Shartlesville Hotel - everyone sat down at one large table and was served family-style.

The really sad part about the 1988 convention is that many of these trips simply will never happen again - such as the one up the West Shore. I would take that in a minute if it was ever offered again.

This was around the time when NRHS chapters kept trying to outdo previous conventions. Back in the 80s and early 90s (and before that), it wasn't tough with the SRR/NS steam programs afoot. Roanoke set a standard I'd argue would have been impossible to beat, with 611 and 1218 (with passenger and coal trains, respectively) side by side on a main line blocked off for foamery. Friends of mine who went still talk of that convention with reverence and awe.
Anyone with the following year had an impossible task to try to outdo that, and I give them credit for trying to do so.
But the Roanoke convention probably did so well partly because of NS cooperation that other chapters wouldn't have enjoyed. Anyone following that event should have stood trackside while N&Ws finest steamed past, thinking, "Nah, we'll never top this..."
I lived in the Deep South at the time and didn't know of anyone who went to the '88 convention until several years later. I've yet to meet anyone who was there was had good things to say about it.
While I'm no fan of Boyd on a personal level, I of course agree that it'd been foolish for him to say any convention stank, as that would have seriously hindered his chances at covering anything like that in the future.
These days, NRHS conventions are far more subdued compared to that era. Nobody appears to try to outdo previous ones like they used to.
The trips are usually on local tourist operations, or a mainline excursion if you're lucky and have something nearby. Some could argue this is part of the reason the NRHS has been slowly but steadily shrinking. Chapters are folding up and hardly any young people are joining. A good friend of mine from the old chapter I used to belong to in Florida muses that it's because the NRHS built themselves up as the way you could ride these trips and go to railroads to poke around. But once the railroads quit welcoming fan groups to go around their facilities and excursions dwindled at conventions, the NHRS started losing that which drew many people as members.
I have my 25-year NRHS pin (from around 2010) in a box in my model train room and each year wonder why I'm renewing my membership, but that's another subject altogether.

That one was just 'before my time' so other than reading about it....

But when I did get involved, I ended up both planning and attending some rather memorable special excursion events, some of which had rather memorable failures in execution, near-misses in planning and timing, and a true sense of respect for any one or any organization that tries to pull anything off like an organized rail excursion event.

My personal memory list includes:

A 'day from hell' on one of my client railroads that include a derailment, an exploding air hose that almost decapitated a crewmember on a photo line shoot - in front of everybody, a test run of a special event that completely flopped, and exploding shuttle bus tires that blocked the hotel driveway at the very end of the day.....

Not one, or two, but three 'separations at speed' (40mph) where the special excursion train came uncoupled and went into emergency.... sliding riders off seats and resulting in flat wheels....

Looking back to where the train just came from and seeing flames leaping over the tree tops (uh, did we start that??? Yes....)

On my own plan, having the Class 1 carrier refuse to supply pledged equipment one week before launch, scrambling to find alternate cars, only to discover the entire trainset expired COT&S the day of the excursion.... and close observers spotted 'todays date' with wet paint as they boarded.... made that one with 30 minutes to spare of cancelling entire day full of brass and state officials...

And yet, some equally memorable 'wow' moments in execution that deserve mention... my favorite remains watching a Buffalo-Corning 765 run over NS (yay Kelly!) do a very-slow roll-through in Hornell picking up 600 Subway sandwiches for lunch to feed everybody on board. Talk about planning...

When I wrote "It's interesting to think 765 and 2102 probably pulled the same trains," I was thinking 1945-1953 when both were working freight.

Yes, the excursion train from Bound Brook stayed at Temple during lunch. Actually. it was pulled back a couple of trainlengths toward Reading to clear the station tracks for BM&R service and so they could service the train away from the crowds. The passemgers rode to Hamburg and back on BM&R's train behind 2102.

Phil Mulligan

The decline of mainline excursions and lack of access to rail facilities is just one reason for declining NRHS membership. What I feel is the most significant thing is a generational way people approach the hobby. Old school railfans belong to NRHS chapters, attend meetings and socialize. Younger railfans are digital and upload photos to any number of sites. The younger fans are out there but the way they practice the hobby has changed.

Some comments

1) The era of 'can you top this' probably spanned about 25 to 30 years and may have started in the mid 70's and extended well beyond the end of the NS Steam program in 1994

For example the Washington DC Chapter in 1979 featured steam, diesel and electric main line excursions

Others like that that come to mind include Chicago, Portland, Tacoma, San Jose, Denver, Sacramento, St Louis, and Salt Lake City.

2) We attended the 1988 convention and had a good time and pretty much avoided the belly-achers-- we did have to get tickets for one alternate event because of a cancellation

I remember it was very hot, but we carried our own supply of water on the trains, so this was not an issue..

Because we live some distance from the east coast, we did some things for the first and only time --- like ride Path, NJY, the Staten Island Railroad and ferry.

The trip on the west side of the Hudson was a special treat because for that day, there were passenger trains on both sides of a major North America river and the only other time I've experienced something like that was a trip behind CP2816 between Kamloops and Vancouver, BC with the Rocky Mountaineer being the other train.

3) After the tri-state convention, NRHS established a national convention committee with responsibility for the oversight of the convention. A current copy of their convention policy is available on their web site. Another recent change is convention tickets now must be picked up in person

Bob H

The best description remains one word ......." disaster "

Ross Rowland

"Nattering Nabob of Negativity"................

No.......rather a faithful presenter of facts, just facts.

Ross Rowland

A "disaster" would have been a fatal crash or derailment at speed, replete with enough subsequent litigation to eliminate the NRHS and all steam excursions nationwide.

I carried out a similar argument with editors 20 years ago to this day over the telephone, as to whether the Howard Street Tunnel derailment and fire in Baltimore was a "disaster" or not. Spectacular, in the heart of a big city, lots of inconvenience to the city and railroad--but no injuries or deaths. But the term on the cover of a magazine sells............

(It's worth noting that there has been at least one fatal fan trip crash: The Labor Day 1950 Speedrail trip out of Milwaukee, killing ten riders.)

Your exaggerated analysis of a mis-managed convention as a "disaster" is negative opinion, and in no way "factual."

30 years on, "mis-managed" is a more accurate term than "disaster," however at the time I recall being PISSED at wasting a day on the torture that was the "Readingburg" trip, having only signed up for the cancelled Temple-Harrisburg segment. What was galling at the time was a lack of apology or contrition from Tri-State.

This thread motivated me to re-read Trains' evenhanded coverage "Garden State in '88-A Brier Patch" by J. David Ingalls, one of those who got a cab ride from Temple to Harrisburg.

I rode two other mainline steam excursions in that era--1987 N&W 1218 Richmond-Roanoke on N&W, return with diesel over the Virginian, and BM&R 2102 Temple-Gettysburg and return, which BTW covered the Reading-Harrisburg route coveted by "psa188"!--that both returned several hours late, well after midnight (12:18 AM, appropriately enough for the Richmond trip).

The sound kvetching by passengers--in the case of Richmond, obscenities flowing fast and furious as the crews INSISTED on deboarding 20-plus cars through only one vestibule and down a path lit by highway flares at Hull Street Station--and the stalls both ways by 2102 en route to Gettysburg, as well as running reverse all the way back to Temple, probably did more actual damage to potential steam excursion ridership long-term than anything that happened at Garden State 1988, which after all was "preaching to the hard-core converted."