I guess this was post-merger also. In Poughkeepsie, New York when I first lived there in 1979, I would take the RDC to Croton-Harmon to change to get to GCT. Above the windows of the RDC you could clearly see "New York Central" where it was ground away with a body grinder. But this was in the days of the Metro-North. On the ticket counter in the station, there was a hand-made sign that said New York Central surrounded by the words, Metro-North, Amtrak and Conrail.
I rode Penn Central the fist dsy of th merger. Klepper Marshall King had recently begun business as a firm and had not yet purcased the needed test equipment for one our first jobs. A friendly competitor, W. Ranger Farrell, Dobbs Ferry, a few minutes' uphll walk from the RR Sta., agreed on a loan. Overnight, at all overnight storage locatjons, "New York" had been painted out on the commuter equipment letterboards, and "Pennsylvania" subsitued. the 1000 and 1100 post WWII "Air-conditioned MUs" and the older cleristory-roof MUs.
If I remember reading correctly, the Century had to divert on it's last run do to a major freight train derailment somewhere along the line, I don't remember where.
I also recall reading the Century ended up being nine hours late. A conductor on board said "She's dying, but she's dying hard."
BaltACDWouldn't a near On Time Century have been going through Cleveland, in either direction in the 'wee hours' of the morning?
As usual, Balt, you're right. But since the Shaker Rapid Transit knocked off about 2 AM, it might indeed have been a wee hours event.
My hoodlum crowd of railfan buds were also known to ride Shaker's "greaser car" that came out to grease the overhead when the line was shut down overnight. In the days before cell phones that was a risky business as far as parents were concerned.
NKP guy I remember watching the 20th Century Limited on it's penultimate westbound run in 1967. For some long-forgotten reason, that evening the Century was detoured through the Cleveland Union Terminal, instead of operating as usual along the lakefront as it bypassed the city. I was lucky enough to be in a Shaker Heights Rapid Transit PCC car that was running alongside the Century for the last mile or two, so I got to watch the train as it slowed for the maze of tracks and dwarf signals of the CUT. The motorman, as a favor to me, slowed down the PCC so we could see the world-famous drumhead on the train's last car. But as with the NKP's last evening, this penultimate one for the Century was as sad as it was exciting to see. For most of my life as a railfan there have been way too many last or penultimate times.
For most of my life as a railfan there have been way too many last or penultimate times.
Wouldn't a near On Time Century have been going through Cleveland, in either direction in the 'wee hours' of the morning?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
As a lifelong railfan, I remember very well the last evening of the Nickel Plate Road in 1964. My dad was ending his second-shift workday at Towmotor Corporation, which bordered the NKP on the property's north edge. I had gone to pick him up, and as I sat in my car in the parking lot I looked long at the tracks and felt a great sadness come over me. It seemed like a friend had died, and although someone else (N&W) would live in that friend's home, as it were, and take good care of it, the friend was gone, as was his/its spirit.
I remember watching the 20th Century Limited on it's penultimate westbound run in 1967. For some long-forgotten reason, that evening the Century was detoured through the Cleveland Union Terminal, instead of operating as usual along the lakefront as it bypassed the city. I was lucky enough to be in a Shaker Heights Rapid Transit PCC car that was running alongside the Century for the last mile or two, so I got to watch the train as it slowed for the maze of tracks and dwarf signals of the CUT. The motorman, as a favor to me, slowed down the PCC so we could see the world-famous drumhead on the train's last car. But as with the NKP's last evening, this penultimate one for the Century was as sad as it was exciting to see.
I think the Pennsylvania and the New York Central merged in 1968, but not being a railfan at the time I wouldn't have had the trauma of the event seared in my memory.
Pennsy and NYC fans might tell you differently!
I am not the moderator and do not wish to comment on your question. I do try to be extra careful myself.
I do like the idea of extending the subject to include such ideas as where each of us were on Pearl Harbor, VE day, Roosevelt's death, and how about Amtrak Day One? 1 May 1971? Do I remember the correct date?
Also PRR and NYCentral into PC? Date in 1970?
Dave, I knew you started the thread, but you did not get into the conspiracy stuff. I began that, then worried if some, including you, might not appreciate that.
I started this thread with my fellow American-Israeli friend's recalling his receiving the news of Kennedy's death and later added my own recollection. Regarding Pearl Harbor, I was 9 going on 10. For me the war had already begun when I was knocked down and almost killed on the NW corner of West 88th and Central Park West in October or November 1940, age 8+, rescued by older boys from my school. On December 7th, 1941, my sister Lillian took me to the Museum of Natural History at 81st and CPW including seeing the movie My Friend Flicker, about a collee dog and his relation to a boy. My sister's husband, Danny, an Army Air Force Doctor, was at our home on West 85th Street. When Lillian and I got home, Dan told us about the attack and said he and Lillian had to pack and leave immediately so he could return to active duty at the Army Air Force based at Richmond, VA. My Dad already had begun serving as a Draft Board Medical Examiner, as he had also done in WWI.
I was on a local freight delivering cars to the Uniroyal factory in Naugatuck CT.
I was sitting on the agent's table in the station in my then home town when I heard of Persident Kennedy's death. And, I had just reached the home where I was going to eat Sunday dinner when I heard of his presumed murderer's death.
I do not recall the announcement that Pearl Harbor had been attacked (I was in the first grade), but I well remember being told, a few days later, by onr of my brothers--"Johnny, you will not be able to put as much sugar on your cereal."
Johnny
There are many experts who would dispute your/Warren's theory.
Lithonia Operator I realize that I'm the one who took the thread down this dark path. If Dave or others feel this is distasteful, I will cease and desist.
I realize that I'm the one who took the thread down this dark path. If Dave or others feel this is distasteful, I will cease and desist.
No, not at all. When old-timers like us ( Like US? WHAT? ) get together sooner or later the JFK assassination subject will come up, and I for one like hearing everyones memories of the same. "Where were you when..."
It's exactly like our parents memories of where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor, or people who were kids in the year 2001 will have memories of where they were when they heard about the 9/11 attacks.
There's none around to ask, but I have to wonder if the folks living in 1861 could tell you where they were when they heard about Fort Sumter. Down at the depot where the Western Union office was, at Smiths General Store, at the livery stable, in a little red schoolhouse? The list could go on and on.
By the way, have any of you been to "The Sixth Floor Museum" in the Dallas Book Depository? I have, and it's very well done and worth seeing.
You can't stand exactly where Oswald set up his "hidey-hole" but you can get very close to it. It's an education. An easy shot from the window to the street. A trained marksman like Oswald would have had no trouble hitting his target from where he was. As a matter of fact I could take anyone to a rifle range and in a matter of an hour or two have that person capable of making the shots Oswald did. It was a piece of cake for that punk.
Flintlock76 tree68 Flintlock76 He certainly didn't change anything for the better. It seems like the 60's were all downhill after that. There are those who feel that, had he not been martyred, JFK's presidency would have been lackluster, at best. But, we'll never know. I was too young to form such an opinion at the time. I think one thing's for certain, we wouldn't have had the Vietnam fiasco. I remember reading that when the situation in Vietnam was heating up President Kennedy was considering deploying the Third Marine Division to 'Nam, this was sometime in 1962. Since General MacArthur was still alive Kennedy went to see him and ask his advice as he had a lot of respect and admiration for the old man. MacArthur told him "DON'T get involved in an Asian land war! If you do, you need your head examined!" Advisors and trainers were all right, but in MacArthurs opinion that was as far as the US should go. So the plans to send the Marines were quietly dropped. I do remember seeing (years later) a Walter Cronkite interview with Kennedy where the subject of Vietnam came up. Kennedy said he had no plans to send troops because "It's their (The South Vietnamese governments) war, they have to fight it. We can't fight it for them." So, there it is.
tree68 Flintlock76 He certainly didn't change anything for the better. It seems like the 60's were all downhill after that. There are those who feel that, had he not been martyred, JFK's presidency would have been lackluster, at best. But, we'll never know. I was too young to form such an opinion at the time.
Flintlock76 He certainly didn't change anything for the better. It seems like the 60's were all downhill after that.
There are those who feel that, had he not been martyred, JFK's presidency would have been lackluster, at best.
But, we'll never know. I was too young to form such an opinion at the time.
I think one thing's for certain, we wouldn't have had the Vietnam fiasco.
I remember reading that when the situation in Vietnam was heating up President Kennedy was considering deploying the Third Marine Division to 'Nam, this was sometime in 1962.
Since General MacArthur was still alive Kennedy went to see him and ask his advice as he had a lot of respect and admiration for the old man. MacArthur told him "DON'T get involved in an Asian land war! If you do, you need your head examined!" Advisors and trainers were all right, but in MacArthurs opinion that was as far as the US should go. So the plans to send the Marines were quietly dropped.
I do remember seeing (years later) a Walter Cronkite interview with Kennedy where the subject of Vietnam came up. Kennedy said he had no plans to send troops because "It's their (The South Vietnamese governments) war, they have to fight it. We can't fight it for them."
So, there it is.
Waldron is long and well-documented, unlike most books on the murder. But it is not an easy read. More scholarly.
Death of a President by William Manchester is worth reading too. My brother and I were on our way to our cub scouts meeting that Friday. I was eight, he was ten. We left school and walked through downtown Amityville where all the cars were stopped on the streets. A church ball rang slowly. It reminded me of "The Twilight Zone." A woman came out of the bank crying.
We didn't know what was going on. We got to the meeting place, the lady there was crying and waved us away so we went home. Our mother was crying in the kitchen, listening to the radio and she told us the news. As far as I'm concerned, everything that happened since then was not supposed to happen thanks to that worthless punk.
But, in the folowing spring when the Beatles came to the USA, I think that was the thing that finally took people's minds off Dallas.
I do agree that there were some flaws in the Warren Report, and I know that Dulles was the primary author, but nonetheless I found the bulk of VB's book very convincing.
Is the Waldron book a good read? Some of the books I've read were not. And some were total junk in every way.
The well-known anti-conspiracy book Case Closed has some serious flaws, IMO.
Lithonia Operator charlie hebdo As a counterpoint to Bugliosi, try reading Lamar Waldron's meticulously researched and footnoted tome. Thanks. I might do that, as I find it all so fascinating. The only problem is that I might get sucked back in! It was kind of an addiction there for a while. It was SO hard to not believe there were dark things going on out of sight. And there were for sure, LOTS of odd coincidences ... But I have not read Waldron's book, despite seeing many references to it. CH, have you read the Bugliosi book? It's a great read. But the damn thing is so heavy, I read it all lying down, with it propped up on a pillow on my stomach! I know of one guy who read the whole thing standing up, with it propped up on a counter, like a library dictionary. If you drop this book on your foot, you will get injured. I think as an introduction to the conspiracy side, it's hard to beat Jim Marr's Crossfire. I couldn't put it down.
charlie hebdo As a counterpoint to Bugliosi, try reading Lamar Waldron's meticulously researched and footnoted tome.
As a counterpoint to Bugliosi, try reading Lamar Waldron's meticulously researched and footnoted tome.
I slightly knew Lamar. I started Bugliosi, but found it tedious and too much of a hit job on any information that didn't correspond with the Warren Report. The Senate and House committees in the 70s both agreed that there were a lot of flaws and gaps in the quickly researched Warren Report, largely put together by Allen Dulles.
The bridge in front of the JFK motorcade (the infamous "grassy knoll" was next to it) was the SP railroad's "Triple Overpass":
https://bridgehunter.com/tx/dallas/bh58240/
From the "Description" on that webpage:
This bridge is "Debatably the most famous roadway feature in America" according to the 1993 NRHP application for Dealey Plaza. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 while his motorcade was approaching this underpass on Elm Street. His motorcade then sped through the underpass en route to the hospital.
This handsome art-deco structure was built with particular civic pride in the Texas centennial year of 1936. Other than realignment of the RR tracks on its deck, it is unchanged since construction.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This webpage appears to claim that a railroad worker and a railroad detective were on the bridge at the time of the assassination:
https://jfkfacts.org/eyewitness-in-dealey-plaza/
(Note: I express no opinion on the validity of these assertions, or on the various conspiracy theories surrounding this event.)
- PDN.
The sixties had some high points, the moon landing brought the nation and the world together. Well accept those conspiracy theoriest as well. I watched the space program Thur out the sixties.
Flintlock76He certainly didn't change anything for the better. It seems like the 60's were all downhill after that.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Yes, the books I read covered all brands of conspiracy. Some of the books were real junk, but several were very convincing. And really, really fascinating.
But VB's book trumps them all. He refutes all the conspiracy theories, step by painstaking step. He was a California prosecutor, and he wrote the book Helter Skelter, about the Manson murders.
L-O, I've heard all the conspiracy theorys over the years, right-wing, left-wing, CIA, FBI, Mafia, you name it, some that sounded plausable, some that were just plain nuts.
We don't hear too much about them anymore, I suppose it's because of the "Boomer" generation aging and the generations that came after us look on the Kennedy years as ancient history.
I think that what kept the conspiracy theorys going for all those years was the inability of many people to accept that a young, dynamic, charismatic president was done in by a common, everyday punk. And that's all Oswald was, a punk.
He certainly didn't change anything for the better. It seems like the 60's were all downhill after that.
I was in class, 7th grade, Catholic school in Gulfport, Mississippi. The news came via the principal on the intercom.
Some of my classmates applauded and exclaimed, "They got the n!gg*r-lover." I wish I were making this up. Although to actually hear them was shocking, at the same time it wasn't very surprising. Such was Mississippi at that time.
On the other hand, JFK was revered in our household. And if one of my parents ever heard me or my sibs use the N-word, we were in deep s#!t. Once, much younger, I had mimicked what I'd heard at school, and I don't remember if I got spanked or just confined to my room, but I never made that mistake again.
There was a decade or so when I was convinced that JFK was killed by a right-domestic conspiracy. I probably read twenty-five books on the conspiracy side. I was CONVINCED. Then I read all 1400 pages of Vincent Bugliosi's anti-conspiracy book. That book is an amazing accomplishment, written over ten years or something, and ruthlessly, exhaustively researched. I did a 180 on the subject. It doesn't make as good a story, but LHO was apparently indeed a lone nut.
The thing that had most made me think it was a conspiracy was that LHO was immediately murdered, and in the basement of the police station, no less! But apparently Jack Ruby, although not a loner, was another brand of nut. Not a nut really, but an extremely emotional character who desperately wanted to "be somebody."
If you are interested in this, I highly recommend the Bugliosi book.
I lived in Gulfport then, but we had moved there from Dallas.
In those days Secret Service procedures were pretty slipshod compared to now. People were allowed to be in windows of buildings all along the parade route. Crazy.
I don't idolize JFK as some do, but still, he was a great man. That was a terrible, terrible day. I will never forget where I was then, or for the Challenger disaster, or 9/11.
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