Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley (CACV) discussion 2008-2011

Brooks Chicken Dinner Trains?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXkUpcB8 ... ture=g-upl

Some of our work on the line yesterday

I remember Louie from the "early days" of the whole thing. He will be missed. Glad to hear that you have the MP running again. Is she still in the Burgundy paint scheme? I thought that I had heard rumblings of putting it back into D&H inspired paint like she had when we first got it donated. Good video by the way.

Might still be burgundy or red. Light wasn't too good when I took a look.

K4Pacific--We had 2 Brooks dinner trains this year, Aug 4 and Sep 1. Most likely 2 next year again.

Hi guys,

I wish I knew there was all this CACV talk on Railroad.net. Nothing gets discussed on the Yahoo Group which is too bad.

That aside, I made a visit to Milford last Friday, the first in a long time. So glad to see things running so well. I say well due to the amount of people getting off the Santa Train. See, since I don't hear anything on The CACV Yahoo Group, I didn't know they were running Santa Trains. My son and I were out railfanning abandoned trolley lines and we saw the train lit up heading to Milford. Very neat!!!! We got to Milford and there wasn't a parking spot to be found. I parked somewhere where I shouldn't have, but hey, I wanted to visit and take photos.

I talked to Bruce from the LRHS and asked him when the Santa Trains were running. He pointed out that they were running that night and that they were running into Cooperstown. I was figuring, yeah, isn't that normal. I didn't question the statement since Bruce is one of the nicest guys and I just figured he meant the Blue Trolley Stop that has the RPO Car. Well, as I traveled back to Mohawk (visiting the inlaws) I noticed that the crossing at Route 28 looked 'clean.' Of course, I think the crossing sign at 28 says 'Exempt.'

Well, just earlier I saw a photo of a train stopped at the end of track which I think is awesome! I don't know how feasable that is, but letting people off in the heart of Cooperstown lets people depart the train and wander into town. No trolley needed!

I talked to Walter Rich about the offices in Cooperstown (this is when the tracks still ran there) and he told me he'd never rip the tracks out to there. What happened there?

Well, nice to see the chat here, Happy Holidays!

Gino

ginosrailpage.com

switcher3051 wrote:Might still be burgundy or red. Light wasn't too good when I took a look.

K4Pacific--We had 2 Brooks dinner trains this year, Aug 4 and Sep 1. Most likely 2 next year again.

Its still a reddish color right now. I don't know if there are any plans to change that. Way to much other work to be done
to get it out and running.

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 9093_n.jpg
That's whats left of the schedule for the year.
Also check us out on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/groups/108498655846093/ I try and post info there when I know whats going on with track work and such.

This year we had an ice cream social and a Christmas Lights train go into Cooperstown. Every so often we'll take a guest engineer all the way to EOT or at least up to the Walnut St xing.

It is too bad that this operation can't go to the old passenger station in Cooperstown which was/is a beautiful building built by the D & H way back when. It is still there and the last I knew it was a private residence. Back in the 40's when I was a kid, we used to go to Cooperstown several times a year, my mother is from that area, and I remember the train coming up from Oneonta three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a steam locomotive (2-8-0) which was clean and beautifully painted, later with an RS-3 not as clean nor as beautifully painted. They had a water tower and a stand pipe as well as an electric turntable, the turntable was just across the crossing at Main Street. In those days the railroad still hauled Railway Express to Cooperstown and the local freight ran with a combo for the express. I suspect they had an express messenger on there as well. Once the express went to trucks, the train operation was sometimes cut back and a caboose substituted for the combo which was no longer needed with no more express shipments. There was much more freight there in those days too. OH the memories!!!!
Noel Weaver

Ahh yes, the good old days of railroading. I remember them too. Our "station" at Linden Ave is an old RPO car. Just used during the summer weekday runs. Maybe someday if a rich benefactor buys the old station and has enough pull to put the tracks back in up there we can go all the way into town! We can keep wishing? Ever come across any old photos of there?

Noel Weaver wrote:It is too bad that this operation can't go to the old passenger station in Cooperstown which was/is a beautiful building built by the D & H way back when. It is still there and the last I knew it was a private residence. Back in the 40's when I was a kid, we used to go to Cooperstown several times a year, my mother is from that area, and I remember the train coming up from Oneonta three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a steam locomotive (2-8-0) which was clean and beautifully painted, later with an RS-3 not as clean nor as beautifully painted. They had a water tower and a stand pipe as well as an electric turntable, the turntable was just across the crossing at Main Street. In those days the railroad still hauled Railway Express to Cooperstown and the local freight ran with a combo for the express. I suspect they had an express messenger on there as well. Once the express went to trucks, the train operation was sometimes cut back and a caboose substituted for the combo which was no longer needed with no more express shipments. There was much more freight there in those days too. OH the memories!!!!
Noel Weaver

Noel,
Thie issue of going all the way into town is that the entire section in the heart of town was not included with the sale. The NYS&W still has it's offices in the old station in Cooperstown, and so there would be no place to finnish the operation. I'm just guessing with this next part, but I don't think there would be enough room for another run around at the station, and AFAIK there is still equipment on the two tracks at the station that the NYS&W was using as office space.

The "downtown area" of Cooperstown is not at the railroad station and never was. It is several blocks south on Main Street. The only traffic light in Cooperstown is at the corner of Main and Chestnut Streets. The baseball zoo is even further south on Main Street. The old passenger station was beyond the freight station, north of the Main Street Crossing. There was a run-around there and I think another track as well. I have pictures of both the exterior and interior of this beautiful building in its active D & H days. Cooperstown today is a whole lot different than it was in the 40's and 50's that I remember so well. At one time they had a lot of freight customers there but at the end it was down to two; Agway and the Bruce Hall Corp. Agway was next to the station and Bruce Hall was just across Main Street.
Noel Weaver

Well I finally made it down to Milford and volunteered. Nice to meet the company "brass" (Wendy and Bruce) and they were happy I was there.

They needed a car host so 102 was "mine" for the evening run to the Park. They (we?) had a good day. The afternoon train was a near sellout and the

lights train at 6:30 was well attended also. Did pretty good food wise too I guess. Nice group of folks there and it was good to meet up with some

old friends from my U&MV days Mark and Harla. I'm looking forward to getting dirty down there when needed.

Video of our last run for the season pulling out of the Milford Depot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFDgILmC ... e=youtu.be

What a great day for the trip. Sorry to see the season end, but spring will be here in no time and lots of track work and trains to run.

To be continued: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 28&t=90668