Stourbridge Railroad (Honesdale-Lackawaxen) and Proposals

The Stourbridge Railway will be participating in a PLANNED,STAGED, MOCK, SIMULATION of a grade crossing incident near Hawley, PA. Tommorow 4/24/2010. This is a multi agency training exercise that will include local, Fire, EMS, Hazardous Materials, and Emergency Managment response personel. This exercise will SIMULATE a school bus being struck by a train on a grade crossing.
THIS IS A STAGED, PLANNED, MOCK, SIMULATION OF A GRADE CROSSING COLLISION WITH SCHOOL BUS

19 is in Honesdale.

Why not restore them instead of scrap them? There have been coaches in a lot worse condition restored to like new condition. So many of those older open window coaches were preserved by tourist railroads, but they're irreplaceable. You can't compare the older coaches with Amtrak or commuter coaches, it's more fun riding in a tourist train with open windows than in a sealed up coach with non openable windows and interior signs in Helvetica font (most common non serif font used in the 1980's and up) and lots of silver. I wish there would be a company out there that could manufacture new replacement parts for older coaches to make it easier on tourist railroads to maintain their current fleet. How does Strasburg keep their 1880's coaches operating? Where do they get their parts?

Did the rails ever go beyond Honesdale following Rt. 6 toward Carbondale? If yes, when were they pulled? Is the display of the Stourbridge Lion in a shed still there entering Honesdale on Rt. 6? I rode the train there to Lackawaxen in October, 1986. The BL2 pulled the train and it looked the same back then as it does now. Was there a Susquehanna RS3 there at one time because the 1986 brochure showed a yellow Susquehanna RS3 diesel. Was there ever a steam engine there? I thought that I read that a steam locomotive visited one time? Anyway, it's a nice tourist train. I have a complete DEM map in Trainz Railroad Simulator I'm using 2010 of the Port Jervis to Binghamton line including the branch to Honesdale. I want to model this line in Trainz, I already repainted a BL2 into the Stourbridge Line and I'm repainting some heavyweight coaches into Stourbridge. They are from an addon pack for Trainz 2010 but by default they were the wrong colors so I found a way to make copies for myself of the coach to repaint (the files are locked to prevent piracy) and I'm going to reletter the coach to say The Stourbridge Line. The coach will never be released due to copyright issues I just plan on using the copies of the coach for my own personal use. I already made a Reading, Blue Mountain and Northern red coach (current railroad-operated under this name since 1990 headquartered at Port Clinton, PA) and a green Blue Mountain & Reading coach (tourist railroad that operated 1985-1995 from Temple to South Hamburg, PA) and a dark green blank coach to be reletterd to different railroads, Central Railroad of NJ (Steamtown coach), Black River and Western, and more. You can ride in the coach it has a camera view inside and is very detailed. It is originally modeled after a CNJ coach.

You got $20,000+ in your pocket to make them servicable again, plus a whole fabricating shop and crew at your disposal like Strasburg does?

With all the copper and stuff in those cars they might scrap out for $20,000 a shot, that's a lot of money that could go to fixing other things or buying entirely new coaches to replace them. I'm making a wild guess, if someone wants to post up an approximate weight for one I can give a better figure.

Delaware & Otsego was the designated operator of this line for a period that I don't feel like googling up to give exact dates for, thus explaining the NYS&W locomotive on the brochure.

lvrr325 wrote:You got $20,000+ in your pocket to make them servicable again, plus a whole fabricating shop and crew at your disposal like Strasburg does?

Well, first off, AFAIK, the DL&W MU cars are still being used out of Honesdale to Hawley for tourist train operations..... If they were about to fall apart then wouldn't the FRA come in and say those coaches are not safe and can not be used anymore in active service??? Just a thought!

The only tracks past Honesdale were the gravity railroad tracks. The Erie and Wyoming used some of the other gravity railroad's grades.

Any damage to this line?

The website:

http://www.thestourbridgeline.com/index.html

No mention od canceled excursions...

On the West bound side of US route 6 near Carbondale (aka the Casey Highway to locals) there is a scenic overlook and with about a dozen parking spaces. Near the entrance there are several historical storyboards and a map showing how the D&H and its gravity railroad made the journey over the mountain to Honesdale possible.

blockline4180 wrote:

lvrr325 wrote:You got $20,000+ in your pocket to make them servicable again, plus a whole fabricating shop and crew at your disposal like Strasburg does?

Well, first off, AFAIK, the DL&W MU cars are still being used out of Honesdale to Hawley for tourist train operations..... If they were about to fall apart then wouldn't the FRA come in and say those coaches are not safe and can not be used anymore in active service??? Just a thought!

They brought in two ex VIA/CN coaches with apparently a third enroute to replace these cars, in other posts it was noted that the MUs are very badly rotted and plans were to scrap three of the five cars. I doubt they've gotten any better in the year since.

It's just like anything else old, if you cut up two or three of them you get enough spare parts to keep the others going much longer.

lvrr325 wrote:

blockline4180 wrote:

lvrr325 wrote:You got $20,000+ in your pocket to make them servicable again, plus a whole fabricating shop and crew at your disposal like Strasburg does?

Well, first off, AFAIK, the DL&W MU cars are still being used out of Honesdale to Hawley for tourist train operations..... If they were about to fall apart then wouldn't the FRA come in and say those coaches are not safe and can not be used anymore in active service??? Just a thought!

They brought in two ex VIA/CN coaches with apparently a third enroute to replace these cars, and that in other posts the MUs are very badly rotted and plans were to scrap three of the five cars. I doubt they've gotten any better in the year since.

It's just like anything else old, if you cut up two or three of them you get enough spare parts to keep the others going much longer.

I was just up in Honesdale last weekend and they use 3 of the ex-DL&W Mu's on the excursions to Hawley... I realize they brought the other cars in, but from what I have seen they were not being used!!!

Looks like there won't be any excursions on the line this year:

http://www.wayneindependent.com/news/x5 ... ted?zc_p=1

Yes, i guess the FRA finally got to the DL&W Mu's.... Will probably be scrapped on site as I doubt they have the money to repair them!!

Is it me or do i smell a rat.It's time that the PA. AG'S office look into this operation. What happened to the 5 million dollars that the State of PA gave to the M&E and Mr. Paul Brancato.