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Discussion relating to the PRR, up to 1968. Visit the PRR Technical & Historical Society for more information.
 #1326982  by XC Tower
 
Please do allow some memories going back some 50+ years down my memory lane: Seeing the sleek long stream-lined looks of a Tuscan Red E-unit parked over Broad St. while on the way to the A&P for groceries with my Mom at the Perry Plaza (turns out that the PRR had a yard office located west of the bridge for the P&E facilities there). I imagine the E was waiting to take the #580 passenger train east out of Erie down the line to Emporium, PA and onto the Buffalo line there.)
Sitting stunned in the family car on East Avenue stopped at East 10th St. at the sight of a crewman getting off a halted PRR RS-3 pulling a mixed consist, then walk to a box located on a wooden utility pole, pull a key and turn the traffic signal red for traffic going north or south on East Ave., waving the train on, seeing the mixed consist of tank cars and boxcars move west, and reverse the process when the N-5 caboose cleared the intersection, then climbing aboard it with a wave to us as the train headed onto the E&P line to/from Erie's harbor......The PRR had a line right down the middle of East 10th St. to service Hammermill Paper Co. and an interchange with the East Erie Commercial RR where it picked new GE locomotives for shipment.....including its own U25's and 28's! One more note on this: to allow the locomotives to pass East Ave., the traffic signal was offset over the intersection.
Going on a "hike" with my Dad into the E&P yard and engine facilities, seeing a dull yellow colored ancient looking wedge snowplow parked on a track leading off the turn-table at the roundhouse (I was told that it was a Russell plow, built in Warren, PA) plus an old small tender from a steam locomotive by itself sitting in a gondola sitting by itself on another track. Walking into the roundhouse itself, my dear old Dad asking the surprised workers if he could "show his boys the steam locomotive?" With a smile, they said "Go ahead". I remember this massive steam locomotive with GRAND TRUNK lettered in white on its tender, a true sight from another era. We were shown the "pit" in the roundhouse floor where the crews could climb down below the locomotives. On another track inside was a GP-7 or 9 with a set of wheels on the floor, complete with traction motor. Outside towered the massive concrete coal-tipple with what replaced the fuel source it provided not too far away: looking like some sort of giant pill surrounded by an earthen dike was a huge diesel fuel tank.
If a person would go by these locations now, I doubt if they could ever imagine what was there. When I do, my mind takes me back to what once was, crossing the decades of time in an instant to boyhood and the Pennsylvania Railroad.


XC
 #1327071  by Statkowski
 
XC Tower wrote:If a person would go by these locations now, I doubt if they could ever imagine what was there.

XC
If a person went to any of these locations now, they'd probably get popped for trespassing.
 #1327382  by XC Tower
 
Sadly, this is true about trespassing, but it does make all the memories of times passed more special to remember and relive.


XC
 #1362940  by Aa3rt
 
Enjoyed your recollections. One minor correction-the Russell snowplow was built in Ridgway, PA, further down the P&E line. Somewhere I have a couple of photos of the Russell company building when it was still active. A portion of the building still survives (At least it was still intact on my last visit in the fall of 2013) serving as a PennDot garage, in view of the now beautifully restored PRR depot in Ridgway.