Museums

March 30, 2015

Whippany Railway Museum’s 50th Anniversary, and big things for April

If you’re not familiar with the Whippany Railway Museum, it is a great little spot that works to preserve some of New Jersey’s railroad history, and is likely where you’ll find the next generation of young railfans, riding in historic train cars and meeting up with Santa and the Easter Bunny. The museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and in order to celebrate they’re offering things like a railway hobby show, and 1956 prices on excursions. On Sundays where no excursions are taking place, the CNJ club car “Jersey Coast” will be hosting some photography exhibits. My article...

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July 10, 2014

The Railroad Photos of Jack Delano

These days almost everyone has a camera – whether it be a point and shoot, an SLR, or just the stock camera that came with your cell phone. Despite all the criticism of people these days and what they’re photographing, part of me thinks that the people of the future who consume all their nutrients in pill form might find today’s photos of food taken by hipsters rather quaint. The fact remains that what is commonplace today may be noteworthy and historic tomorrow. Time has only proven this true – Boris Klapwald’s snapshots of Grand Central Terminal were boxed up...

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October 2, 2013

Pioneer Park and the Tanana Valley Railroad Museum, Fairbanks, Alaska

Before I continue with a long series of photos and videos from the Alaska Railroad, I figured it would be fun to quickly introduce everyone to the Tanana Valley Railroad Museum, located in Fairbanks, Alaska. Located in Pioneer Park, the museum operates a historic 1899 steam locomotive a few times a year for visitors. Built in 2005, the museum consists of a shop for the locomotive, and a smaller section for displays, all of which is staffed by volunteers. The museum was one of the very first stops for the NRHS convention, and the historic locomotive was operating all afternoon,...

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August 30, 2013

Friday Fun: Video From the Lake Shore Railway Museum

For some quick Friday fun, I have a lovely video taken at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania from a few weekends ago. Cedar Point was not the only place where I got to mount a GoPro camera on a train… I’m like an addict that can’t stop. I love trains, I love every kind of train, but I can’t put my camera on every train. (Though I may certainly try) In other news, if you’re on Instagram and you’re not following us, you totally should be. Besides interesting photos of Metro-North trains taken on my day...

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July 2, 2013

Is there anything to eat on this darn train? Tickets and menus from the 20th Century Limited

Right before Grand Central’s Parade of Trains I got an email from Polly Desjarlais, one of the educators at the Transit Museum. The museum was looking for a copy of a nice ticket to duplicate and hand out to kids at the Parade, and there’d even be a costumed conductor to punch those tickets. Since there would also be a coloring book page of the 20th Century Limited, they were really looking for a ticket from that specific train. Unfortunately, my collection did not include a ticket from the 20th Century. Not only that, I had never even seen a...

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June 17, 2013

Check out August’s Cat Fancy Magazine!

Any good reader of this blog is familiar with Sadie the Subway cat, former resident of the Transit Museum, though now retired. One of the last times I recall seeing Sadie at the museum was the morning before I interviewed Howard Permut. Apparently I wasn’t too worried that a little bit of fur on my clothes would be a faux pas when interviewing the president of Metro-North (albeit not as bad as actually using the term “Brokeville” while referring to a particular model of Metro-North’s rolling stock). Nonetheless, it seemed like Sadie was in a rather sociable mood, and was...