On the Road to Cooperstown…(Part 1)

Continuing with our late summer road trip…

From Rensselaer and the Albany New York area, we headed west along US Highway 20 towards the intersection with NY Route 80 south to Cooperstown.  As usual, we found plenty to look at along the way…

Near Duanesville NY, we were startled to see this E8 EMD diesel locomotive just sitting on a section of track along the highway.  It turns out that this locomotive is just part of an effort to create a tourist attraction, the Canal Street Station  Railroad Village.

This 1952 E8 EMD locomotive has been ‘restored’ externally and the inside of this unit is being transformed into a 1950’s malt shop.  This passenger locomotive was built by the Electro Motor Diesel Division of the General Motors Corporation.  It weighed 138 tons and it had 2 twin V-12 2400 HP diesel engines.  It served the Pennsylvania, (locomotive #5762), or Penn Central railroad, (locomotive #4262), until 1973.  It was retired in 1977 after serving with META in a commuter train capacity. (locomotive #4264) The unit has been externally refurbished in the style of New York Central Railroad's passenger locomotives and has been renumbered once again...(#4297)

So…everything must have been closed on the day we passed the Canal Street Station Railroad Village.  The only thing we really noted was the locomotive…

This is a photo of the Canal Street Station Railroad Village that I ‘borrowed’ from a facebook page…check out related information at http://www.facebook.com/canalstreetstation.  This photo was taken this past fall, about a month after we’d passed through. 

Canal Street Station is apparently a work in progress.  The intent is to build a reconstructed 1920’s to 1940’s American railroad village representing the “Great American Dream”.  The village relives a common sight during the turn of the century when horse drawn wagons and push carts were still used to distribute produce and farm goods to market.  Originally conceived Joseph J. Merli, (http://www.merlimfgco.com/), and friends in 1990, Canal Street Village now has a General Store, the locomotive and a 1940 Silk City Diner in addition to railway buildings, rolling stock and early delivery vehicles.

Festivals, a weekly farmer’s market and various fund raising events are scheduled for the village.  For more information about the Canal Street Station Railroad Village, just go to http://www.canalstreetstation.com/index.html.  

You just never know what you’ll run across when you drive America’s byways!

Just click on any photo to enlarge it…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave