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Big Apple RailFest 2005: After the fest


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#1 KevinKorell

KevinKorell

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Posted 21 January 2005 - 09:22 PM

Our board was down at one of the worst possible times, spanning a week around one of our fests. The Big Apple RailFest 2005 event took place in New York and New Jersey, board or not, and it was another great success.

For those who could not make it, we owe you a synopsis of our weekend on the rails.

Our official participant count was 12. All twelve people were no strangers to our fests. Four came on Saturday only, one on Sunday only, and the other seven were there both days.

The weather cooperated. There was no precipitation either day. It was comfortable on Saturday, with temperatures in the low 30's. On Sunday, it was a little colder especially if you factor in the breeze that some members experienced while walking in Bay Head and Point Pleasant Beach.

We got to do everything we set out to do on our final itinerary. On Saturday we took in the LIRR's Far Rockaway Branch, the elevated subways in the Rockaways, the subway ride across Jamaica Bay, AirTrain JFK, the Jamaica El between Jamaica and Manhattan, the Canarsie Line between Broadway Junction and Canarsie, some subway riding within Manhattan, the West Side IRT up to Van Cortlandt Park, and Metro North's Hudson Line from Marble Hill to Grand Central Terminal. Then on Sunday, we did the newest segment of HBLRT in Hoboken and Weehawken, and round trips on NJ TRANSIT's North Jersey Coast Line and Raritan Valley Line.

Three of us also did a pre-fest nighttime run with the derelicts on the Newark City Subway to Grove Street, Bloomfield and back on Friday night.

All in all it was loads of fun. As always the times shared on the rails were memorable.

On the website I have updated our participant list to show who was actually there and when. You can also compare our final itinerary with our actual itinerary, so you can see how close or far we were from schedule and what minor deviations we made to our plans.

We will meet next in Philadelphia the third weekend of March, and then our big summer journey will be various Amtrak trains to and from Dallas, with DART and the McKinney Avenue Streetcar awaiting us there. On the way to Dallas there will be one overnight stop in Chicago and a daytime stop in St. Louis.


Kevin Korell


OTOL Board Leader


Lakewood, NJ





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