Searching For The Erie Railroad

I love to study railroad history. I enjoy going to old railroad towns and seeing what if anything remains that reminds one of the towns past. Port Jervis NY is one such town on the Erie Railroad. Port Jervis was home of the Erie Delaware Division Headquarters and at one time about 5,000 of Port Jervis' 10,000 residents worked for the Erie. The town at one time featured dozens of freight and passenger yard tracks, two roundhouses and other shops. After the Erie Lackawanna merger in 1960 Port Jervis started to diminish. The retirement of steam in the 50's had already started to take its toll on the town. Conrail finally shut down the remaining engine facilities in 1983 and only a few freights a week pass through the town on the old Erie mainline. Today Port Jervis is struggling to stay on the map. The only active rail facility in the town is the Metro-North Commuter storage yard for commuter trains that operate between Port Jervis and Hoboken, NJ.

In spite of the Erie fading from history the town still speaks volumes about its railroading past. Some of the remaining pieces are shown. Many others piece still exist if you know where to look. The Erie E-8, restored and parked on the 115' Erie turntable IS the actual Erie #833 The locomotive survives because it was one of three E-8s that Conrail kept around for its business trains. The base of one of several massive water towers still remain next to the site of the passenger yard. These tanks served Erie Berkshires , 2-10-2s and numerous other steam locomotives. The Metro-North train is passing by the old station / Delaware Division headquarters building. The building is now commercial office space. MN uses a new station platform about 1/4 mile to the west. A concrete underpass, which at one time had 15 tracks passing over the top of it. still proudly proclaims its builder from 1930. The town may not be important anymore, but the reason it exists in the first place is preserved for the ages. All of these photographs were taken 2/1/2017