Life on the Old Erie. I’d like to recommend this summer’s edition of “The Echo,” a publication of the Basket Historical Society (BHS) devoted to vignettes about the Erie Railroad, whose tracks, now owned by the Norfolk Southern, profoundly shaped cultural and industrial history in the Upper Delaware valley.

According to a 1902 Erie timetable published by BHS, a trip from New York City to Buffalo took 11 hours, and a run from Port Jervis to Binghamton about 3.25 hours—if the train was on time.

That was three days and six hours shorter than the time of the very first train to run from Port Jervis and Binghamton, when an Erie locomotive and several cars tested the condition of newly laid rails.

Excerpts from an eyewitness account by the Rev. Henry Dutcher, an Erie employee, give the flavor of this saga that began on Friday, December 22, 1848:

“It had been snowing all afternoon, the snow being from six to eight inches deep…so that our progress was very slow. When about two miles above Cochecton, six miles from Narrowsburg, our locomotive ran out of water. We stopped by a creek, the embankment being some thirty feet above it, and forming a line, passed six hundred pails of water up to the engine. Some of the men froze their fingers.”

After many adventures, and “facing a strong northwest wind, with the mercury at zero, we rode that bleak country, arriving at Binghamton at half-past eleven o’clock Monday night. Three days, nine hours and a half getting over the Division.”

To obtain a copy of this delightful “Special Erie Issue,” contact the Basket Historical Society at Long Eddy, New York, 12760.

Rainfall. My rain gauge produced 4.01 inches between 4:00 a.m. on Monday and 12:00 noon on Tuesday. The National Weather Service in Binghamton expects a dry Wednesday but even heavier rains on Thursday.