LwS S3, E3: “PRR at Trenton, NJ” and “The Last Week of Steam on PRR Passenger Trains In and Out of Buffalo”
This episode of Living with Steam features recordings John made at the Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station while visiting friends in Trenton, NJ on July 27,1951. Actually, the stop in Trenton was the last on John’s itinerary for a trip he began a few days earlier; stopping first in Cove, PA to make recordings of Pennsylvania Railroad trains on their mainline as they ran through Cove, followed by a stop in Palmyra, NJ. You’ll hear those recordings in the next two episodes of LwS.
I point out during the narrative of the episode that as they come off the wire, John’s Trenton recordings are less than perfect. At first listen, I came away wondering why he made them in the first place since there’s only 10 minutes of material in total. To make things worse, and each individual sequence is either up-cut or ends abruptly for reasons known only to John.
Knowing John as I do, and realizing how shy an individual he was, it’s entirely possible there were just too many people at the station at the time he there for him to be completely comfortable standing next to the tracks while pointing a microphone at trains going by. In other words, he probably didn’t want to draw too much attention to what he was doing so he recorded the bare minimum within the 10 minutes he spent at Trenton.
It’s also possible I have the scenario completely wrong. Back in the early 90s, when John and I first listened to this wire, I wasn’t very impressed by what I heard while John panned the wire entirely. The only thing he said to me was the fact he was in Trenton visiting some friends and the PRR Trenton station was his last stop before heading home to Buffalo.
It wasn’t until I studied John’s notes very carefully that I came to realize the Trenton recordings were part of a several day trip John made in July 1951. In fact, John was very busy in 1951, and the stops in Trenton, Palmyra, and Cove were part of a much larger excursion that involved both sound recordings and photographs. More on this in future episodes of Living with Steam.
In order to restore the Trenton recordings and make them more listenable, I took many artistic liberties by extended each sequence, adding ambient sound effect, and dubbing in additional rail traffic that John may have heard while he was at the station. In fact, the additional engine or train sounds I added were taken from other recordings in John’s catalog. Some of the “station interior” sounds were sourced from various SFX libraries or from YouTube videos, but a bit of audio trickery was needed in order for a few of these effects to fit the soundscapes realistically.
Fortunately, some of the interior sounds, such as train announcements, came directly from John’s Trenton recording.
My goal was to try and present a more accurate soundscape of what the interior and passenger concourse of the Trenton station may have sounded like in July of 1951 while John was there. Is it 100% accurate? Probably not. I never had the good fortune to visit the station when it was operated by the PRR. I can only guess based on similar recordings I’ve heard and hope I got relatively close. Regardless, I think John’s Trenton recordings sound much better with the “enhancements” because without them, they simply sound like trains making noise.
As a bonus for this episode, you’ll hear a series of recordings John made in June and July of 1952 featuring the last week Pennsy passenger trains were being pulled by steam engines in and out of Buffalo. John made these recordings in the southern tier of Western New York (south of Buffalo) on tracks that were part of Pennsy’s Buffalo Division.
These recordings stand on their own as magnificent archives of Pennsylvania Railroad steam engines and passenger trains. The spools of wire the recordings are on, however, tell a much more disturbing story as to how fragile and often unreliable the wire recorder could be.
Please note: the images depicted on this page are not mine and are only used to present a visual representation of what’s discussed in this episode of the podcast. Unfortunately, I started searching the internet and downloaded anything I thought was relevant to the topic, and I neglected to note the source from where many of the images came from. No malice was intended, so if any of these images are identified by the owners, please let me know and I’ll correct any credit oversights necessary.
Above are the two pages of John’s notes featured in this episode of Living with Steam. Note how the recordings made North of East Aurora are shown at the top of the page, but John indicates they are “last on spool.”
Above are some “artistic representations” of the PRR’s station at Trenton on postcards . As with most postcard designs from the early 20th century, the subject isn’t always depicted with 100% accuracy, but it’s often better than not having an image at all. You could probably purchase one of these at the station as you were passing through.
Clicking on each image will open a larger version in a new tab.
Above are several images showing activity at the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Trenton.
The image in row two, third from the left, shows PRR “Doodlebug” #4666 at the Trenton station in June, 1963. The chalk writing on the front of the doodlebug reads “Camden-Trenton; Last Trip 6/28/63 (From the collection of Thomas C. Ayers at rrpicturearchives.net).
The picture in row one, far right, shows the “Nellie Bly” pausing at Trenton. On the left is PRR Doodlebug #4666 (From John Dziobko from a post on railpictures.net).
Shown in the second row, far right, is a PRR GG-1 stopping at Trenton as it pulls the southbound “Congressional” on September 3, 1965. The Congressional was a commuter train for business travelers and commuters. The GG-1s could run the 227-mile Northeast Corridor from Pennsylvania Station in New York to Washington DC’s Union Station in 3 1/2 hours (From a Twitter post shared from american-rails.com).
Clicking on each image will open a larger version in a new tab.
Above are a few of the engines John recorded at Trenton on July 27, 1951; PRR engine 1092 (E-6s), engine 51 (E-6s), and engine 5432 (K-4s).
Clicking on each image will open a larger version in a new tab.
Above are three photos actually taken by John and feature PRR steam engines heard in this episode of Living with Steam.
The left photo shows PRR E-6s engine 1092 as it backs through the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, PA (September 17, 1951).
The center photo once again shows PRR E-6s engine 1092. It’s at the head of train 2592, the Philadelphia to Trenton Local, as it pulls out of the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia (September 19, 1951).
The right photo on the right shows PRR E-6s engine 230 as it patiently waits for another run (September 17, 1951).
While not feature on John’s July 27, 1951 recording at Trenton, NJ, the image above (taken by John) shows PRR E-6s engine 1694 pulling the Camden to Trenton Local as it arrives in Trenton on September 19, 1951.
The above track layout diagram is from the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company and shows the trackage being leased and operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad as of June 30, 1918. The tracks and station diagram for Trenton are shown on the right side.
Courtesy of Matthew Hurst of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society. Click on the diagram for a larger view.
Above are three John Prophet images that have tie-ins with John’s “PRR Buffalo, Last Week of Steam on Passenger Trains” wire recording.
The first and second photos show PRR M-1 engine 6835 at it backs train 570 out of Buffalo Central Terminal (August 13, 1952).
The third photo shows PRR K-4s engine 5369 pulling train 571 past the station in Holland, NY. The train in this picture was photographed on July 2, 1951 as it was running 65 mph past the station. A year to the day, John would record train 570 at Holland, pulled by M-1 engine 6953.
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