Erie Railroad

Albany’s Squire Whipple: Father of the Iron Truss Bridge

November 8, 2022 by Peter Hess 1 Comment

Squire Whipple was born in Hartwick, Massachusetts on September 16th, 1804. His parents were James and Electa Whipple. Born and raised on a farm, he attended a small country school for three or four months a year. He moved to New York in 1817.

By the age of seventeen, he passed the required examination for common school teaching and taught part time to finance his education. In 1822-1828 he attended Hartwick College in Otsego County; Fairfield Academy in Herkimer County; and graduated from Union College, Schenectady in 1830. He spent the next few years working as a surveyor for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and married Anna Case. [Read more…] about Albany’s Squire Whipple: Father of the Iron Truss Bridge

Hudson River Railroad & Steamboat History: Piermont Pier

April 10, 2022 by Editorial Staff 3 Comments

Hand-built in the mid-1800s, the 4,000-foot-long Piermont Pier on the Hudson River in Rockland County was once a terminus of the longest railroad in the world – the Erie Railroad.

Hampered by rules about railroads crossing state lines, the Erie built a pier nearly a mile long across the marshy bay at Piermont and out to the deeper parts of the Hudson River, where steamboats could pick up passengers and take them on to New York City. [Read more…] about Hudson River Railroad & Steamboat History: Piermont Pier

The Great Pumpkin Flood of 1903 & Other Delaware River Floods

October 14, 2021 by John Conway Leave a Comment

The last three weeks of October, 1903 proved to be difficult ones in the Upper Delaware region, as residents attempted to clean up after a particularly devastating flood.

Following three days of heavy rains, the Delaware River crested on October 10th, 1903, destroying several bridges, wiping out the Erie Railroad’s tracks in a number of places, and damaging homes and businesses in three states. [Read more…] about The Great Pumpkin Flood of 1903 & Other Delaware River Floods

The Angola Horror:The Train Wreck That Shocked the Nation

January 11, 2014 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

On December 18, 1867, the Buffalo and Erie Railroad’s eastbound New York Express derailed as it approached the high truss bridge over Big Sister Creek, just east of the small settlement of Angola, New York, on the shores of Lake Erie.

In a dramatic historical narrative, Charity Vogel tells the gripping, true-to-life story of the wreck and the characters involved in the tragic accident in The Angola Horror: The 1867 Train Wreck That Shocked the Nation and Transformed American Railroads (Cornell University Press, 2013). [Read more…] about The Angola Horror:The Train Wreck That Shocked the Nation