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2008 Chapter Meetings Thursday, May 8, 2008 Guest speaker Steve Stewart presented a slide show "Railroads Along the Lehigh River Valley" featuring slides from the 1940's to 1977 in and around the Bethlehem, Easton, Phillipsburg, and Allentown areas. Thursday, April 10, 2008 The main focus of the meeting was on coal mining. Member Bob Gongleski showed a DVD and a VHS tape. "The Big Little Railroad" (DVD): To commemorate their Centennial in 1948, The Central Railroad Company of New Jersey produced a 26-minute color and sound promotional film depicting many of the operations and services provided to their customers and riders. Seen in this classic film were the mining and processing of anthracite in the Wyoming Valley coalfields near Wilkes-Barre, PA, then a trip to the terminal at tidewater in Jersey City, NJ. Highlights included many long gone Jersey Central facilities such as the Ashley Planes, the Lehigh and Susquehanna main line, the Newark Bay Bridge and the huge terminal complex at Jersey City. Motive power included steam, Baldwin and EMD first generation diesels in the orange and blue scheme, and the marine fleet of tugboats, ferries and lighters. "Tea Kettles to Giants" (VHS): We stepped back in time when steam ruled the rails. We opened with the mighty little 0-4-0’s of the Wanamie Coal Mine (PA) operation. Then it was back to 1929 for a brief look at the Lehigh Valley and Central Railroad of New Jersey in Allentown. We then took a look at Pennsylvania Railroad steam in action on the Horseshoe Curve and other locations. The mighty steam power of the Norfolk and Western Railway was presented in the locations of Bluefield, Radford and Roanoke, VA. Finally, we looked at a Shay in operation on the Brimstone Railroad. Thursday, March 13, 2008 Member Bob Gongleski showed a video titled "Lionel OO & HO in Action." Lionel is known mostly for their O and Standard gauge trains. But they also made fine models in two smaller gauges – OO and HO. See these trains as you’ve never seen them before - in action! Lionel’s HO line-up included both scale and whimsy. We took a look at the Postwar and Modern eras, including FM C-liners, 0864-series boxcars, the Southern Pacific Daylight and the RailScope FA-2. Saw HO versions of O-gauge classics like the Milk Car and Satellite Launching Car. There were several Lionel HO cars on exhibit, along with books and catalogs of the Lionel HO products. Thursday, February 14, 2008 The program was Member Slide Night. Member Bob Gongleski showed slides of past HO and N scale Christmas layouts at his house and his brother Ed's O scale Christmas layouts. (This program was originally scheduled for December 2007, hence the Christmas theme.) Many Plasticville buildings were featured on the layouts. Member Bob Pastorkey took us down memory lane with several slides of past local railroading. Thursday, January 10, 2008 This was our Annual Meeting of the Membership to close out administrative matters for calendar year 2007 and lay the foundation for operations and programs in 2008.

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