Its cold here in the Northeast-ah for those balmy 60 degree days this past November-maybe I'm off track here, but I wonder if anybody else has a wishlist of what is gone but would be special because? Maybe we can learn for the future from the losses of the past that really hurt.

1.) A Lehigh Valley Wyoming-They had fine lines and would've made a fine excursion engine. Not a single LV steamer survived the 244 onslaught of President Major. A picture of one of these engines appeared in Aug '69 TRAINS nearing the crest of the brutal grade from Coxton to Mountaintop, PA, ironically just two months after the Buffalo Creek & Gauley #4 (happily now at NCTM, I believe) brought steam to the "valley" for the first time since 1951. Just three years later-that part of the line was abandoned for a partion of the near parallel CNJ line when they split PA. Today, its a dirt road, the very spot where the picture was taken is a parking lot used primarily when the local volunteer fire. company holds its annual bazaar. Not a single LV steamer survived the 244 onslaught of President Major.

2.) CNJ PACIFIC 833. Used on the bullet out of Wilkes Barre, that train was short-lived. Sleek and powerful, it was among the best the CNJ ever had. Although the right-of-way is gone, the station survives-just barely-as a textbook case of adaptive reuse gone horribly wrong. The "embedded" cadillac is a poster child for how not to do it. My apologies to 774 fans.

3.) DL&W 1643 (or any 1500 or 1600) Pocono. There's a story in these parts that the Lackawanna would've donated one of these engines to the City of Scranton for display, but it was nixed. One account says the then mayor said this is our past not our future. Who could've imagined that 30 years later, Steamtown would make that prediction wrong.