Art Huneke, curator of "Arrt's Arrchives", one of the great sources for Long Island Rail Road history, pictures, ephemera, has passed away.
Please take note. He was a great historian.

Thank you for posting this, Dick. I saw the news reported elsewhere online and it was really sad to read. The depth of Art's knowledge of LIRR history and operations was astonishing. I understand he had worked for the company as both a signal maintainer and telegrapher, beginning in the last years of steam in the 1950s, but he could also write authoritatively about the LIRR of the 19th century as well, drawing upon a rich personal collection of images and ephemera including timetables, rulebooks, interlocking diagrams, and even ROW surveys going back to the 1830s. I hope that his website can somehow keep going, but I fear the worst.

EDIT.There are a number of pages on his site that still blow my mind. How was he able to assemble all of this material?
https://arrts-arrchives.com/1852ptt.html
https://arrts-arrchives.com/rock.html
https://arrts-arrchives.com/RAPIDTRANSIT.html
https://arrts-arrchives.com/bethpagejunction.html
https://arrts-arrchives.com/LICity1.html
https://arrts-arrchives.com/LICity2.html

I never had the privilege of meeting Art in person, but I did exchange a handful of emails with him. As he began selling off his collection in recent years I was able to purchase some remarkable items from him, including a pair of 1880s cabinet card locomotive portraits (which I only later realized were the originals of the same photos reproduced in Ziel and Foster's 1965 book Steel Rails to the Sunrise), and even a broadside/poster employee timetable from 1859. (How many of those are out there? I'm sure it must be unique.) I feel privileged to be able to take care of these small parts of his legacy for a few years until I can pass them on to someone else.



-Philip Marshall