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Greetings:
Since the thread has already drifted...

In December 1976 I was riding/ former Buffalo Creek & Gauley No. 13 from Ridgley, WV to Elkhart, IN for its new owner Bob Spaugh (Bring the Mohawk Home to Elkhart).
The B&O had hauled us up over Sand Patch to Connellsville, PA to be interchanged with the P&LE. Everyone figured that I worked for a railroad so I was directed to the Railroad YMCA which sat on a hill overlooking the yard.

The YMCA had a restaurant and housed the crew callers office complete with large boards for the different railroads with spaces for train/engine numbers and hooks for the name of whoever was assigned. They gave me a room (billed to the B&O) on the third floor (walk up of course). The room was about 5x8 feet, just enough for a small bed, a wash stand and a chair (it did have a window looking out towards the yard), communal shower and bathroom down the hall. The switching went on all night.

In the morning I went downstairs for breakfast. There was a big room with couches and overstuffed chairs and a couple of television sets. While I was there they began bringing down the railroaders who had RETIRED to that place. Some were in wheelchairs.
I'll not go into the condition of the place, let's just say that it wasn't the best. I heard that it was torn down a few years later.

Pleasant dreams,
J.David

How was the swimming pool?

Funny how everything is relative. I remember vividly my first experience as a young PVC in Uncle Sams Army when we were assigned to live in the field for a week in the winter with temps near zero F. When you arose in your 2 man pup tent for 6 am revelry with a fresh 2 ft. of snow on the ground and all the immersion heaters in the chow line frozen solid.

At the end of the week we were moved into the center of Pine Camp ( now Ft.Drum) and billeted in WW 11 wooden 2 story barracks. Most of our guys complained loudly how " old and out of date" they were.

To me, after a week of freezing my butt off in the woods they were a 5 star hotel. Big coal stove kept the place toasty warm, real toilets, and best of all running water with showers with HOT water, and electric lights !!! What's not to like !!!

Everything is relative !! Ross Rowland

Closed ca. 2015, derelict 2018, bulldozed flat, replaced with the "standard" prefab modular units.

https://goo.gl/maps/FB1HnnxEWzjmxn5TA


I have heard of various efforts to use cabooses as transient lodging to be spotted along the railroad, most notably the "Castaway Caboose" at Durbin & Greenbrier Valley:

https://mountainrailwv.com/tour/castawa ... vernights/

I know that other attempts I have seen elsewhere for "lodging cabooses on trains" have somehow run afoul of various regulations covering either railroad, lodging or environmental rules (i.e. "parking an RV where it's not allowed" or whatever). The Grand Canyon Railway so far can't park any of the ex-D&RGW private cars it has for charter overnight at the South Rim, either--NPS regs. Given that standard gauge equipment when run with NG trucks on the EBT were notoriously top-heavy and unstable, I see no way a standard-gauge caboose-as-lodging proposal would ever pass muster by the FRA, the Pa. Public Utilities Commission, the Pa. DOT, or any of whatever regulatory bodies would lay claim to regulating this--or the insurers. Maybe a newly-built "caboose" for just such a function, with retention toilets, solar panels, etc.?

Only one?

Which one? The set at the Oil Creek & Titusville, the pair (and a "presidential car") at Dolittle's in Dubois, the one on the east shore of the Susquehanna north of Rockville Bridge (pretty sure that one's a replica--and, hey, I think I know that owner....), the one in Lock Haven............. and another "guest house" one I know about not offered publicly..........

Downes Motel No. 2 at the Fort Littleton Pa. Turnpike Interchange seems to still be in business, if you can believe the Internet reviews. Downes Motel No. 1, on the other side of the Turnpike, was out of business early in this Century.

Oh, why not?

I've enjoyed the "Snake Pit Hotel" stories, too. I have to admit the reason I'm enjoying them is because I'm reading about them, I didn't go through them!!

The "old hotel" experience I've had was the opposite, a most pleasant stay. This was at the Daniel Boone Hotel in Charleston, W.Va. First opened around 1927 and expanded twice in 1936 and 1949, it had a wonderful feel, especially its lobby; you half expected to run into Sydney Greenstreet and Humphrey Bogart there. It had good food, too.

Curiously, I was told men mostly liked the hotel, but for some reason women didn't; I never really learned why, but did get comments about the hotel's age and everything being old in it. There were also stories of prostitutes working the place, but I never saw anything like that, and I doubt I'd have recognized it anyway. The hotel was clean and seemingly well cared for when I was in it.

It's now an office building, and from what I've read about it, while some key aspects of the interior have been preserved, it also has some things like a 30 foot indoor waterfall. That was upscale renovation in the 1980s for you.

http://charlestonhomeandliving.com/2020 ... e-hotel-2/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevystew/24067713216

https://www.ebay.com/itm/373562346453

There was another hotel, the Uptowner, in Huntington, W.Va. I got to stay there in 1977 with some guys from Pittsburgh, the occasion being a ride up the New River behind 2101 in September of that year.

The hotel was a typical looking multi-story "motel," which is the term I use because it had open walkways on each floor to reach rooms. (It had since been rebuilt beyond recognition externally the last time I saw it, and the external walkways were enclosed; the rebuilding did not enhance its appearance at all.)

What stood out was how noisy the place was at night. When we were there, there was what had to be one of the most horrible sounding bands playing down below. They made sure you could hear them, too! (And people wonder why I don't care for a lot of rock music!)

Then there was the guy somewhere above us. One of our party thought he must have brought along a big load of beer, because every 20 minutes, it sounded like he was launching a moon rocket when he flushed the toilet--


WHOOOO--AARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr!!

This went on for most of the night!! Whooee!!

But that's mild compared to some of the other things recalled here!!

I've never visited this place, so I can't say I've had any experience with it, but it looks cool. It's about 60 miles from Orbisonia, and only about 33 from Hollidaysburg and the Everett Railroad, and 37 miles to Cumberland and the Western Maryland Scenic.

It's the Lincoln Motor Court in Manns Choice, Pa. It's the old style "cabins" type of motel, and the owners are working to cash in on the nostalgic atmosphere of the place.

In terms of location, it sounds nearly ideal, with reasonable access to at least three steam roads.

https://www.lincolnmotorcourt.com/

https://roadtrippers.com/magazine/lincoln-motor-court/

I was in Spruce Pine, NC for a funeral, only hotel I could find in town was an adventure. I arrive for my $50 a night room(circa 2013) it's clearly a hotel with semi permanent guests, great rural poverty at its finest. I check in the desk clerk is a 50 year old man in a robe and nothing else, let's just say it was not tied tight. My bed is built from 2x4 and plywood with what was only a 3 inch or so foam topper for a mattress, awesome. The shower works, the soap was non existent, oh well I brought my own. The residents get loud, so I retrieve my long gun from my truck, I wedge my chair in the door, put my long gun next to the bed, 30.round magazine loaded up. I take my H and K USP 45 full size off and place it on the night stand. I go to sleep, waking at around 2 am to pounding on the door, demanding I sell them meth. I tell them to go away, they persist in their demands, I rack one in the chamber tell them to leave or I am shooting through the door. I open the window curtains with a slung rifle and a large handgun in my hand, they decide to leave. I now am thankful my uncle's dead so I'll never have to return and question why he lived in this dump of a town.

Are there any of the old railroad YMCA's still standing? My hometown (Brunswick MD) had a big one but it burned when I was a kid.

The Pennsylvania Railroad YMCA Building in West Philadelphia is still in use as a Charter School:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/4025- ... 11gnsvllg8

https://www.phila.gov/media/20190607082 ... nation.pdf

Brian

While I personally never saw the Brunswick, MD RR Y, I worked at CSX with a number of more senior crew who had, and did not miss it at all. In fact, it's demise might have been because of one of them, we'll never know for sure. Let's just say they related that crabs were a specialality of the house, and not Maryland Blues...

An old retired railroader told me with a chuckle that when the old crew hotel burned down, "... over a thousand lives were lost... nary a cockroach survived!"

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