Miner Greg wrote:
That is an awesome set of pictures. It's great to see that someone spent the time to take so many pictures of this operation. Interesting that they were still using the steam engines back in 1967... They had two outside of the motor barn, where there more inside?
Miner Greg
By '67 the three you see would have been the last three left.
Tony has been a friend to me since I was a little kid (I am close friends with his younger son). For whatever reason, Tony "got" the importance of the anthracite operations at that late date, and while other railfans were out on the main lines, Tony and his group of friends balanced that with time at the mines. It isn't just Wanamie that got the "Tony O" treatment.
Tony is one of a small group of buffs that really got interested in the regions, even though they were from the Jersey Shore. That is one reason why our club in Asbury Park models NEPA and not the Atlantic coast.
I have been making trips "in Tony's footsteps" for most of my life. The love of the a-coal regions was handed down from Tony's generation to mine, and now we are handing it down to our kids (my son can't wait to another 190 tour with Banks!). Heck, these guys were such an influence that I even chose to go to the University of Scranton partly because of my fascination with anthracite industry and culture. Having a live 4-6-2 outside my dorm didn't hurt, either.
It is something to compare our group photos of "my generation" standing at the Allentown Hump or up in Mauch Chunk, and then see Tony's groups from 40 years ago in the same places. Of course, we don't have Lehigh & Hudson River C-420's and steaming Vulcans at Wanamie in our shots!
It is so cool that he has agreed to share these pictures with Chris and rest of the world.
Rob