Showing of Erie Lackawanna Memories Program

There will be a showing of the ERIE LACKAWANNA MEMORIES slide program at the Palmer Massachusetts Public Library at 2PM on Saturday, September 16, 2006. This program is the PowerPoint conversion of the original 1986 tape-slide program that was the basis for the book with the same name. The program has about three times as many slides as the book, is auto-run with music and location captions on some segments, and takes about an hour. It will be shown back-to-back with another music accompanied program, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, which covers a wide variety of western subjects from the 1970s to the 1990s, and is also a 60 minute program. The library does not charge for admission to program showings, these are open to the public. If you are driving a long distance please check with the library to make sure there are no last minute changes in plans.

The ERIE LACKAWANNA MEMORIES slide program had not been widely shown since the 10th anniversary of the demise of the railroad in 1986, and was restored this year for the 30th anniversary. This is likely to be the last free public showing for the anniversary year, the program may be put back on the shelf after some events in springtime 2007 as I have a very busy schedule with my teaching type programs next year.

P. Cook

Preston,
Do you have any thoughts of transferring any of your presentations to video and selling them nationally? I certainly would buy EL Memories and Inside EMD. EL Memories sounds especially easy to transfer as it is already a self contained module and as a proud owner of the book, I would love to see the images that didn't make the book.

I wish I could attend this but I will be in Japan that week railfanning the Shinkansen system. "ERIE LACKAWANNA MEMORIES" is a great book. I received my copy for Christmas in 1987. I was seventeen. It was your book alone which spurred me to try night photography. I used the same aperture settings and exposure times and were amazed by the result. You also peaked my interest in the EL's west end. THANK YOU Mr. Cook!

Thanks very much for your postings! Brad's comments are something that I have considered and began to investigate. What I found so far was a legal quagmire involving copyrights and licensing. In the case of the INSIDE EMD program the hurdle is obtaining proper permission for using photographic and commercial items that might require approval from GM, even though they are no longer the owners of EMD. In the case of any program shown with music, commercial licensing of the music becomes a major issue. There is a big difference between showing materials in an educational program in support of meetings of non-profit historical societies, and packaging the same materials for commercial sale. I wish I could provide a better answer, but in the meantime at least the programs will continue being shown as lectures.

Unfortunately getting wider geographic distribution this way is both time consuming and expensive, as demonstrated by the fact that ERIE LACKAWANNA MEMORIES features a great deal of photography done in and around Marion, Ohio, but has never been shown anywhere in the State of Ohio since the book came out in 1987. I have been trying to get an opportunity to show the new PowerPoint version to a group of friends in Marion who worked at the diesel shop, but it is a very long trip and the opportunity to get out there has not come along yet. Meanwhile the cost of travel continues to increase.

I should mention though that I procrastinated on doing the remake of ERIE LACKAWANNA MEMORIES until the very last minute, in part because I was concerned it might not come out as good as the original tape-slide version. The remake actually looks and plays even better than the original. Waiting so long into this 30th anniversary year to complete it probably cost the opportunity for some showings. My planning for program events is already out in 2007, so the rest of 2006 is close to being part of "the past" already. Brad, maybe it will be possible to show some of the programs out your way sometime.

PC

PCook wrote:The ERIE LACKAWANNA MEMORIES slide program had not been widely shown since the 10th anniversary of the demise of the railroad in 1986, and was restored this year for the 30th anniversary. This is likely to be the last free public showing for the anniversary year, the program may be put back on the shelf after some events in springtime 2007 as I have a very busy schedule with my teaching type programs next year.

P. Cook

Preston--

I saw your program in 1986, I believe at Victoria Station in Wayne, NJ. It was excellent! And an excellent presentation! Anybody who can get there on Sept. 16 should go. Not only is the subject matter fascinating, the photographs themselves are among the best I've ever seen before or after 1986.

If you have some way of ever distributing it on DVD, that would be great. I now have two kids of my own who are 11- and 13-year-old EL fans. I would sure like for them to see it some day. I don't think we would be able to get to your program in Massachusetts.

I understand the intellectual property rights issues associated with distributing the program commercially, but even if you created a presentation limited to your own photographs, that would fantastic! It's an important body of work that screams to be shared, especially with people like my own kids, who never saw the EL in its day.

Good luck with it!

Thanks very much for the comments about the program. The photography in and around Marion, Ohio, and particularly the extensive segments of the program depicting the railroad operations at night, were made possible by a very cooperative and helpful group of friends on the Erie Lackawanna. The night photography was done in a working railroad environment with the equipment that was there at the time and under the available conditions. I have never had such extensive access to a working railroad shop and yard before or since, and I hope that the images that resulted will continue to provide a memorable reminder of the fine friends who were kind enough to make them possible. It was a great time and I would like to be able to do that kind of railroad photography nowadays, but it is unlikely any similar chance will ever come along again. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The night photography sessions at the Marion Shop and Yard resulted in many hundreds of images that have never been published or shown in a presentation, they have sat in their slide boxes for 35 years. Maybe someday when there is time to work on it, I can get around to doing something with them.

Just a reminder to everyone that the Erie Lackawanna Memories program is coming up this Saturday, September 16th. Palmer is also a great train watching spot and you can also have lunch and/or dinner at the Steaming Tender restaurant located in the former train station.

My thanks to all the folks who got together with us in Palmer and several other hosting locations over the last few months for the showings of ERIE LACKAWANNA MEMORIES during 2006, the 30th anniversary year of the demise of the railroad. Thanks also to the ELHS and all the other groups in the Northeast that hosted showings this year, and to Dan C. who made another extremely long distance trip to see one of my programs!

Thanks to my friend Sparky and the two dozen former Erie Lackawanna employees who got together at noon today for a showing of the program. Believe it or not, we finally got to show it in OHIO, thirty five years after I did the photography in the Marion, Ohio area and twenty years after the program was first shown as a tape slide presentation! Truly remarkable, sorry it took so long to get the program out there, but it certainly wasn't due to lack of trying.

The 40th anniversary is right around the corner - 2016!