Phoebe Snow Company

Phoebe Snow Company Fine Food Products from the Golden Age of Railroad Travel

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B&M canned brown bread is in the news: https://www.thetakeout.com/1643163/history-canned-bread-explained/We can't vouch ...
08/19/2024

B&M canned brown bread is in the news: https://www.thetakeout.com/1643163/history-canned-bread-explained/

We can't vouch for it, but you might want to try our Boston & Maine brown bread mix: https://phoebesnowco.com/boston-maine-railroad-bread-mix/

Boston & Maine Railroad New England Brown Bread Mix Boston & Maine style Brown Bread mix. Boston Brown Bread is a classic New England treat! This molasses-rich, dense brown bread is chewy, with a density approaching traditional pumpernickel and studded with raisins, usually fried in butter and serve...

We are please to offer a new book on the Middletown and New Jersey:A History of the Middletown and New Jersey Railway 19...
07/31/2024

We are please to offer a new book on the Middletown and New Jersey:
A History of the Middletown and New Jersey Railway 1947-2023 – No Longer the “Miserable and Nearly Junk”

Special pre-publication price – book release is expected to be August 12.

198 pages, soft cover, glossy paper, indexed, 190 color images and 78 black and white images.

The two predecessors of the Middletown & New Jersey Railway have been well documented in print. These are the Middletown, Unionville & Water Gap Railroad and the Middletown & Unionville Railroad. The M&NJ was incorporated relatively recently, in 1947, and thus had a short history compared to its predecessors until late in the past century.

Circa 1994, the M&NJ joined the ranks of railroad companies with its own historical society, the Middletown & New Jersey Railway Historical Society. It was not long until the group commenced quarterly publication of The Unionville Flyer. In early 2024, the officers of the M&NJ RHS anticipated the arrival of volume 30 of their publication. Rather than publish a conventional issue, it was decided to celebrate our 30th anniversary with publication of a comprehensive history of the M&NJ which was now approaching seventy-seven years of service. As The Unionville Flyer had been published for almost thirty of those seventy-seven years, it was viewed as a basic resource for the project. A cooperative effort ensued and the result is this book.

This is the colorful narrative of a survivor still poised for further expansion and success.

Order a copy here:

A History of the Middletown and New Jersey Railway 1947-2023 - No Longer the “Miserable and Nearly Junk” Special pre-publication price - book release is expected to be August 12. 198 pages, soft cover, glossy paper, indexed, 190 color images and 78 black and white images. The two predecessors of...

The Phoebe Snow Company is pleased to announce the latest book by Pete Brill: D&H Susquehanna Division – Volume I : Bing...
07/25/2024

The Phoebe Snow Company is pleased to announce the latest book by Pete Brill: D&H Susquehanna Division – Volume I : Binghamton – Oneonta 1960 -1983

Special pre-publication price – book release is expected to be August 12.

168 pages, indexed, 131 color images, 17 black and white images, 7 maps/diagrams, 12 illustrations and 25 examples of railroad paper, indexed.

This is the first of two volumes dedicated to the D&H’s Second Subdivision, formerly known as the Susquehanna Division and, before acquisition by the D&H Canal Company, as the Albany & Susquehanna Railroad. While the A&S only built between Albany and the Erie at Binghamton, D&H eventually built westward (railroad direction southward) from a connection to B&M’s predecessor at Mechanicville via Schenectady to the Susquehanna Division main at Delanson to create a route to the gateway to northern New England, Mechanicville, which hosted parallel D&H and B&M yards.

Another railroad taken over by the D&H, the Rensselaer & Saratoga, provided a route north from Albany, a river port with access to the Atlantic Ocean, through what became a heavily industrialized area to Mechanicville and northward to Canada. The segment between Kenwood Yard in Albany and Mechanicville became part of the Saratoga-Champlain Division (Third Subdivision) and is covered in the companion volume as is the Susquehanna Division main line east of Oneonta.

Volume I begins with an extensive review of the D&H in the 1960’s, right up to its acquisition by Guilford Transportation Industries on January 5, 1984, which examines operations, management, ownership, connecting and competing carriers and federal agencies as the once profitable anthracite carrier evolved into a profitable bridge line and then financially dissolved, a victim of forces beyond its control. These included deindustrialization of its territory; frequent turnover in the executive office; loss of its all-important bridge traffic due to the merger movement among the larger eastern carriers; power generation utilities converting from coal to oi and Chessie’s last minute withdrawal from its role as Conrail’s competition and the subsequent hasty and ill-fated expansion of D&H which was dependent on federal agencies wedded to Conrail’s success.

This was not a predictable quarter-century as presidents, such as Frederick Dumaine and Bruce Sterzing, bucked the industry’s national trend. Passenger service was revived with the acquisition of a fleet of iconic Alco PA’s and second-hand passenger equipment. The freight motive power fleet gained national notoriety as well with the purchase of a pair of Baldwin Sharks. Observance of the Nation’s Bicentennial and the D&H’s Sesquicentennial further brightened the mid-1970’s.

Add in a one-time all-Alco roster of RS3’s, RS11’s, RS36’s and C628’s augmented by GE U23B’s, U30C’s and U33C’s contending fore and aft on heavy freights grinding up to Belden Hill Tunnel or the summit of Richmondville Hill and the D&H was a worthy subject of interest. And then the colors of LV and RDG arrived in the form of C420’s, GP38-2’s and GP39-2’s. EL and N&W GE’s, Alco’s and EMD’s, from E8’s and GP9’s to C424’s to SD45 variants, added even more variety to the motive power scene.

The second section of volume I constitutes a tour of the main eastward (railroad direction northward) from Binghamton to Oneonta. Virtually every location, with or without photo coverage, is described with historical text emphasizing rail customers. Photographic coverage includes the Sayre Turn with the Sharks, Liberty Street and Bevier Street yards in Binghamton, Nowlan Road/Hillcrest, Port Dickinson, Sanitaria Springs, Dyes, both sides of Belden Hill Tunnel, Harpursville Trestle, Nineveh Jct., Afton, Bainbridge and Oneonta.

Contributing photographers include; Curt Carlough, Gene Collora, Jerry Dziedzic, Mike Galesi, Jim Gerosky, Bob Pennisi, Rich Pennisi, Rich Taylor and the author.

Pre-order today and lock in the special pre-publication price!

D&H Susquehanna Division - Volume I : Binghamton – Oneonta 1960 -1983 by Peter Brill Special pre-publication price - book release is expected to be August 12. 168 pages, indexed, 131 color images, 17 black and white images, 7 maps/diagrams, 12 illustrations and 25 examples of railroad paper, index...

After a long period of research, the Phoebe Snow Company is please to release the coffee roast used in the Monon's dinin...
06/18/2024

After a long period of research, the Phoebe Snow Company is please to release the coffee roast used in the Monon's dining cars!
Despite long-outdated equipment and minimal schedules, Hoosiers had not lost their love of Monon passenger trains. Riding the Hoosier between Indianapolis and Chicago, in particular, had become a rite for generations of families. The railroad understood that such goodwill was invaluable, but there were limits to the markets the road served and the realities of costs and delivery times for post WWII streamlined cars. Accordingly, the Monon modernized its passenger trains in 1947 on a budget by buying and rebuilding 28 almost-new, scarcely used U.S. Army hospital cars into a fleet of modern coaches and dining, lounge, and parlor-observation cars.
New York industrial designer Raymond Loewy was retained to create interior furnishings and exterior styling for three new trains: the evening Chicago-Indianapolis Hoosier, the morning Tippecanoe, and the Chicago-Louisville Thoroughbred. Loewy clad the trains in a livery suggesting the cream and crimson of Indiana University and the freight diesels in Purdue University’s black and gold, both of the state’s biggest schools being on-line. All of these trains offered dining car service. Passenger service ended September 30, 1967.
For the better part of a century, Reid, Murdoch & Company was the granddaddy of gargantuan wholesale grocery establishments in a city that was home to plenty of them – Chicago. From humble pre-Civil War roots on the Western frontier, the business evolved into a leading manufacturer and importer of canned food products, with more than 250 different offerings available under its popular Monarch label by the 1920s—including jams, jellies, pickles, coffees, teas, and cocoa. These products were sold exclusively to independent merchants rather than chain stores, making Reid-Murdoch one of the last great champions of the mom & pop shop—despite existing as a coast-to-coast corporation in its own right.
As part of the Monon’s effort to revitalize its passenger trains, it came to Reid, Murdoch & Company to have a custom version of its Monarch coffee created for them. This Colombian and Guatemalan blend is our most developed roast that conveys a flavor profile that was intentionally designed to work well with milk or cream, creating a rich, decadent flavor. It involves a natural, dense coffee that binds to the fats and creates multiple complex caramelized notes during the roasting process. Look for the dark chocolate undertones!
Several generations have now passed since the last of Monarch’s “Finer Foods” were shipped out to retailers in the 1960s, and Reid-Murdoch’s once ubiquitous lion-head logo and kitchen cabinet cachet have been almost entirely forgotten in the process. Now we are able to bring the Monon’s coffee back, over 50 years since it was last roasted!
We ensure that dining car experience by roasting only the highest quality beans in small batches to ensure you experience a great cup of coffee every time.
Just roasted, you can order Monon coffee here: https://phoebesnowco.com/monon-coffee/

The Phoebe now Company now has Lackawanna tea, along with several other great teas. Tea lovers, take a look!https://pho...
04/26/2024

The Phoebe now Company now has Lackawanna tea, along with several other great teas. Tea lovers, take a look!
https://phoebesnowco.com/tea/

We will have a table at the Jersey Central Chapter, NRHS show at Mother Seton High School in Clark, NJ this Sunday. We ...
03/01/2024

We will have a table at the Jersey Central Chapter, NRHS show at Mother Seton High School in Clark, NJ this Sunday. We will have our usual supply of coffee and bake mixes on hand. We will have all of our books, including copies of our newly released reprint of the CNJ's 1927 Official Freight Shippers Guide.

New CNJ book - coming soon!
02/16/2024

New CNJ book - coming soon!

The Northampton & Bath Railroad and Beyond by Peter BrillPrepublication sale price – expected release date is December 2...
12/13/2023

The Northampton & Bath Railroad and Beyond by Peter Brill

Prepublication sale price – expected release date is December 27th.

168 pages, soft cover, glossy paper, indexed, 46 color and 34 b&w prints, 28 illustrations, 10 maps & 16 schedules/paper.

During the Nation’s period of rapid industrialization in the early 1900’s, The Atlas Portland Cement Company was, for a time, the world’s greatest manufacturer of Portland cement and the complex of three mills at Northampton was the foundation of the company’s success.

Initially, Atlas relied on its Atlas Railroad to operate mill trackage as well as a spur to the nearby CNJ which handled all of the mill’s traffic. In 1902, the cement company incorporated the Northampton and Bath Railroad to take over the Atlas Railroad trackage outside the mill and operate as a wholly owned common carrier. Within three years, the N&B was extended to Bath Jct. and connections with the L&NE and DL&W. Despite these developments, the N&B, throughout its existence, was just a minor factor in this huge cement manufacturing enterprise as far as the value of the railroad company’s assets and its visibility, or lack thereof, but it was a key element in the operations of “The Atlas”.

N&B was dedicated to Atlas but Atlas was not as dedicated to N&B. Atlas repeatedly filed complaints relating to railroad freight rates with the ICC and, in at least one case, the N&B was among the defendants. Beyond that, Atlas was unique among the several dozen cement companies in the northeast as it operated large mills in the two competing cement districts, the Lehigh and the Hudson River. Atlas took pains to protect the large New England market for its Hudson, NY mill and this involved ICC filings concerning rail rates that were contested by all the other Lehigh District mills.

Introduction of electric power into the region by Lehigh Coal & Navigation, a large anthracite mining concern looking to burn its waste coal in a huge generating plant, displaced much, if not all, of the inbound anthracite tonnage for the mill powerhouses throughout the Lehigh Cement District as well as in slate quarries. The N&B was able to absorb this blow.

Under the ownership of Atlas, N&B essentially lacked a freight car roster. This circumstance was remedied when U. S. Steel acquired Atlas in 1930 and merged it with its own Universal Portland Cement subsidiary. The new company, Universal Atlas Portland Cement, transferred box cars to N&B and built up a fleet of several hundred cars to protect cement loading requirements at Northampton and provide N&B with a second source of income from car hire.

So, the little N&B went about its business in unremarked fashion, that is until the early 1930’s when it ventured head long into industry notoriety and, in 1934, became the Nation’s first common carrier to be 100% dieselized. Then, it was back to anonymity for another forty years until it fell victim to the general decline of the Lehigh Cement District and the former Atlas complex at Northampton in particular as well as the rise of the trucking industry aided by a new Interstate Highway System. The contraction of the region’s rail network was another negative factor.

The N&B coped with reduced traffic by repeated downsizing until all that remained was a one-engine operation on a three days weekly schedule. However, even that could not stop the annual financial loss. N&B passed into history a few years before the closure of the last Atlas mill, operating at just one quarter of capacity and relying solely on trucks. All but about a half-mile of track was scrapped out.

But, like an “extinguished fire” that smoulders and might eventually burst into flames, this tiny vestige of N&B trackage was eventually acquired by the neighboring trucking company owner who apparently envisioned some potential value if only to support his road salt business. The resulting NDC (Northampton Development Center) Railroad had a long, slow start but eventually found its salvation in a transloading operation. This “new” railroad has now survived almost four decades, expanded its track network and achieved annual carload volume exceeding three thousand units.

The pioneering diesel roster was notable for the three Westinghouse units that abolished steam in road service in 1934. Its steam roster was populated by a menagerie of small steamers with and without tenders. But, the N&B did manage to host steam royalty in the 1970’s, as a Canadian Pacific Royal Hudson underwent successful restoration on the property.

168 pages, soft cover, glossy paper, indexed, 46 color and 34 b&w prints, 28 illustrations, 10 maps & 16 schedules/paper.

Order now and get the prepublication sale price:
https://phoebesnowco.com/northampton-and-bath/

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Strasburg, PA
17579

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