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Welcome! 

If you’re not familiar with it, “Tales from the River” is a bulletin board humor column I wrote during my railroad career from 1994 to 2019.  The River referred to is Cornrail’s (Now CS&M’s) River Line between Selkirk Yard (near Albany, NY) and Northern New Jersey.  

   If you are familiar with “Tales from the River” you’re probably wondering; “What took you so long?”  I had a lot of work to do in preparation for this website, and to be honest, I didn’t even start until after the pandemic.

   The first fifty-eight issues were written on an early version of Microsoft Word which was incompatible with later versions, so I had to reformat most of them and completely re-write others.  Some of you who possess precious original copies might notice that some issues have been changed. 

  In addition, I’ve edited some to eliminate as many copyright issues as possible.  Getting permissions is a difficult chore, one I haven’t had much success with so far.  Many of the items were from periodicals or companies that haven't existed in decades.

   Finally, many of the names have been changed to protect the innocent (namely me!)  After all, these are companies that extort licensing fees from model train manufacturers.

​   You’ll also notice that some issues are missing.  There are several reasons for this.   Besides the format and copyright issues mentioned above, I’ve omitted some issues that didn’t cover railroad subjects, such as politics or the Dallas Cowboys.  Other issues have not stood up well and one even got lost.  I suffered a computer crash years ago and lost issue 103.  ( If anyone out there has a copy of “Operation T.Y.P.” please let me know!)

​

The pages are organized as follows:

​

THE "CORNRAIL" YEARS

  -Issues 1-61,133 (1994-1999)

THE "CS&M" YEARS

  -Issues 62-132, (1999-2019)

STORIES

  -Stories of some of my more interesting trips; I'm still working on these.

STUFF FROM OTHERS

  -Gems culled from bulletin boards over the years.

HISTORIES

  -Non-humorous issues on railroad history.

​

To help you browse the issues, I've added a comprehensive list of issues.  It includes every issue, including those that were lost or omitted. 

  1. Horror Comic Cover

  2. Win a Jeep

  3. Lyin’ L Collection

  4. Bridge Jobs

  5. Political (Omitted)

  6. Garage Sale

  7. History of the River Line (History page)

  8. Cornrail News Bites

  9. Tomass Gets Flushed

  10. Cornrail News Bites II

  11. Brotherhood of Super Pool Engineers Notice

  12. Daphne’s Hammy Menu

  13. Christmas in Harrisburg

  14. Cornrail Book of Records

  15. Snow Songs

  16. I Hate the Cowboys (Omiited, not RR subject)

  17. History of the Chicago Line

  18. Political  (Omitted)

  19. The Club

  20. Cornrail 20th Birthday

  21. New Tomass Books

  22. New Cornrail Smoking Policy

  23. History of Railroad Aviation

  24. Lyin’L New for ‘96

  25. River Line Train Parlay

  26. Cornrail News Bites III

  27. Getting Off Moving Equipment

  28. Cornrail News Bites IV

  29. STO Aptitude Test

  30. Merger Top Ten

  31. Contract Issue

  32. Super Pool Gift Catalog

  33. Crew Caller Aptitude Test

  34. Cornrail News Bites V

  35. Differences between Cornrail and the Titanic

  36. C.E.O.B.S.

  37. Cornrail News Bites VI

  38. T-shirts

  39. Swan Motel

  40. Ethics Quiz

  41. Buffalo Regular Jobs

  42. Signs You Might be a Slacker

  43. The Grump on the Hump

  44. Signs Your Engineer Might be a Road Foreman

  45. The Slacker Hacker’s Visit to Selkirk

  46. Meals for Motormen

  47. CSM is Coming to Town

  48. Cliff’s Notes for Alertness Around the Clock

  49. Symptoms of Mental Illness in Railroaders

  50. Helpful Hints for New Hires

  51. Reasons to Get Rid of the Super Pool

  52. The Greatest Story Ever Sold

  53. How the Cornrail Sale Will Affect You

  54. Microsoft Puzzle

  55. Merger Update

  56. Norfolk Southern Wanted Poster

  57. Extra!! Extra!!

  58. New from Lyin’L for 1998

  59. SD80MAC Safety Hazards

  60. Signs of Spring on the Railroad

  61. Union Merger Flowchart

  62. Top “CS&M” Pet Peeves

  63. (Missing)

  64. “CS&M” Employee Gift Guide

  65. Y2K at “CS&M”

  66. Super Pool Abolished!

  67. Bring Back Dave!

  68. Railroad Themed Television Shows

  69. Subtle Ways that “CS&M” has Changed Our Lives

  70. How do You like Us Now?

  71. Scary Thoughts!!

  72. “Lyin’L” Model Train Collection

  73. Political (Omitted)

  74. The World’s Hardest Scavenger Hunt

  75. C.E.O.B.S. Lesson Two

  76. “Cheesie System” Life Critical Rules

  77. “CS&M” Survivor

  78. Your Odds of going to the Super Bowl

  79. Remote Control Q. & A.

  80. Hospital Bed Thank You Note

  81. Good Things About a Lengthy Hospital Stay

  82. Does “CS&M” Suck?

  83. “CS&M” Awarded Contract to Operate Iraqi Railways

  84. Signs the End is Near!

  85. Remote Control Comes to Selkirk.

  86. “Lyin’L River Line Collection for 2003

  87. Operating the New SD70AC;s

  88. The fifth best railroad in North America

  89. Are You Ready for “My One Plan”?

  90. (Missing)

  91. The “Mighty Mohawk” Train set from Lyin’L

  92. “One Plan” Important Message

  93. The Selkirk Monorail

  94. E-rat is Watching You!

  95. Handy-Dandy All-Purpose Train Delay Form

  96. “Lyin’L” New For 2005

  97. CSMTV is on the Air!

  98. R.F.E. Elmo

  99. Derailment of the Month

  100. News Bites

  101. The Bulletin Buddy

  102. Railroad Cell Phone Annoyances

  103. Operation TYP “Take Your Pension” (Lost)

  104. “Gee, I Miss Conrail” Iron-on

  105. How Tomorrow Gridlocks

  106. Nightmare on Bell Crossing Road

  107. Locker up for bid on “Feepay”

  108. What I Learned from Watching “Unstoppable”

  109. (Missing)

  110. Occupy Selkirk

  111. The Railroad that Sank with the Titanic (History page)

  112. Political (Omitted)

  113. Disturbing Similarities between Train Buffs and Gun Buffs

  114. Points to Ponder Before Taking the Flowback

  115. “Lyin;L” Worcester Express Train Set

  116. (Missing)

  117. The Real Reason Merger Talks Broke Off 

  118. Veteran’s Poster

  119. Some Winter Day in the Near Future

  120. The Slacker Hacker: NEXT!

  121. A Brief History of Timetables

  122. Everybody into the Pool!

  123. Political (Omitted)

  124. FMLA Letter from “CS&M”

  125. The Slacker Hacker is Busy

  126. The Great American Eclipse

  127. Comments posted on the Cayce Wreck

  128. We do it All for Our Shareholders

  129. The Baby Train (Omitted, copyrighted material)

  130. Helpful Hints for PTC

  131. Helpful Hints for Trainmasters

  132. The Adventures of Trainmaster

  133. Getting the First Stack Trains to South Kearny

Below is a copy of the "Railroader-English Dictionary" for those not familiar with the terminology of railroaders.  I will expand on this later, but it is one of the issues that currently exists only on paper.

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The issues are 200 DPI .PNG scans of the original Word documents.  They are in black and white where possible to keep the file size as low as possible.  However,some are in greyscale or even color when neccessary.

LEGAL STUFF

“Tales from the River” is a work of satire.  While inspired by real events, nothing in it is to be taken as factual.

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