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Show 6T The Salt Luke Tribanc Sunday, September 30, 1984 Berkshire Railway is the way to see New England by James Brooke New York Times Writer Moss and ferns cover an old cut in the granite. The scent of pine needles blows in an open window. Overhead, maple branches interlace in a receding tunnel of green. At first I was antsy because it was so slow, said David Klausemeyer, a paper company executive. "Then, when I got off I realized how tranquil it had been." For people who race all week, the Berkshire Scenic Railway in Lee, Mass, offers 15 miles of nature and history on the weekends at 10 miles an hour. Inaugurated in July, the railway makes three round trips each Saturday and Sunday, and links the towns of Lee, Stockbridge and Great Barrington. Each station is within a walk of the town center, and the Lee and Stockbridge stations have restaurants offering lunch and dinner. A family can make the ride a leisurely daylong excursion. The towns are easy to explore on foot, and the railroad line offers an absorbing mix of natural vistas and unexpected inAmerican sights into history. Todays passengers contemplating stands of purple loosestrife or a quarry that supplied marble for the Washington Monument can give thanks to the underpowered steam locomotives of the 1840s. Lines Wanders A Bit . five-minu- te 19th-centur- y . ,.,The surveyors in 1842 always searched for the easiest grade, so the line wanders a bit and ends up being terribly scenic, said James N. Parrish, a local historian whose greatgrandfather was an engineer on the fine from 1868 to 1938. .. . So trains on the Berkshire line of today and of 140 years ago leisurely rock and sway along the path of least resistance, which in this case is the bank of the Housatonic River. The ride starts at Lee Station, a carefully restored building constructed in 1893. Now a restaurant, the station is ticket office and home depot for the Berkshire Scenic Railway. railMaintaining a road tradition, Dan Sullivan, the posts sports news and stock tables from The Berkshire Ea- -' gle each day on a cork board in the mens room. He has also carefully stripped black paint from the station one a safe, revealing two paintings river scene and the other a seascape on the front of the approximately safe. board-and-batt- 19th-centu- ry ot . . The stations yellow pine waiting room is now a pleasant dining room in which to eat before or after the tain ride. Called Sullivan Station, the restaurant offers railroad fare steaks, chops and as well as sandwiches ($4 and beer tavern catered to passengers riding stagecoaches of the Red Bird line, which ran between Hartford and Albany. After decades in private hands, the house reopened in 1982 as a bed and breakfast Immediately afterward on the right is the Hurlbut paper mill built in 1868. In the late 19th century, Lee had 18 paper mills, but the Hurlbut mill, now owned by Mead Specialty Papers, is one of only three remaini- with names such as The Club The Uonelle and "The Super-lin- e Burger. The train theme continues in a 1941 red caboose where railroad buffs can buy engineer caps, antique signal lamps and dish towels, aprons, quilts all printed with the and calendars railroad motif. An Industrial Workhorse The railroad's locomotive is parked on a siding nearby. An indus1947 trial workhorse, it is an diesel General Electric Center Cab. The passenger coaches, four Erie Lackawanna coaches, rolled for decades with the New Jersey Transit Authority before coming to the Berkshires for a genteel retirement this summer. Several gallons of paint thinner and no small amount of elbow grease were used to remove decades of New Jersey grime; now the Berkshire Railway is one of the few where you can lean your arm on the windowsill without worrying about dirtying a sleeve. Volunteers stripped off coats of paint and uncovered mahagony arm rests, globe lamps with brass collars and cast-iro- n bases as well as two sets of clerestory windows. The seats are comfortable padded vinyl or wicker. Next season, the Sullivans hope to add a dining car. A blast from the locomotives air horn is the signal to climb aboard (it will also become a reminder to sit in the back, after one makes the mistake of sitting directly in the horns line of fire). During the ride to Great Barrington, the engineer gives loud blasts at unprotected crossings, and the air bom soon loses its appeal As passengers pull out of Lee they see on their right two houses listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The first is the Hyde House, a Federal structure built in 1793. Painted maroon and gray and standing on a knoll, the house was the home of Lees first minister. To the left is the largely abandoned chasm of Lee Marble Company. During the second half of the 19th century, marble blocks from the quarry were shipped down the rail line to help build the Washington Monument, the Capitol and St. Patricks Cathedral. 35) Car, ng. Rolling through a wilder stretch, the train passes lily ponds where duck hunters have set decoys among the cattails and bulrushes. Stretching along the horizon to the left is Bear-tow- n State Forest where, after a long absence, black bears were spotted this year. Underbrush along the line has yet to be cut back for some of the better views and occasionally a branch slaps in an open window. Dick Hover, a conductor, discourages passengers from sticking their arms out of the windows, and in an amiable way wishes everyone a good time. Even so, some passengers insist on reaching out to pick black-eye- d Susans, goldenrod and Queen Annes lace. It used to be that you could ask the engineer to stop if you wanted to pick foliage in the fall, recalled one passenger who rode the Berkshire line in the 1920s. This is a real nice stre.ch of track, Hover said on a recent run. The conductor spent 15 years with Penn Central as brakeman, swing-mafireman and conductor. But after a prolonged layoff, he now drives a truck during the week for the state highway department Id go back in five minutes, Hover said of his life on the rails. A volunteer, he rides the Berkshire run every weekend wearing his old Penn Central cap. Suspension Footbridge Shortly before pulling into Stock-bridg- e Station, passengers can spot a single-spa- n suspension footbridge. The bridge leads to a limestone chasm called Ice Glen and was built by the Laurel Hill Association. Founded in 1853, the association is believed to be the first village improvement society in America. In 1889, the association complained to the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad about their towns depot, which they disdained as an ugly little frame building. By the late 19th centuiy, the Berkshire line had become chic as wealthy families from New York started building elegant summer cottages." In the tax era, Sloans, Vanderbilts and Westinghouses arrived by private railroad car to visit their estates in what was rapidly becoming a Newport in the mountains. 80-to- n, 19205-vinta- n, National Register House Soon on the right, one sees the back Register bouse the red brick, with white trim, Mer-re- ll strucTavern. The Federal-styl- e ture was built in 1794 by Timothy Witten, a businessman who later became a general in the state militia. During the early 19th century, the of another National pre-inco- LEISURE TOURS TRAVEL JOIN NOW and Receive Monthly TRAVEL BULLETINS I . i 130 I I Dbl. Occ. DEEP SOUTH, FLORIDA, GRAND OLE OPRY A WORLD'S FAIR TOUR Oet. 12 I I I I I I 22Doy Includes transportation All rooming accommoda lions tour El Paso. Juarez San Antonio Houston 3 nights New Orleans tor complete city tour with River Boat Cruise Full day World s Fair Tallahassee Cypress Gardens Orlando lor DiSNEYWORlO or EPCOT CENTER Miami Key West St Augus tine. Atlanta Nashville lot Grande Ole Opry 8 Oprytand Memphis and much much more $975 Dbl. Occ. RENO A LAKE TAHOE TOUR Oct. 1 5H-- 5 Days I I I I I Includes transportation, tour Reno with gift package Carson City and Virginia City two nights at So Shore Lake Tahoe with complete tour around lake Return E ko Nev $159 Dbl. Occ. W.F. JOHNSON TRAVEL AGENCY Johnson SuiH 122 Temple in a Utah MIOl bka ril O0O7XZ Howca-- 101 , Hotel, So It W. Sovth v City. v, f Norman Rockwells hometown, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, is one of the stops on the Berkshire Scenic Railway trip through New Englands Berkshires. Twelve trains a day on the line was not unusual, and the Friday night train out of Grand Central to the Berkshires was called The Millionaire Special. The millionaires would often have milk and eggs sent down from their farms in the Berkshires so they would arrive in New York by dinner time, said Parrish. In this gilded era, Stockbridges drafty depot was no longer suitable. According to Parrish, Joseph Choate, then the Ambassador to Britain, enlisted Stanford White to draft blueprints for a new Stockbridge station. At the time, White was designing Naumkeag, Choates summer home in Stockbridge. The result, completed in 1893, is a English Gothic-revivbuilding, with blue dolomite walls and an American shingle roof. The station is now a restaurant called John Henrys. Red Lion Inn For passengers who want to explore Stockbridge, the Red Lion Inn, the Mission House and the Norman Rockwell Museum at the Corner House are a walk away. A few minutes out of Stockbridge, the single track follows the river bank in a long double-- S curve. At one turn in the river, one spies water spilling over the dam of an old stone powerhouse. Built in 1907 on the fast al five-minu- te est stretch of rapids in the area, the powerhouse was abandoned in 1948. But the energy crisis made small-scal- e hydroelectric projects viable again, and, in 1979, the powerhouse reopened. The train runs through a cool glade of pines, and then suddenly emerges into the sunlight. Crossing a river trestle, passengers get an unexpected view of Monument Mountain, a 1,710-fopeak. Looking downriver, one can also sight the remains of a dam for the power station of Monument Mills. In the 1890s, William Stanley, a Great Barrington native and inventor of the transformer, used this hydro station to experiment with alternating current In 1894, he made the worlds transmission of first long-need- During the Civil War, Monument Mills churned out material for uniforms. Now, the partially abandoned complex recalls the earliest days of Americas industrial revolution, A far cry from the todays leafy hills, Berkshire county was a national textile center in the mid-19t- h century. About 85 percent of the land was deforested and given over to raising sheep for wool. le A few miles down the track, after crossing a flat farming plain, the train passes an oddly familiar Gothic church on the left Built as a farmers chapel in 1887, the deconsecrated structure gained national fame in 1969 as the home of Alice Brock in the counterculture movie Alices Res- taurant long-distan- Centennial Mill alternating current, high-volta- Approaching Great Barrington, one glimpses on the left the last paper mill on the route, the Victorian towers of the Centennial MilL Built in 1873 and now the Rising Paper Company, the mill produces what is considered to be among the finest quality rag papers in the world. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has used Rising paper to back paintings and prints in its collection. Arriving in Great Barrington, passengers disembark at the 1901 beaux arts-styl- e station. The last train to New York rolled through in 1972, sending 1,500 volts from the power station to Great Barrington, seven and a half miles away. Rising on the right, shortly after the river is crossed, is the brick complex of Monument Mills in the town of Housatonic. Monument Mills, founded in 1850 when the railroad was completed, came to reign for 60 years as the worlds largest producer of woven cotton bedspreads. The first workers were Irish immigrants who had fled the potato famines of the 1840s, built the Berkshire line, and then stayed on to work in the mills. SKYWAYS TRAVEL & TOURS I 12th 3 Day Includes Transportation, accommodations Tour Capitol Reel NatT Park. Natural Bridges. BY , CANYONLANDS Nigrit boat cruise Arches NatT Park Oeadhorse Point FULLY ESCORTED 3 nmwWE CLUB""3I CANYONUkNDS TOUK OCTOBER , Since 1977 419 HAWAII 8 DAYS AUTUMN IN EUROPE PARIS (one way) $749 LONDON AMSTERDAM $790 ALL AIRFARES FROM NEW ORLEANS 3 Days From hid. R T. orfare from SIC ADO 3.00 DIP. 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