(click on image for larger view)
(By Marty Biniasz) This past Saturday, America celebrated the first ever “National Train Day.” The date, May 10th, commemorated the driving of the “Golden Spike” in Promontory Summit that ceremonially created the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. The 2008 celebration featured parties at New York’s Penn Station and Union stations in Washington DC, Chicago and Los Angeles.
With the opening of the New York Central Railroad’s Belt Line in the late 1800s and then the completion of Buffalo’s Central Terminal in 1929, the Polonia District began a unique civic relationship with railroads. To this day, hundreds of freight and passenger trains traverse the neighborhood adding flashes of color to the historic landscape. The distant sound of melodic horns are just as common as the bells from the steeples of St. Stan’s and Corpus Christi.
The picture attached was taken on May 10th on Howard Street as Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited headed west to Chicago. A half century ago, the 20th Century Limited would have stopped at the Central Terminal as it followed the same route to the “windy city.”
