Tracking down the ghost of the Old Woman...
 Cooks Falls then - an FT powered freight in the 1950's - Jim Shaugnessy photo from To The Mountains By Rail |
 Cooks Falls now - The bridge that the train was crossing is still in place and can still be seen through the trees. |
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One of the few remaining recognizable locations in Livingston Manor is the old Dubois house. The original still stands at the site of the grade crossing. Unless you knew better it would be impossible to identify this as being a railroad related location.
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The old Manor grade crossing in somewhat better days. The old DuBois store on the right burned down in the 1970's. |
 Model view of the same scene |
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Little of the actual railroad remains in "The Manor", and the freight station is looking much worse for the wear every time I see it. Still standing are the small bridge across the Cat-tail that carried the O&W rails, the remains of the Sherwood Ten-Pin Mill (they made bowling pins) and a few smaller structures. The station and surrounding structures are long gone, replaced by a car wash and storage shed. |
An attempt to find the site of Upper Liberty trestle shows just how many things have changed since 1957. Guided by an aerial photo in Wakefield’s "To the Mountains by Rail" I attempted to navigate the streets in the area and could find nothing. Then, almost purely by accident, I found myself at the Hillside Greenhouses. I knew from my research that these were just below the old trestle. A visual search of the tree covered hills above yielded the location of the south fill and abutment, and from there I was able to locate the north abutment. Time has not been kind to this site. Some of the fill from the north abutment has been removed, but if you look closely it is possible to make out the abutment and the foundations for the bridge piers on the valley floor. The biggest visual change is again in the foliage. I stood on the north abutment and took this photo across the valley towards the south abutment. The shot is almost identical to the one in Paul Lubliner’s "NYO&W in Color" seen next to it, but its almost impossible to tell. If you look hard you will just be able to make out the dip in the far tree line that shows where the cut used to be….
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| Upper Liberty Trestle while being torn down in the late fifties. From The O&W in Color. | Upper Liberty Trestle now from the same spot - really! I am standing on the north abutment looking over the valley where the trestle once stood. You can just make out the footings in the valley and the cut on the distant hill. |
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The last comparison photo is the site of the old White Bridge crossing just north of the trestle. I stumbled on this place completely by accident while searching for the trestle site. This is the location of the photo that has been published in both "To the Mountains by Rail" and Carstens’ "The Final Years". The photo shows a Y class 4-8-2 on the front of a long freight with both mid-train and rear-end helpers. If you look closely you will see Upper Liberty trestle in the background. Today the right-of way is filling in with debris and dirt, but the old bridge abutments from the original Liberty Highway bridge can still be seen in both the original and the current photo. Otherwise the silence is deafening….
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| A light 400 (4-8-2) pulls a freight under the White Bridge crossing in Liberty. This bridge was re-aligned in the 1920's leaving the original abutments in place. Note the mid train helper on the left edge, and the upper Liberty trestle in the left center background . | The same location now. The bridge abutments and cut are still there, but only just recognizable. |