By John M. ZornowEngine 3110 makes its last run on Pearl Street on April 13, 1954
The Newark-Marion Railway is history now, with only an abandoned bridge remaining. The short line served Marion's vast shipping needs for produce and by 1954 the line had been absorbed by the Pennsylvania Railroad and the last steam engine made way for a diesel.
The Newark-Marion had been intended as an electric road that would connect in Newark with the Rochester Syracuse & Eastern trolley. The owners ran out of money early on, no lines or substations were installed and it became a steam road, hauling freight and maintaining a small passenger business. Older residents remember when the tracks ran in front of homes on East Pearl Street prior to connecting with the "Pennsy" line.
In anticipation of the connection with the RS&E, tracks were laid all the way up Newark's North Main Street, then called Willow Avenue, but the West Shore Railroad Co. refused to let the N-M cross their right of way. The unused tracks may still exist under the pavement of North Main Street. A massive reconstruction of that street scheduled for 2012 will reveal if the tracks still exist.
Steam -Engine Whistle, by Minnie Moody
Listen my grandson-just beyond the hill
It lifts its lonesone voice and wails once more.
A sound with heartbreak in it, tired and shrill;
A sound a million boys have heard before,
And in the night time they have raised there heads
just as you are doing now, and felt a strange wonder catch hold of them in their safe beds,
Till the sound sped far off and out of range
It was a sound to part the buffalo grass
Long years ago; a sound with history in it
Baltimore, Kansas City, Donner Pass.......
Listen, my grandson, listen for a minute,
And then remember always, if you can
It will be gone forever, when you're a man.
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