WWII Eldred Museum
In the small town of Eldred, Pennsylvania, there is a unique World War II museum commemorating wartime factory workers. This program takes viewers on a tour of the museum, which houses a research library, exhibits, and an extensive memorabilia collection.
WWII Veteran Guy Prestia, 45th Inf Div, 157th Inf Reg, Co. E
Filmed on October 26th, 2019 at the Eldred WWII Museum in Eldred Pennsylvania.
97 year old WWII Veteran, Guy Prestia from Ellwood City Pennsylvania was born on April 26th, 1922. After graduating high school in 1940, Guy worked as a machine shop apprentice making war materials for the Soviet Union.
On November 21st, 1942 in Erie Pennsylvania he was drafted into the US Army. He served as a BAR gunner with the 45th Infantry Division (Thunderbirds) 157th Infantry Regiment, E Company. Guy would go on to serve with the 45th for the entirety of his unit’s time in combat including places such as Sicily, Salerno, Monte Casino, Anzio, Southern France, and Germany. Guy also participated in the liberation of the Dachau Concentration Camp.
Thank you to our friends at the Eldred WWII Museum for for hosting Guy and his family and allowing him to speak about his extensive wartime experiences it was an honor to have the opportunity to listen to what he had to say.
WWII Revisited 2010 Pennsylvania Military Museum.wmv
The Pennsylvania Military Museum in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania has hosted a WWII weekend on the Saturday and Sunday before Memorial Day since 1999. A dedicated core group of reenactors from three states interpert field life in occupied France ca.1944. Visit our local PBS affiliate WPSU at for an audio story of the event.
Southern Michigan Railroad
*This footage will be included in our Shortlines of Michigan DVD and will include interviews and more cab footage on this railroad.
The Michigan Southern Railroad, between 1846 and 1852, completed the former state Southern Railroad across Michigan, around Lake Michigan into Chicago. The Palmyra and Jacksonburgh Railroad was not part of the Michigan Southern Railroad's link with the western territories in American, and continued serving the railroad industry through the Civil War years.
In 1855, the Michigan Southern Railroad consolidated with the Northern Indiana Railroad and became the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad, still including the Palmyra and Jacksonburgh Branch line.
The Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad consolidated with the Lake Shore Railway in 1869 becoming the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad. Later that year, the Railroad joined the Buffalo and Erie Railroad. Rails now reached into New York. From Lake Erie into Michigan, over to Illinois and back east to New York, railroad mania had gripped the nation.
In 1915, the New York Central Railroad incorporated and grew by leaps and bounds, gathering up railroads one after another. It consolidated with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern along with ten other railroads, bought another and leased some to become the huge New York Central System, still including the Palmyra and Jacksonburgh Branch. Operations continued through World War I.
By 1938, the onset of the automobile and its effect on people and business caused a reduction of passenger and freight traffic, and passenger service was discontinued but freight service continued through World War II. In 1963 and 1965 tracks were removed between Jackson and Clinton, and the Jackson Branch was eliminated. The Palmyra and Jacksonburgh Branch, however, continued carrying freight from its new northernmost terminal at Clinton, and soon became known as the country and its railroad industry was recovering from the Second World War, rail freight continued its downward spiral, and suddenly, in 1968 the huge New York Central System merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad into the organizational Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company, later to be renamed the Penn Central Transportation Company.
During 1969, the Penn Central Transportation Company received the operations of the Penn Central Railroad, which was operating the Palmyra and Jacksonburgh under the new system, and promptly began bankruptcy proceedings for Penn Central Railroad in 1970. With the track receiving limited use, Conrail filed for abandonment of the line in 1981. The little Palmyra and Jacksonburgh Branch again seemed doomed to disappear from the railroad scene.
When three high school students in Clinton, Michigan learned that the historical track would be abandoned and it was at risk to be removed permanently, Dale Pape, John Shaw, and Jeff Dobek banded together to save the track. All three were members of the Lenawee Model Railroaders association at the time. The newly formed volunteer Southern Michigan Railroad Society, Inc., purchased the Clinton Branch and transformed it into an operating railroad museum in 1985.
Faced with railroad obscurity, the Southern Michigan Railroad survived its tumultuous past making it truly the little railroad that could. Today, the Southern Michigan Railroad Society, Inc. continues to preserve, restore and educate the public about the first branch line railroad off the first railroad in the Michigan Territory. The SMRS Museum offers nostalgic train tours over the remaining track of the early Palmyra and Jacksonburgh Railroad.
The Jackson Branch Bridge No. 15, also known as the Tecumseh Railroad Bridge due to its close proximity to the city of Tecumseh, is a historic railway deck truss bridge that spans the River Raisin in rural Raisin Charter Township in Lenawee County, Michigan. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 2001.
The 254-foot-10½-inch-long (77.7 m) bridge was built in 1896 by Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway's Jackson Branch and carries a single track over the River Raisin. The railway sits 40 feet (12 m) above the river's surface. The line itself is an active railroad. The Southern Michigan Railroad Society purchased the Jackson Branch and the bridge in 1985, and operates historic trains on the bridge. The closest road to the bridge is North Raisin Center Highway approximately 250 feet (76 m) east of the bridge. The area is heavily wooded, and the bridge cannot be seen from the roadway during the summer months. Access to the bridge is strictly prohibited, however it can be crossed via passenger train.
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