2026 Meetings

1967 Trifecta – Boston, a Ride on the New Haven, and the Philadelphia ERA Convention

What better high school graduation present than a trip to Boston and Philadelphia to tour the transit systems? In the summer of 1967, fifty-nine years ago, I spent four days in Boston, a day riding the New Haven and Pennsylvania Railroads down the Northeast Corridor, then four days in Philadelphia at the Electric Railroaders Association convention. I will share my exhilarating experience of riding PCC’s, various El cars, Reading MU cars, Liberty Liners, Brilliners, Red Arrow Bullets, trolleybuses and more.

David Wilson has been infatuated with trains and trolley cars since infancy. As a teen-ager, he worked at the RELIC (now Fox River) Trolley Museum near Chicago. He joined CERA in Chicago at age sixteen and ERA at age eighteen. He has presented transportation and history related programs in the nearly six decades since. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in transportation. In his forty-eight career he worked for four railroads and a freight forwarder. He finished his career in 2015 as a bus route planner for the Chicago Transit Authority. He previously authored From Garfield ‘L’ to Blue Line Rapid Transit and has recently published Towns Along the Q, chronicling the evolution of 14 Chicago suburbs along the Metra BNSF train line.