PASSENGER TRAIN ROLLS THROUGH
Some light shed on mysterious train

Dozens of vehicles trailed this train as it chugged along Route 120 south of Cameron County recently. Drivers would speed ahead and photograph it as it passed.

Those relatively few local residents who were able to see a rare passenger train pass through Cameron and McKean counties last Monday agreed that it was a sight to behold.

Three massive locomotives owned by a Philadelphia area man pulled more than a dozen privately owned passenger cars along a route that passed Keating

Summit

and continued through the heart of Cameron County.

Bennett Levin's massive E-8 locomotives, manufactured by the Electro Motor Division in the early 1950s, made it all possible.

A hobbyist extraordinaire and retired professional engineer, Levin has restored the engines to represent the locomotives used by the Pennsylvania Railroad. In past years, he has donated his engines to carry soldiers from Walter Reed Medical

Center to Philadelphia, so that those

injured in the Persian Gulf could

enjoy the Army-Navy football

game.

Last week, Levin's locomotives powered the "Steamtown Express."

He joined train hobbyists, passenger car owners, tourists and friends on a whirlwind tour that took in some of Pennsylvania's most spectacular scenery and regions where the Iron Horse helped to tame the wilderness.

Passengers taking the entire tour boarded on the morning of Nov. 2 in Philadelphia, bound for Reading and Allentown, then on to Easton.

Stops were pre-arranged to allow photography of the train at numerous landmarks. The Steamtown Express crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey and then made its way to Scranton, a railroad capital of the eastern U.S.

Next stop was Binghamton, N.Y., followed by a second layover in Olean. Passengers reboarded on Monday morning to continue the southward journey.

Some of the 15 historic cars had sleeping, showering and eating facilities. Several railroad clubs added their private railroad cars to the train and allowed members to ride for a fee. Other railroad buffs rode in cars to meet te train at certain locations. Still others heard about the Steamtown Express and were waiting at stops along the way.

Levin said the red Pennsylvania Railroad business car transported President John F. Kennedy from Washington to Philadelphia in 1961 and again in 1962.

Levin credited his wife, Vivian, with the plan to transport Persian Gulf soldiers to Philadelphia. Logistics for both that trip and the Steamtown Express were complicated. For the trip from Walter Reed Medical Center to Philadelphia, the Levins lined up 18 railroad car owners to volunteer their services, transporting 132 soldiers to the game.

Bennett Levin prospered as an engineer and shared his expertise as an advisor to the College of Engineering at Penn State University. His son, Eric Levin, is a Conrail engineer who often takes the controls of his father's train on excursions.

The Levins live in Newtown, Pa., and Rancho Mirage, Calif.