Page 33 - September1951

September,1951 NATIONAL BUTTON BULLETIN 303

western rail link in one of the many Boston to New York routes. This was
the best and fastest route, taking but four hours on the Long Island Rail
Road, two hours on a steamboat between Greenport and Stonington, Conn.,
and then four more hours by l'ail put you in the heart of Boston. In 1848
this route was killed by the opening of the various roads which now make
up the New Haven's Shore Line route.
In 1904, the Long Island took over the operations of a company which
it had long controlled, the New York & Rockarvay Beach Railway (X'is. 166).
This company was organized in 1E87 to take over the lines of several older
roads and it was itself merged into the LIRR in 1922.
The lines operated by the LIRR now offer the only railroad service out-
side of New York City limits on Long Island. Although it is the butt of
rnany bitter jokes, the Long Island lecently marked its break with the PRR
with the removal of the Keystone from its insignia and the lemoval of the
PRR Tuscan Red from its passenger cars as fast as they are repainted.
The Pennsylvania RR system grew up during the period when it ap-
pears to have been unfashionable to have straightforward intercorporate
relationships, so if the above appears to be confused, charge it to the con-
fusion in the writer"s mind due to the complexity of the subiect. There
certainly must be other buttons from the Pennsylvania or any of its an-
cestol' roads. If you have any such buttons, please tell the writer so that
the information can be shared with all the other railroad uniform button
collectors.
NOTES: See also Figs. ?1-75 in Sept.'49 BULLETIN. Fig.75 has
caused some questions. The writer feels that evidence points to the fact
that this button was NOT made for the Union Transportation Co. as implied
in that issue, but was made fol the Union Traction Co. of Philadelphia.
This is verified by material at Scovill. Often local tailors used any buttons
which resembled what the buyer rvanted if none had been made for his road.
As a result, only buttons known to have been worn by emBloyees should
be credited to the Union Transportation of New Jersey. The button illus-
trated did come from such a man.
It should be noted that all of the PRR styles shown are credited to the
Pennsylvania RR with fairly good evidence. There is at least one PRR
'which is not from the Penn. A small, flat PRR is the sleeve for the PORT-
LAND RAILROAD coat size.
In the stock of dies remaining from the pre1881-fire days at Scovill
is one with LONG ISLAND alound 'RR (only the RR is in OId English,
the rest being block letters).
The SMC date refels to the date of the FIRST order for that style of
button which was fiIled by Scovill. Earlier orders to other companies are
not considered because of lack of information. On the other hand. there
ale cases of reorders of the sarne style fol'over 50 years.
As usual, E. H. Davis of Scovill Mf'g Co was very helpful in ascertaining
the dates of order. It is hoped that before too long a relatively complete
addenda to the published articles can be prepared on the basis of extensive
research now approaching completion. ht addition, the major railroad but-
ton collections will be combed in order to insure the accuracy and complete-
ness of future articles.
Note by the Editor:
You will be interested to know that our Railroad specialist, Donald
Van Court received the deglee of Master of Mechanical Engineering re-
cently at Cortell University. He is at present a trainee with a firm of
Industrial Engineet'ing Consultants. Railroad button fans may reach Mr.
Van Court at 7 Wentworth Rd., Summit, New Jersey.