From the DeRuyter Gleaner of DeRuyter, NY
Thursday, January 4, 1940

Auburn Branch Midland Railroad

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   With Levi Reed, and I believe many others, I enjoyed very much the article on the Auburn Branch of the New York & Oswego Midland Railroad. The reading of it brought to mind many "scenes I'd seemingly forgot".

   My home was near the flag station, Crumb Hill, and I am remembering things happening in that locality which of course Messrs. Cox and Reed did not know. The trains stopped at this flag station to take on and let off passengers on the private crossing made for Seth Bumpus to the highway when the highway was changed so that the railroad would not have to build two overhead bridges.

   No depot or shelter was built and there are others now living who can remember waiting for trains in all kinds of weather, especially in the winter when trains were frequently late. Yes, it was called the Auburn Branch for it was to connect Auburn with the mainline at Norwich, by going through DeRuyter, Cortland, Freeville, Venice Center, etc. Grading was done to about the city limits of Auburn and track was laid to a little beyond Merrifield, a small settlement about six miles from Auburn. The financial difficulties of the company came and construction stopped.

   Crumb Hill was the summit between Otselic Center and DeRuyter and I believe it was the highest point of the entire branch. When it was definitely known the road was to be built a great celebration was held here. People came from miles around and gathered in the meadow of the Benjamin Crumb farm where was to be the deepest cut on the entire line.

   The cannon used by the village of DeRuyter to celebrate the 4th of July was brought and placed on a nearby hill. After the speeches, to the booming of the cannon a few furrows were plowed and then a daughter of Allen Sutton threw a shovel full of dirt. The construction of the road for miles each way was thus begin. I do not know whether work from Otselic Center to Norwich had begun before this.

   Excavating this Crumb cut, as it was called, took a long time. After all the dirt that could be profitably be removed by scrapers and wheelbarrows, a steam shovel was brought to load small cars that ran by gravity to be dumped to make the big fill. They were taken singly by men or boys with a hand spike for a brake. When empty, several cars were coupled together and drawn back by a horse.

   This steam shovel was a wonder to us boys who had never seen anything with greater power than a three-horse tread for a threshing machine.

   The Wibert trestle. How we watched the building of it from the driving of the piles to the laying of the ties and track. The boy who had not walked over it when completed was considered a sissy. A few claimed the proud distinction of walking the stringers, before the ties were placed. One girl also did this.

   Before the track was laid to Crumb Hill an excursion train was run from Otselic Center to The Oneida Community - my first ride in a regular passenger car. Another excursion in those early days was to Lyon Brook Bridge. When we arrived there a thunder shower threatened but some of the old people said it would go around. But when we were nearly all off the rain began to fall. The conductor said he could not hold the train for shelter until the shower passed so some of us clambered back on and went on to Sidney to spend the time on a siding.

   The conductor, I remember best was Dave Shattuck. Of course we boys had the ambition to be a conductor and wear a cap and uniform. We were told one had to work up to that position from brakeman but we were willing to be brakemen. A brakeman in those days before air brakes and automatic couplers on a freight train with a hand brake on each car had no cinch running along the top of the cars and jumping from one to the other.

   And on a passenger train with no vestibule the brakeman had to be at his post at all stops and when the engineer whistled for brakes.

   Then those old-time winters of three days storm filling the many cuts with snow. Of course they had snow plows but not the modern kind. They pushed the snow to the sides. This was all well enough with the first few storms. But soon the snow at the sides was packed so hard that it was about impossible to push any more there.

   Then it took two engines to make any impression and that for only a few feet at a time. The enjoyment we had in seeing them back off a ways and then come full tilt only to gain a few feet. One time there was a passenger train stalled for two days in a cut near the Mann Schoolhouse. It took men that time to shovel it out.

A.V. Wilson