Valley Railroads: Penn Central Letterbox Hybrid
MSTzilla: This one is gone again.
Valley Railroads: Penn Central
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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This cache is on the Highland Rail Trail.
This is part of a series that I intend to hide to commemorate the railroads that helped the Hudson Valley grow and prosper. Each one will focus on an individual company or events that are an important part of our local history. This will be a series of letterbox hybrids that will all have a handmade stamp to match the cache. Stamp your own log book and return the stamp and ink pad so that others may use it. Please READ THE PAGE about the cache itself very carefully as it has information you’ll need to make the find.
This cache commemorates the Pennsylvania Central Railroad. Penn Central was formed from the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads. The federal government forced them to absorb the now bankrupt New Haven Railroad and the operations on the Maybrook line in 1970. Penn Central struggled to keep afloat itself and it was no secret that they wanted to abandon this line and the Maybrook rail yard to move it’s operations to the newer and more modern yards in Selkirk, NY. While trying to save the Maybrook line, the federal government signed it’s death certificate ironically as the underfunded Penn Central couldn’t keep up with the repairs of the fire fighting equipment on the Poughkeepsie Train Bridge. It was a Penn Central freight train that was the last to ever cross the span on May 8th, 1974. Sparks from the train ignited the dry timbers of the cross ties and the blaze did irrefragable damage to the rails and supports. Although it’s widely speculated that Penn Central “allowed” the fire to happen, it wasn’t enough to save the company and it folded two years later to be purchased by Conrail. The bridge has now been converted into the worlds highest linear park as a walkway to connect Poughkeepsie and Highland once again. The bridge was opened in October of 2009 and provides views that you can't get anywhere else. For more information on this check www.walkway.org .
The cache itself is a .30cal ammo can hidden along the Highland Rail Trail. This trail is well used, so the muggle factor is high. This cache is hidden in a very obvious place once you reach the coordinates. The trick however, is how to get to it. You will have to find the key to actually making the grab. You don’t have to go anywhere, just search where you are. I’ve included a very specific hint if you should need it. After getting the cache, please take it off a little ways away to do your stamping and trades. That way you can check for muggles before putting it back. Please replace everything as you found it. I had to hide this cache in this manner to try to keep it from being muggled. I’ll have to see how it goes, but it should be fun for all who search for it. After stamping your book, feel free to take one of the handmade tokens that will be in each of the caches for this series and will be specific to that cache. I’ll try to keep them stocked, so please take only one.
Other caches in this series:
Valley Railroads: Central New England Railway (GC1TRKB)
Valley Railroads: New Haven (GC1TRMN)
Valley Railroads: New York O&W (GC2191D)
Valley Railroads: New York & Harlem (GC2TN43)
Valley Railroads: New York, New Haven & Hartford (GC2VDTV)
Hold up of the "Yonkers Sugar Special" (GC1X22A)
Valley Railroads: Derailment! (GC2X3BH)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Lrf, vg'f va gurer. Ybbxvat ng gur qbbe, whfg ernpu haqre gur yvc gb svaq jung lbh jnag.