PC: 5th Anniversary! (slightly late)

[Jerry Jordak <jer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

It was about five years ago, on November 30, 1996, that the Penn Central 
Mailing List was opened for business. I sent out a note to various PC fans 
that I knew and a couple of Usenet newsgroups announcing the list. Within 
the first two weeks, we had 25 subscribers, and from then on, it's been off 
to the races! Today, we have 181 subscribers to the regular list, and 48 
digest subscribers, accounting for 229 PC fans today.

Plenty has happened in the past five years. Lots of information has been 
shared amongst the list's subscribers. All of it has been archived, and 
someday will be available online. (Don't ask me when--I don't know.) In 
addition, our favorite railroad has changed in the eyes of the railfan and 
modeling communities. When the list first began (or the PC web site, for 
that matter!), there were only two reactions I ever received from people:

"A Penn Central web site? That's so cool!"

or

"A Penn Central web site? Are you sick in the head or just stupid?"

Today, Penn Central seems to have earned some long-overdue respect. Maybe 
its due to the fact that its successor railroad, Conrail, is now a fallen 
flag itself, or perhaps the PRR/NYC/NH fans who hated the PC for taking 
away their favorite railroad are getting older and less vocal. But today, 
people are paying three figures for old PC books on eBay that you probably 
could have given away years ago. Model railroad manufacturers like 
Life-Like and Atlas are finally producing accurate, factory-painted PC 
models. (I'm not counting Atlas' U33C in that lot.) And, thanks to the hard 
work of several people on this list, there is finally a Penn Central 
Railroad Historical Society.

So as we begin our sixth year of discussing our favorite railroad, a big 
thank you goes out to everyone on this list, especially those of you who 
have been here since the beginning. I've been happy to watch this list be a 
great resource of information for people wanting to learn more about the 
PC, and it couldn't have happened without all of you.

Now, time to see what the next five years will bring...

-JWJ