Archives: Schenectady and the solar eclipse train of 1925

Then, like the upcoming eclipse, the Capital Region missed out on totality, as the path of totality ran south of the region. This year, the best show's north and west. 

But on a cold January morning in 1925, a group of Schenectady residents hopped a train south to Saugerties and totality. They also fretted the entire time that they would make it for the show. As our report, lacking photos but filled with vivid descriptions, had it, they made it.

"Deeper and deeper indigo everywhere - curious shadows, double-edged and ominous - and suddenly the luminescent pit of the heavens studded all at once with stars," our prose then read.

The account ran on the Gazette's front page on its first paper after the event, that Monday. Elsewhere on the Gazette's Jan. 26, 1925 front page? An Associated Press dispatch about the reopening of the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt after its discovery less than three years earlier.

One interesting note about the time, while the article referenced "Schenectadadians," the reporter didn't actually quote anyone on the train, just offering a descriptive report of the mundane - and spectacular.

But, through our archive searches we found references to Union College students expecting to be on the eclipse train, students of old Woestina High  School in Rotterdam Junction, too.

The Woestina students considered the trip "well worth while," a published note days later read. "Much uneasiness was occasioned by the delay of the train in getting started and other interruptions along the way. The intensity of the situation was finally relieved when the train pulled into the station just in time for the totality."

Read our full report from the Saugerties eclipse train below:

Eclipse thrills Schenectadians for whole trip

Jan. 26, 1925/Schenectady Gazette

Excursion to Saugerties Keeps Everyone Anxious Until Final Exhibit

How utterly dark and dismal it can be at 6 o'clock a. m. several hundred energetic Schenectadians learned for the first time Saturday morning, as they popped into the Union station in groups and couples, singles and bunches, equipped to the ears with every known and unknown device for combatting the weather and inviting the eclipse. Seats in the special train appeared at a premium. Typical bickerings on every side relieved the monotony: "My friend is coming directly, I'm saving this seat.' - and  the rebuttal: "Well, we're here now!" - followed by a surrender and grumbles. With eclipse-like spirit, the lights burned pale in their sockets, and people stared at seat-occupants in the hope of recognizing somebody, anybody. Six-fifteen, 6:20, 6:25, no motion - and people still pouring down the aisle. One could see that the railroad preferred to take a multitude to half the eclipse than a few to the whole of it.

Costumes of every kind, from drawing room, kitchen, engine-room; rigs from deepest Canada and outfits even from the Eskimo were seen. And children of all varieties and ages rushing along the aisles - one even exerted to hear the yell of a persecuted baby, brought along for its first eclipse and freeze. Out of every coat pocket the friendly thermos stuck, and there were suitcases, bags, boxes, packets, and bundles of lunch and camera equipment. Everybody was devouring the Gazette for details of the coming show. Then an express crashed  through, and the belated special moved gingerly off in its wake.

The dawn, unusual, extraordinary spectacle, green and pale over indigo snow, and the black soldiers of the trees - a dawn awaited, prayed for. Two thousand-eyes searched its every feature as never a dawn before had been searched. A perfectly ordinary dawn, but to the watchers almost incredible, a dawn or doubt and clouded worry. And across its pale countenance a long, thin stripe of a cloud, rooted in the night to either side like a prison bar. High over the world a black crow flew, an early warden sent to see that the leading man appeared on time to make up for his performance.

And finally the sun outriding gloom and cloud, making his bow and saying to the world, he's waiting in good season for the curtain call. Back and forward, jerk, stop; long sighs and groans from frozen brakes, and then unmitigated immobility. Quarter of eight, and other trains buzz  past "Why don't we go?" is heard from down the aisle: "Oh, they wouldn't dare be late!" "Pardon," one man replies, "the railroad has no hope of salvation, hence to monkey with celestial mechanics is but a triviality to it. It has your money, between you and it then, while the sun rides into shadow unconcerned by man and his officials!" So finally a new, less frozen engine, demurring at the doubtful pleasure of drag-and grunts and says: "Well, if you must'" and rags us out an hour late.

Watches are out now - conductor and officials are harried with questions - they report good hope, but time reports a certainty of progress - and with it a chunk is bitten from the sun. Petty annoyances crowd around us. Clouds from every angle swarming in towards Saugerties. Fleecy, little, fast-moving vixens; heavy, lumbering banks of fog; pale, treacherous splotches of mackerel sky, with the pink and watery faithlessness of a bulldog's eyes. And still the sun rides on, close locked in the arms of the moon. Smoked glasses, films and goggles; being fitted, and cursed, and stretched and fitted. And then the uncertain process of smudging a glass with a candle, and the final and vindictive Snip! when it gets overheated and slithers in all directions. And all the while the bite grows bigger and the time grows less, and Saugerties' - still hesitant miles away.

Ravena, Athens, Catskill, Cementon - and a full stop at every one. But there are no hesitations in the eclipse. It is bowling along at alarming speed, and the snowy world has taken on an ominous blue-black hue. Then comes that final rush, with aisles and platforms packed and open cameras waving; blinders hanging by peoples' ears; little boys squeezing underneath the crowd for one last look, to see whether nature or the New York Central is the winner. And at the end, Saugerties, already jammed to the teeth; no time for contemplation or plan - one mad rush through snowdrifts and over fences toward the hilltop. Then the great show.

Deeper and deeper indigo everywhere - curious shadows, double-edged and ominous - and suddenly the luminescent pit of the heavens studded all at once with stars. The sun with final bright farewell is gone, leaving behind a black hole ringed by his mighty crown. A wave of silence and of cold come over the crowd. Far to the east a hazy rose marks the still-illuminated world, and from it the deep dark shadow rises to the moon. And then the mottled shadow bands go chasing down the snow, ribbing crowd and landscape with their wavering bars. A sigh is felt, and from another corner a new sun bursts and spreads and comes once more to interrupted duty.

One feels that he has stood within a special spot of darkness - splashed for a single minute by a blot of heavenly ink and then released. But after all the moon and sun are always there, waving that great dark arm across the universe, and what is man to say at Saugerties, a special act has played to his excited gaze?

So that's over! Recriminations have begun, and Saugerties and railroads suffer for their faithfulness. The cold comes on and people stamp, and bundled scouts thread the crowd with slopping coffee, free. Finally comes an empty train and Saugerties is left deserted, cast aside. The whole party is over - eclipse (still there), forgotten. One little girl says, in nicely trained and cultivated tones:

"Just think, I have on f-o-u-r sweaters."

That ends. The anticlimax is complete.