"It would have been pretty amazing to see such a big train rolling right by your house, spewing black smoke everywhere."

Yeah, until you took a deep breath :) But back in the 50's they most likely didn't have the technology to cut down on the coal smoke spewing out of the smokestack. And they also didn't have tons of cars on the roadways cursing under their breath, as the track gate came down for the passing train on Greengarden Blvd.

My grandfather was able to snap a piece of time using Kodachrome 64 and give us a taste of what it would of looked like back in the late fifties. At that my family used coal to heat their home in the winter, they used coal to run the power plant at the foot of State Street. And still in some parts of the world this practice is still used. People might look at this photo and fear the 'black smoke'. But at the base of East Avenue this process has been taking place for over a hundred years and their still using pretty much the same equipment.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=42.144283,-80.071363&spn=0.007669,0.013218&t=h&z=16

We really haven't travle very far in time. We only tell are selves that.

pdf.