Thanks, Walter. ----- Original Message ----- From: "W Wilson" <wlw-jr@att.net> Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2002 8:51 PM > Yes, it's used by AirNet as I recall? > I should be there within a week or two..I'll do my best to check it out. > > Walter > DCA > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Gerard M Foley" <gfoley@columbus.rr.com> > To: <AIRLINE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU> > > > > > > > > The terminal building at Port Columbus, CMH, from which I took my first > > flight in a TWA DC2 in 1938m, is still standing along 5th Avenue, close to > > the > > railroad tracks which carried the Pennsylvania Railroad train "Spirit of > > St.Louis", on part of the first transcontinental air-rail journey. It > has > > a > > little tower on top of it. It has obviously been used as some kind of an > > office building in recent years. It looked vacant the last time I passed > > it. I have not been in it since it ceased being used as an air terminal, > so > > I do not know how much of the (probably Art Deco) interior as a terminal > > survives. > > > > The service used a train from New York and continued on plane, Ford or > > Fokker tri-motor, to Kansas. > > The plane to Kansas was Transcontinental Air Transport (the Lindbergh Line). The train on to Albuquerque was operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. The second morning the passengers went on to Los Angeles on Western Air Express. There were no navigational aids to permit nighttime flying, even if they could have found passengers to sit up in trimotors for thirty plus hours. I may see if the local historical society, chamber of commerce or something is interested in the building. It was replaced as a terminal building sometime when commercial flying was still out of the ordinary. I was staying in Fairfield County when I was scheduled to take a plane out of the area. Two cars filled up with kids to see me off. We went to 5th and Hamilton to find the old building closed, with some kind of sign to say the terminal had moved across the airfield, but no direction whatever as to how to get to the new building. We could try west on 5th or north on Hamilton. I made the wrong choice, north on Hamilton, west on the first street, then back toward the airport on the first south street, to find myself at a road end at a ditch that looked something like the Panama Canal, in the middle of a housing development under construction. My sister-in-law, in the car following, yelled to follow her. We went behind a pickup truck around some of the houses, crossed the huge ditch, and wound up on what I though might be an airport runway (it was later used as a taxiway), At the west end of it we found the new airport building. We were now late, and I lost my cool standing in line at the TWA checkin counter, but they held the plane for me anyway. Gerry K8EF http://home.columbus.rr.com/gfoley/ http://www.geocities.com/gerryf.geo/eclipseindex.html http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/pollock/263/egypt/egypt.html