August 11, 2025
Kent Patterson: A Life Well Traveled, RIP
IN MEMORIAM
It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of long-time fellow Empire State Passenger Association and Rail Passengers Association member Kent J. Patterson. Kent worked 37 years at Metro-North, Amtrak, Conrail, and Penn Central after high school—and was a long-time member of the Empire State Passenger Association.
Our dear friend Kent passed away after a short illness of a few months on Friday evening, August 8th 2025 at the age of seventy, in the care of a hospice facility. Shelley, his beloved partner; Michael, his brother; and Barbara, his mother, were by his side. The family stated that his rail advocacy and history community meant a tremendous amount to him—a source of strength for him over the past trying months.
"Ken was an active ESPA Board member and RPA Council Representative who annually helped schedule our Day on the Hill appointments with NY Congressional staff. I will miss his positive attitude, train knowledge and willingness to work for better passenger rail service," said ESPA Executive Director Steve Strauss.
Steve paid his respects at the shiva at Kent's brother’s apartment which was well attended by friends and family, speaking with Shelly, his Florida-based partner and his mother Barbara; who greatly appreciated the ESPA and Metro-North folks who attended the graveside ceremony in Westchester.
ESPA President Gary Prophet stated on Facebook: "I greatly enjoyed working wth Kent, especially on Westchester County passenger issues and lobbying for improved Metro-North service."
ABOVE: A painting by Kent of the Hudson Line where a professional railroader he grew up, worked, and lived most of his life.
Kent grew up in Dobbs Ferry and after a brief job at Amtrak in Washington DC, worked for Penn Central as a signal tower operator, and then its successor railroads, Conrail and the MTA’s Metro-North. As a child, Kent recalled in a book blurb watching the trains on the New York Central’s Putnam Division. His brother Michael, attributed Kent's interest in trains to riding on elevated subway lines with their grandfather.
In an article (‘DV Tower’) for the Penn Central Post (Penn Central RR Historical Society) earlier this year Kent reminisced about his railroad career. Graduating from Dobbs Ferry High School in 1973, Kent decided to go directly to working for the railroad, skipping college, in order to get a coveted “employee pass” so he could ride for free passenger trains of Penn Central Montreal, Buffalo, Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, Washington and Florida, along with the commuter routes out of Grand Central Terminal. Kent also used his pass to “sneak” aboard the trains of other railroads, the Reading Railroad’s (SEPTA) Newark-Philadelphia ‘Crusader’ being a favorite.
ABOVE: A track diagram drawn by Kent of the DV Tower terrirory and a photograph by Kent of a Empire Service train passing the tower, northbound.
Kent as a novice trainee was mystifyingly sent to learn the ropes of being a block operator at NK Tower on the Park Avenue Viaduct, the busiest and most stressful assignment any tower operator could have and most did not want. Then in 1974 Kent was able to bid on an assignment to the DV Tower—known as “Spike” for short—in the Bronx at Spuyten Duyvil were the Hudson Line splits between the mainline to Grand Central Terminal and the then West Side freight line that is now Amtrak’s Empire Connection.
It also was not a favored posting, but it was a ten-mile commute by train from Kent’s home, so it suited him. The tower had a 110-lever General Railway Signal Interlocking Machine from 1910 which controlled the switches, signals, and derails of the signaling blocks of the two rail lines converging at t Spuyten Duyvil.
Kent writes in his Penn Central Post that like a typewriter or piano player, a block operator had to memorize all the levers, the daily schedule and routings of trains, having a detail mental map of the track layouts, signals, and switches, with lastly an eye on weather conditions. Despite this busyness, Kent still found time to snap photos of passing trains with his camera during slower hours on the weekends.
Kent also writes that he also came to appreciate that the pay was very good as well. With that money he later pursued higher education; studying history, art, and photography at Empire State University as part of the class of 1988. Kent took courses in transportation, logistics, writing, and business management at Pace University.
Kent would go onto work at other towers in the railroad’s Metropolitan Region of commuter lines radiating north from Grand Central, returning again and again back to his favorite tower at Spuyten Duyvil. He started as a yardmaster in 1985, then a trainmaster, retiring from Metro-North’s Operations Planning as a Project Manager in 2011.
ABOVE: Kent was a published author, including in Trains Magazine, Passenger Rail Journal, and two history books on transportation in Westchester County.
Kent was an active writer, with articles published in several publications including multiple times in Trains Magazine and Passenger Rail Journal. He has two pictorial books to his credit as well: ‘Rails around Westchester County’ and ‘Westchester County Airport’, part of Arcadia Publishing’s “Image” historical series. On Amazon.com where both titles are available, reader’s reviews complemented the two books as being “very well organized and informative”—enjoyable surveys of local transportation history.
ABOVE: A painting of a New York Central steam locomotive by Kent on the left; and to the right Kent and Shelley horseback riding.
Kent had multiple hobbies, including oil painting, photography, horseback riding, and travels across North America and Europe. A snowbird, Kent made the annual migration by train between the snows of Westchester and the sun of Florida—providing trip reports on the ups and downs, the amusements and curiosities of Amtrak long-distance service and the host freight railroads. Kent also rode and reported on the new Brightline service between South Florida and Orlando.
ABOVE: Kent both rode and photographed the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey's popular 'Hudson River Rail' rail excursions.
All of us at ESPA will greatly miss Kent, who was our rail advocacy organization’s primary outreach to many mayors and other local officials across the state. He also for years manned the registration at our annual meeting in Schenectady, his happy face and welcoming voice greet attendees, while managing the paperwork.
Rest in peace Kent, you will be greatly missed and well-remembered.
Most the Photos included in this memoriam were taken by Kent, starting as a teenager in the 1960s, and posted to his Facebook page