Dear Member:

The ERA Board of Directors would like to express our sincere gratitude for your loyal support over the years. Access to our monthly meetings was greatly expanded for viewers and presenters everywhere in the world when we launched live Zoom presentations in 2020. Under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Jeff Erlitz, the Bulletin has expanded its high quality and on-time standards. Volume two of Eric Oszustowicz’s highly successful Elevated Railways of Brooklyn series, covering BMT history through 1969, has been distributed to all current paid-up members. Volume three of the Brooklyn El book will be completed in 2025 as the next issue of Headlights. ERA’s ongoing project to scan and post-free PDFs of all pre-digital issues of the Bulletin, Electric Railroads and Headlights continues, as well as uploading our Zoom presentations to ERA-TV, our popular YouTube channel. All of this new online content advances our founding principles of educating and informing the public about electric traction. This treasure trove of information has been well received and along with our popular Zoom meetings and encouraged new membership signups.

Thanks to our members’ unprecedented generosity in providing substantial tax-deductible contributions during 2024 and the continuing controls on our operating costs, our financial picture continues on a favorable path. There will be no increase in dues for 2025. In addition, LRTA is offering ERA members a reduced-price digital subscription for Tramways & Urban Transit PDFs.

Our 2024 convention in Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta, Canada, featured tours of two pioneering post-WWII North American light rail systems, shop tours, visits to three heritage trolley operations, and evening briefings from speakers on traction progress in both cities as well as across Canada. ERA also completed a highly successful international tour to the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), with 21 participants. We visited and had heritage tram charters, museum and shop tours in Amsterdam, Hague, Utrecht, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Luxembourg. We continue to offer our two annual in-person programs as well as our ten immensely successful monthly Zoom meetings, continuing programming of 12 meetings a year. We are considering a third in-person meeting for 2024.

We close 2024 with ERA celebrating 90 years of serving electric traction professionals and fans. As part of our celebration, three days of celebration are planned, November 22-24, 2024. Reservations must be made and sent in by October 10, 2024. Programming includes a Coney Island Shop tour, special charter bus from Midtown Manhattan and visit to the Shore Line Trolley Museum, and early entrance to the New York Transit Museum.

How can you help?

First and foremost, please renew (or join if first time member) your membership, and select the e-mail option if you can. Nearly 70 percent of our members already opt for receiving the Bulletin this way. Printing and mailing the Bulletin costs nearly $15,000 per year. Second, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the ERA and, again, thank you for your generosity this year. Any amount is welcome and can easily be added to your membership renewal payment (online at erausa.org/membership/joinrenew, or by mail). The ERA is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Finally, you can remember the ERA by making a significant donation as part of your estate planning at any time. We would have been in an impossible financial situation several years ago if the late James Mattina, our long-serving office manager, hadn’t generously donated $157,000 to our organization in his will.

This will be our only notice requesting renewal. Please take a moment now to complete the 2025 Dues Renewal Form / New Member Joining Form by January 31, 2025. We look forward to your continued support of the ERA’s long record of traction education and entertainment. Please be aware that a renewal for 2025 is necessary to be entitled to Volume 3 of The Elevated Railways of Brooklyn series.

And a note about our long-term subscription relationship with LRTA of Great Britain: They operate on a strictly calendar-year basis and set their next-year’s mailing list by December of the current year. So, if you are subscribing to either Tramways and Urban Transit or Tramway Review, you must be renewed by November 30, 2024 to avoid interruption of those publications.

Sincerely,
The Board of Directors
Electric Railroaders Association, Inc.

  2025 Dues Notice