(erielack) Paterson NJ in 1975

[JG at graytrainpix <graytrainpix_@_hotmail.com>]

I also enjoyed Rich Onorevole's shots, especially the shot of the w/b road freight working at XW / Getty Ave. yard in Paterson.  Usually, in the 70's, when a w/b road freight picked up at Paterson, it backed its train down onto the old Main Line and got in the clear.  Tell me if I'm wrong, but I suspect that the dispatchers and crews did not like to leave a train sitting on the single track from Paterson Jct. to XW, first off because it blocks all passenger traffic on the Main Line; second because the train will be spread out over a "hump", given how the line was elevated in 1963 to eliminate the Main Avenue grade crossing on the former Newark Branch alignment.  You can see the upgrade in Dan Onorevole's shot.  A double against that grade would be a bit clumsy, and starting a long train spread out over a ramp-up / ramp-down grade like that might be tricky. 

Theoretically you could leave the train east of Paterson Jct. on the double track, then cut off and run light to XW to get the pickup; if a freight got into trouble and a w/b passenger train was in the picture, you could arguably run him around the freight on the e/b main.  But that would be clumsy too, as the e/b from Paterson Jct was not reversible.  Thus, if a passenger train was west of Upper Hack bridge, the dispatcher would have to get the passenger crew on the radio and have them use a hand throw crossover somewhere in Passaic or Clifton (not sure exactly where).  There aren't any train order offices around; the guy on Lyndhurst draw controls home signals but can't issue 19 orders, he's a maintainer and not a qualified operator (again, check me if I'm wrong on this).  So the dispatcher has to stretch that rule about allowing a train (a first-class train, to boot) to run against signal traffic with a lever block at Paterson Jct. (via the East End dispatcher's board). 

As such, w/b's working in Paterson usually were fairly short.  The EL worked w/b traffic (not great at the time, maybe 10 to 25 cars daily I'd guess) out of Paterson in a variety of ways over the years.  Sometimes an e/b freight would stop at Ridgewood, run down to Paterson, get the w/b's out of the yard, then proceed back to WJ, do a run-around move using the crossovers at Hawthorne, and back the w/b's onto the train, then take them down to Croxton as to go out on the regular w/b's.  Usually on weekends, often Sunday (when no passenger trains ran), a "Paterson Man" out of Croxton would clean out Getty Ave. and run to Port Jervis, doing various other work at Suffern, etc.  Sometimes a drill crew would just run w/b cars from Getty Ave down to Croxton, e.g. a Passaic Roustabout.

For a while in the mid-70's, TC-1 would run west on the Main Line most days around dawn or shortly thereafter, with a light train that he backed into Getty Avenue.  He would grab all the w/b's, then proceed to Suffern and Hillburn where he bulked up with empty w/b's for Buffalo from Ford. During the big shift in NY Division operations in '74 and 75 emphasizing the Scranton route and downgrading Port Jervis as a yard, the EL sometimes ran a "Middletown Turn" up the Main, which might have worked w/b at Getty Ave; the "Turn" was usually fairly short out of Croxton.  Obviously that train wasn't going any farther west than Middletown, but he might have dragged the w/b's from Paterson up to Suffern / Hillburn for pickup there.  Or, he might have run east on the Main on his return from Middletown and fished the w/b's out and taken them down to Croxton (if there wasn't anything for him to do at BT/Passaic Jct on the Bergen County Line).

Given the date of the picture (spring 1975) and the mid-afternoon lighting, any of these operational situations might have applied.  This could be a late TC-1, or might be a DW turn on the w/b run, or might be an e/b road freight (say TC-4 or PO-98) dragging cars up to WJ to be doubled onto the train for Croxton.  (On a weekday, the EL would have the option of running the engine and cars from Paterson up track 3, cutting off the power and running light to WC Tower, crossing over and coming back to WJ light down track 2, then doubling the cars from 3 back onto the train sitting on 4 via the Bergen County eastbound -- as to avoid the risk of plugging the Main and a mid-day passenger train by running around via the Hawthorne hand throws. That was generally a night or weekend move).

Just another reflection on how flexible and changeable EL operations were on the NY Division.  

Jim Gerofsky 		 	   		  

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