>> Ken - In my timetables from 1957 and 1963, there is no mention of "Hours of Crossing Protection" on the NY&NY RR. The subject is covered in both timetables for the Caldwell Branch, so it is not an omission for the NJ&NY. A logical conclusion is that the NJ&NY crossings were manned continuously, at least as late as 1963. By 1967 the nine crossings in Hackensack, along with Washington Ave in Westwood and Central Ave in Pearl River, were manned Mon-Sat with split shifts for the commuter hours, so each crossing was manned eight hours per day. The crossing watchmen worked for the Maintenance of Way Department. While I was in Hoboken 1968-1970, we had a Supervisor of Crossing Watchmen who reported to the Division Engineer. It seems wasteful by modern standards to keep a crossing watchman on duty for a shift that might never see a train, but there was another factor involved (e.g. pre-1967). I don't recall the specific arrangement on the Erie or the Lackawanna, but I know it was common practice to assign employees who had been injured or disabled on duty to crossing watchman jobs. The D&H agreement stated that employes disabled in the Company's service were to be placed on the roster for crossing watchmen with seniority ahead of the oldest able-bodied employee. At least into the 1950's it could well have been the policy that it was better to keep these employes working the crossings than to pay them off to stay home. Gordon Davids << Subject: Re: (erielack) PV Line Industrial Question Back in the days when the Pascack Valley Line/N.J. & N.Y. R.R. had manually-operated crossing gates at various Hackensack street crossings which, I suspect, were operated for morning & evening passenger trains. Were there operators on duty for freight trains? If not were crews required to flag the crossings? Ken Bush The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org ------------------------------
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