Ed Montgomery asked: > I had a couple more thoughts about the NJ trip last week. > Regarding the trackage rights. Did Erie and NYS&W actually > take better care of the L&NE portions than they did their own > independent operation. It seemed to be clear to me that the > Swartzwood JCT-Hainsburg JCT section of the NYS&W was in much > better shape than the section between Butler and Swartzwood. I'm not so sure about that. From most photos, they appeared to be pretty close (at any particular point in time). One thing that I always wondered about was why instead of having the interchange yard at Hainesburg Jct., why didn't the NYS&W move the interchange point to Swartswood Jct. after they pulled out of Pennsylvania? There was little local traffic left, and it was costing them to maintain the track - why not sell it to the L&NE? > The MU-ing of NJT engines on the Greenwood Lake grades makes > sense. (I say Greenwood Lake because that's not the real > Boonton Line.). However this brings up another issue. Erie > seemed to run very long communter trains with just one RS-2 > or 3. Did they pad the schedule on the Greenwood Lake run > for slow startups or did the old Alcos tackle their loads > with minimum problems. DL&W was almost all EMD's and never > seemed to put more than a three coach load on the GP-7s. > Trainmasters initially handled the longer communter trains > and expresses. When they were transferred to freight > service, DL&W used F3s back to back to handle the longer trains. > > I've heard that the ALCO's did have an advantage even though > they always sounded like they were about to stall - a > four-cycle thing. The Alcos has an innate ability to "dig in" with their trains. I'm not sure if the passenger Geeps would be able to accomplish the same task on the hilly NY&GL. Sadly, the Alcos couldn't hold a candle to EMD's reliability. - Paul The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List http://EL-List.railfan.net/ To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
This HTML page is © 2000-2009 Blue Moon Online System and The Railfan Network
This page and the data contained therein may not be reproduced
for any form of commercial use without the explicit permission
of J. Henry Priebe Jr. or his duly authorized agent.