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From: Jim G Graytrainpix graytrainpix AT hotmail DOT com
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 16:59:42 -0500
Subject: KW Train Registers -- Waterfront Operation Report
"EL_WaterfrontTransfers_lateJune73.jpg" - image/jpeg, 1728x3692 (24bit)

Once again, thanks to Michael Riley for taking the time to scan and
share those KW train movement registers from June and July 1973. Over
the past month, this list has enjoyed some really insightful comments on
this information from various members, including Paul Brezicki's usual
in-depth analysis of road freight and intermodal operations, along with
the extensive knowledge of NY Division operations from former employees
Bob Bahrs and Bill Sheppard. Thus far, the analysis has focused on road
freights, local drill freights, and to a lesser degree on Croxton yard
operations. I would now like to focus a bit on waterfront transfer
operations, one of the few areas of the EL NY Division that could still
stand further discussion and documentation.

As such, I have set up a spreadsheet to summarize the daily transfers
between the KW office on the east end of Croxton Yard, and the
waterfront yards in Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken. I have posted a
jpg of my summary spreadsheet for the second half of June, thru July 1.
I hope to continue this little project until Mike runs out of sheets or
patience! My sheet shows eastbound moves from KW to the waterfront on
the left side, and westbound moves from the waterfront to KW on the
right side. I break down these moves by day, and list them by engine
number and time recorded at KW. I also add the destination or origin of
the move, the number of cars, and a summary of the notes given for the
move (to the degree that I can decipher them; some of that cursive
writing throws me off, and I am not fully aware of just what the
yardmasters would have written in terms of car blocking and destinations
-- as I will next discuss). Note, I am using the 24 hour time system
that was in use on the EL in 1973.

The first thing you might notice from a general overview is that
weekdays were noticeably busier than weekends. That would be expected,
given that the carfloat traffic still makes up a significant chunk of
the traffic involved here (although the amount of work for local
destinations on the Jersey side of the river was more significant than I
had expected), and a lot of the float traffic originates or terminates
near the transfer slip -- LIRR traffic might be the biggest exception to
this.

The locomotive assignments are mostly 400 series EMD switchers with 1200
hp. The "old goat" NW2's such as the 401, 402 and 404 show up quite
regularly; this makes sense, given that they would never be too far from
the Croxton roundhouse, and would not usually block any high-priority
movements e.g. if they were on a main line with commuter trains and road
freights. They usually seem to be given lighter assignments.
Otherwise, 400's get shuttled in and out of waterfront duty, appearing
to last no longer than a day on a "Haul" or "Utility" assignment (these
transfers are generally carried out by crews assigned as the "1st Haul",
"2nd Haul", or "Utility"). The younger NW2's, SW7's, 9's and 1200's that
show up are often challenged with rather long cuts going east, topping
out at 53 behind the 421 on 6-21 (this was eastbound, so we might assume
that many of these cars were loaded). Much of the Erie r-of-w from KW /
Bergen to waterside was flat or downhill, the big exception being the
final ¼ mile into the DLW Hoboken 18F freight yard; the "south
connection" ramp from the ex-Erie Weehawken Branch at Jersey Ave, up to
DLW Grove St. Tower's entrance to the 18F yard, was rather steep. I was
told by guys who worked at Grove Street that the 400's would put on
quite a show struggling up that hill with a block of cars.

You only see an ex-DLW 360-series SW8 once (363 on June 21); these
engines were sometimes seen working as yard engines at Hoboken 18F yard,
but obviously didn't shuttle freight to Croxton very often.
Interestingly, you sometimes see a 1200 or 1400 GP7 assigned to shuttle
a block from Croxton to Hoboken during the night, around 2:30 or 3 am.
The engine usually comes back from Hoboken light. I assume that the EL
is thus using an engine that by day would work a suburban drill or a
work train on the NY Division, and would otherwise sit idle until dawn
(unless some maintenance were needed at the Croxton roundhouse).

As to daily traffic patterns, it appears that westbound carfloat traffic
mostly moves to Croxton in the later morning or afternoon, between 11 am
and 8 pm. On the eastbound side, aside from that night transfer that
sometimes used a geep, almost everything from KW moved between 7 am and
7 pm. So in general, nights on the waterfront were quiet. Another
significant traffic flow involves auto traffic to the Boutell unloader
at the old Erie North Yard in Jersey City. We usually see a morning
transfer out of Croxton with loaded auto racks between 7 and 8 am,
mostly from train 90 which arrived before dawn. This engine usually
stays in Jersey City until early evening, probably shifting cars at
Boutell for unloading and doing any other industrial siding chores on
the Erie side of Jersey City terminal. It will often return west
around 5 or 6 pm with some empty auto racks. Another engine will often
depart for Jersey City in late afternoon or early evening, and return
with more empty racks. Most of these racks will go west on the ND91 at
around 9pm.

I have also included the moves to US Trucking, even though this is not
on the waterfront. As discussed previously, UST is located on the New
Connection along the Main Line (ex-DLW Boonton Branch) in West
Secaucus. Usually an engine and crew are assigned to run a few cars up
to UST and return with a small handful in the early evening. Presumably
this is high-priority traffic that is being gathered for inclusion on
one of the evening manifests, possibly NY99 or NY97. Occasionally there
is a second UST run in mid-afternoon. The yardmasters are not
consistent in their treatment of the UST trips; some put the departure
time on the East sheets, given that the crew probably backs up east into
the Archways, then proceeds west along the Third Track to the New
Connection. They correspondingly note the return trip on the West
sheet (e.g. 6-15, engine 437). Other yardmasters put the departure on
the West sheet, given that the destination is actually west of KW, and
note the return on the East-side sheet (e.g. 6-19, engine 423).

As to the Weehawken branch -- on most weekdays, we have a crew depart KW
in the morning, often around 7, to work Weehawken; the engine and crew
usually returns in early to mid-afternoon. Sometimes we see two shuttles
to and from Weehawken (e.g. 6-21, engine 450 in the AM and 439 in the
PM, via Jersey City; also on 6-14 with the 423). The jobs to and from
Weehawken often do other tasks, such as taking a block of cars for the
Hoboken 18F yard. Presumably this crew leaves its branch cars near
Henderson St., runs the float block up the ramp to Grove St. Tower and
18F, then goes back down the ramp light and proceeds towards Weehawken
with its cars (e.g. 6-29, engine 424). In fact, sometimes the crews
coming west from Weehawken had earlier left KW with a block of cars for
Jersey City or Hoboken (e.g. 6-16, engine 415). The yardmaster notes
indicate that around one third of the runs serve more than one of the 3
main destinations (Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken) in their round
trip. More on the yardmaster notes next.

What do the yardmaster hieroglyphics tell us historians of late-era EL
operations? Some yardmasters write little or nothing, while others give
detailed car count breakdowns by destination. Their handwriting varies,
and I will do my best to decipher what they wrote, albeit with varying
amounts of guesswork. The notes indicate that Croxton separates float
traffic by destination. Two major destinations are LIRR and BEDT.
Sometimes you also see cars noted for "lighterage", placement on a barge
for direct freight transloading to a ship in port. Sometimes an
abbreviation such as "Lt Frt" is used. I was surprised not to see a
direct reference to 28th St. yard in Manhattan, presumably the only EL
waterfront yard in New York open by 1973 (I believe that the ex-Erie or
DLW waterfront yards in South Bronx and Brooklyn were closed by this
time). There is a frequently used reference that I am guessing to be
moniker for 28th Street cars: "DLW NX". When numbers are given for this
block, they seem reasonable for 28th St., i.e. in the 8 to 12 range
usually.

As to what "DLW NX" means . . . I am guessing that "NX" represents an
old telegraph call for an office in Manhattan (not sure if it would be
Erie or DLW; NX was also Newark Drawbridge on the Erie's Newark Branch),
and that "DLW" means that the floating to this "NX" is being done via
the DLW 18F yard (given that the Erie North Yard floats in Jersey City
were closed in the late 1960s). Why not just write "28 ST" or "28th"?
Perhaps that could get confused with car counts? I stand ready for
correction here.

Other blocks are called "Hobo" or "Locals". I assume these are not
floated but are placed at a freight house, warehouse, or other
industrial siding (or perhaps at the long dock pier in Hoboken for
transloading by crane from flats or gons to barges). Next, we have two
block ID's that appear to answer a question that I long wondered about .
. . i.e., where did the traffic that went out on the EL westbound
freights originating at 18F yard in Hoboken come from? I had hoped that
it was predominantly from float traffic or had otherwise originated east
of the Archways and Bergen Tunnels. But we can now see that on many
days, a few hours before HB-1 and the Hoboken Ordinary (sometimes called
"Hob-89") departed, a transfer from Croxton to Hoboken includes blocks
for "Bflo" and "RN". The "Bflo" block would be from about 10 to 20
cars. The "RN" block count is usually not given.

Just where is RN? That call is sometimes used for Marion, OH traffic.
But on the NY Division it usually means Paterson. The Hoboken Ordinary
usually ran west to Port Jervis via the Main Line, and stopped to work
at Paterson Yard in mid-day. I suspect that Croxton sends its cars for
Paterson down to Hoboken to hitch a ride there on the Hobo Ordinary.
Marion cars wouldn't make much sense on this train; the Hobo Ord would
not make Port Jervis yard before the NE97 departed there in late
afternoon, so at best any Marion cars would be tacked on to the NY97
during the night. But it would be less complicated to simply hold any
Marion cars for NY97 at Croxton.

As such, we get a hint as to the reason behind the 2 or 3 year revival
of Hoboken float yard as an origin for through westbound freights on the
NY Division in the early 1970s. Although Croxton is a huge yard (thanks
to Bob Bahrs and Bill Sheppard for that excellent yard diagram!!!), EL
traffic was pretty good in 72 and 73, as you can see from the road
freight logs on these sheets. It appears to me that Hoboken was thus
being used as an "overflow" for Croxton, taking off some of the pressure
to perhaps rebuild yard tracks in Croxton that had gone to seed in the
60's. Hoboken 18F had to be kept up for float traffic, so why not make
some use of it for road freight assembly? Once traffic dived as the US
economy tanked in 1974 during the oil embargo, this overflow capacity
was no longer needed. And in fact, as '74 progressed, the Hoboken
Ordinary disappeared (although I still suspect that the "HB-77" that
Paul T discusses in his great Diamond article about the traffic jam at
Great Notch in summer '74 was just a Scrantonized version of the Hoboken
89, operating irregularly due to declining traffic -- not a Buffalo
manifest); and the HB-1 was moved to Croxton, despite retaining the "HB"
moniker (although, recall that the old DLW flagship HB-3 ran from
Croxton in 1965 and 66, before the Dereco rename to ND-91).

A few other interesting yardmaster notes indicate that not all Erie-side
Jersey City terminal traffic was for Boutell; there is still a fair
amount of "frt" noted for Jersey City. Occasionally, some reference to
"Monmouth St." or "South Yard" is made, near where some major warehouses
are. On some dates (e.g. 6-20, 6-21, 6-27) the yardmaster notes the
warehouses being drilled; I could not make the names out, so I just
note "warehouses". Sometimes car numbers are also noted; on 6-21, the
401 pulls BAR 297 at Monmouth St., which I believe is a potato reefer!
So there must be some wholesale food traffic remaining on the Erie-side
of Jersey City.

There are some interesting notes on the Weehawken jobs, although not
enough as far as I am concerned! I see no break-out of SeaLand
traffic. But there is an occasional reference to "H Shore", the
soon-to-be-gone Hoboken Shore shortline. There is a delightful
reference to a special Saturday morning movement from Weehawken on 6-23,
whereby engine 412 retrieved 2 empties and "5 coffee". I assume these
are loads from Maxwell House in Hoboken, shuttled from their plant along
the Hudson to the EL branch near the cliffs, behind HS's 44 tonner!
Wish I had been there for that. The KW to Weehawken movement for 6-26
shows engine 429 with 10 "Lterage" for Hoboken and 27 "Copper" for
Weehawken. You might think this was "hopper" or "coffee", but in this
instance, the word copper is written out in fairly clear block
lettering, between parenthesis. I wonder what that traffic was and
where it was going. I would imagine that 27 loads of copper products
would have high value and thus would be noted for attention, given the
need to alert EL's police department about this. If anyone has a better
idea or info about this situation, please chime in!

On the westbound side, we see some recurring trip notes that regard
"CQ", i.e. the Croxton engine terminal on the west side of the yard.
Evening trips from Jersey City pulling empty bi-level racks from Boutell
sometimes are noted as "CQ Bi Level". Other trips from Jersey City or
Hoboken (often both) in the evening are "CQ Fst Frt" -- fast freight, I
assume. Sometimes we have both, the bi-level trip going by KW at around
5 or 6pm and the fast freight trip at around 8:30 pm. I suspect that
the engine terminal is not the real destination, but instead the
adjacent A Yard "Boxcar" yardmaster office. The A yard is where the
evening fast freights were put together, i.e. ND91, NY99, and NY97 --
even if they ran via DB (ready for correction on that, but I swear that
I saw cabooses on NY99 near the Boxcar when it ran via Scranton). So,
the A Yard engine assumedly would grab the auto racks for placement into
ND91, and the "fast freight" forwarder cars gathered up from the evening
floats and pulls from the Jersey City warehouses, for placement on NY99
(which still had a block of 40 foot cars in 73, probably gone by late
74). I suspect that it was just easier to write "CQ" versus "A Yard" or
"Boxcar Office". Close enough!

Perhaps this is the final year of the traditional "evening scurry", when
drills and yard engines would gather up high-priority boxcars from
varying close-in locations for quick dispatch on the NY99, ND91 (or HB3
before it), or NY97. We have discussed the JC Penny "hot cars" coming
off the Northern Branch jobs in the evening, and the US Trucking job on
these registers may also be gathering forwarder traffic. Then there is
the float traffic from the Lifschultz forwarder at 28th St., and
possibly some warehouse forwarder traffic from the Jersey City and
Hoboken warehouses. I remember Artie Erdman telling me that when he
first worked Newark Tower on the M&E around 1967 or 68, he recalled the
"Newark Pusher" yard engine making a hot 6 pm move to get a reefer full
of ice cream from the Bordens dairy plant just west of Newark station,
and get it to Croxton to make the 9 pm departure of the ND-91 (didn't
some of the milk there come from Branchville?) This was a dying ritual
by 1973. Must have been neat, though.

Finally, these sheets are fairly good in terms of tracking movements,
but there are days when some moves, especially light engine moves, are
not noted. E.g., on 6-18 you can lose track of the 401 after its 1245
e/b departure from KW, as it departs KW again at 1535 but without an
intervening w/b arrival between those times. However, we see it get back
from the 1535 trip to Jersey City at 2045. We also lose track of the
424 after its 1315 departure for US Trucking on that day.

I hope to follow up with another sheet for the first half of July,
sometime later this month. For those of you who need a map -- see list
archives, 9-2-05.

Jim Gerofsky


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