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From: "JimG AT graytrainpix" graytrainpix AT jimgworld DOT com
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2018 23:10:12 -0500
Subject: Suffern NY, April 3 / 4, 1965
"SuffernEngineBookS.jpg" - image/jpeg, 887x1192 (24bit)

My friend Ray Scott has some engine record books that were kept by the
coach tender at Suffern, NY from the mid-1960s. He recently sent me a
copy of a page for April 3 and 4, 1965, a Saturday and Sunday. Most of
the engines for both dates are 900 series Alco RS 2s or 3s in commuter
service from Hoboken. The Saturday record (3rd) shows some 900s that
came in on late trains on Friday night. I suspect the second number is
the train that the engine would go out on, and it looks like several
900s are there for the weekend, as they will go out on 1100-series
trains on Monday. The 1700 series trains are weekend runs between
Hoboken and Suffern. The 428 is assigned to work the Ford plant, which
is not unusual as the 428 and 429 were assigned to Ford Mahwah for many
years in the 60s and 70s. The 439 is missing on Saturday, and we see
some 900s assigned to work Ford (926, 905).

Two 900s that came in on Friday night (951) and Saturday (953) are going
to go east on freight NY-100 the next day, Sunday. In the Sunday
entries (4th), you see that engines 2457, 2458 and 2459 were taken off
NY-100 at Suffern, and presumably the 951 and 953 took over for them for
the last miles to Croxton. Those 2450's were less than a year old at
that point, and obviously were then considered high-priority
locomotives, given their assignment to NY-100. The coach tender's notes
say that this set was towed back to Port Jervis on the 90-turn, which
was the westbound return of freight 90 after it delivered the autoparts
traffic to Ford.

Back in the mid-60s, it was fairly common for the 90 to operate as a
turn crew returning to Port Jervis.  It's possible back then that the
NY-100 arrived between 3 am and dawn; the 90 train should have arrived
well before the 100, but it is possible that the 90 crew spent some time
switching in Hillburn Yard and then taking its train down to Ford in
Mahwah for direct delivery (recall that the Ford plant was on a spur
about 2 miles from Suffern and Hillburn Yard). The 90 crew then would
have come back to Hillburn and probably did more switching to make up
the westbound train that it would return to Port Jervis. So it is very
possible that the 90 turn's departure for PO would have happened after
NY-100 arrived. That would have gotten those new 2450's back to Port
Jervis not long after sunrise, where they were needed perhaps for a
westbound hot train out of Maybrook (perhaps the MB-77/91 in mid-morning).

Another interesting thing on Sunday -- the 429 makes it back, being set
off by a westbound ordinary freight out of Croxton.

I'm not sure what "PB" means.

I'm of course saving the weirdest thing for last. And that is the 1115,
a Baldwin AS-16. The NY Division was a very unusual place for the
1100's to be in 1965. Supposedly they lasted into 1966, when the 1115
and several others went to Striegel. I thought that that the 1100s were
used out of Scranton in pusher service or local runs thru the mid-60s,
or maybe did some odd tasks up around Buffalo. But this sheet says that
the wayward Baldwin arrived on a "Ford-Spl". I know that back in the
mid-60s, there were "Ford Specials" on the EL, which were occasional
dedicated Ford Mahwah trains outside of the usual 90 train from
Buffalo. But a Ford train would be a fairly high-priority assignment --
to have put an 1100 on such a run would be highly unusual, there would
have had to have been a very bad motive power situation at where ever
this Ford train came out of to have used an 1100.

The unit was towed dead back to Port Jervis -- not a big surprise. I
know that 1100's were not generally MU'able with EL road power, but
could MU with 900 or 1000 series Alcos that were ex-Erie, or 1200 / 1400
Geeps that were Erie. So, perhaps the 1115 came in with several 1000
freight RS's and/or 1200 freight Geeps, with the idea that it would
hopefully contribute to getting the train over the hills quickly for at
least a while, and when it finally failed, the other units could set the
Baldwin out somewhere and then drag the rest of the train slowly to its
destination. Since the unit did make it to Suffern, we can imagine that
it kept working most of the way !

My SWAG -- maybe some very hot Ford cars were ready in Akron or
elsewhere in Ohio, and the first priority freight coming along was not
going all the way to Port Jervis -- perhaps the train was going to
Scranton (which the NY98 was doing around then), or was a D&H train for
Binghamton (where the power could have been pre-committed to taking a
westbound out of Bingo). Â Â So maybe the hot cars got as far as
Binghamton, and the EL had to put a "Special" together to get them down
to Suffern and Mahwah, without any normal road power available. And
maybe the 1115 had just been used on a job out of Scranton to Binghamton
or had been working on the S&U, and was grabbed with some other older
road-switchers to try to get the hot cars over Gulf Summit and down to
Port Jervis and Mahwah.

I'd love to know the real story, but . . . stuff like has probably
passed into the dark zone, as the people who might have been there are
gone or wouldn't be able to remember anymore. We EL fans have done a
lot to preserve many details about how the EL operated on a day to day
basis, but its still sad to think about what was not or could not be
preserved, about the questions that can't be answered anymore.

But thanks to Ray for helping us preserve this little tid-bit anyway!

Jim Gerofsky



SuffernEngineBookS.jpg

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