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From: Todd Hollritt thollritt AT yahoo DOT com
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:25:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: The "Boonton Line" today
"NS_TotowaInd_009.jpg" - image/pjpeg, 881x661 (24bit)

 Well, the subject line may be deceiving, but hey this WAS the Delaware Lackawanna & Western Boonton Line! Okay, die hard Lackawanna fans may want to skip to the next email. You have been warned...
 
 Today I snapped a few photo's of Norfolk Southern local HO-2 as it traversed the former Boonton Line (Totowa Industrial) spur. Even though this is the closest freight train that operates near my home, I rarely photograph it. I really get an uneasy feeling that this former two track mainline is on borrowed time so its time to enjoy it while its here. The last time I photographed a drill working this area was in the early Conrail era, I recall a colorful BAR GP-38 lease unit and a former RDG GP-35 drew me in back in 1977. Before that it was a routine bike ride to watch the Totowa Roustabout with an EL  GP-7 or two working the numerous industries all day with the C-182 along for the ride.
 As you can see,  a dreary day fits the mood of the once proud heavily ballasted commuter and coal route of the Lackawanna Railroad, most of these images were taken standing in the cinders of the remnants of westbound Track 1. The first photos are the HO-2 rolling east on the former Track 2 heading east from Wayne, NJ to Totowa. The former Lackwanna engineer's used to call this section of railroad "The Racetrack" because of the speeds you could attain on the straight as an arrow trackage here! Today, GP-40-2  3010 (Ex-Conrail 3289) and its six car train tiptoed toward Omega Mfg. in Totowa to deliver a former Conrail (NS) 50' boxcar.
  The next photo's show HO-2 at the Omega Mfg. spur, RACE Plastics is on the north side of the track, Riverview Drive is the overpass you see behind the train, and the white building to the left is Omega. Looking quite forlorn, only a handful of employee cars in the lot today. One set off, no pickup for HO-2 today.
  The last images show the westbound return of HO-2, after running around its train near Union Blvd. in Totowa the train will return to Mountian View and the NJ Transit line for its westward tri to Dover. I thought some would enjoy the three views of HO-2 passing under the last DL&W concrete overpass in the area, this one takes Minnisink Road up and over the former Lackawanna mainline, on a very steep hump! Westbound 4-6-2's, GP-7's and Trainmasters would throttle up here for the westward dash tooward Mountain View station in the "Good old days". But as you can see he rails still get polished, and the train still shows up now and then, so this still is a good day! But as I turned and took the last images, it shows HO-2 passing under the very reason for the Boonton Lines demise, Route  80... is that a tree growing in the middle of what was Track 2 I see?!  Ugh, how sad..... 
 
  Its scary, watching this unfold and realizing the 3010 just hauled the last freight on the Gladstone Branch a few months ago, if this customer disappears on the former Boonton Line another "Last Run" would take place, I know its inevitable with all the former EL customers disappearing every year here in New Jersey. Yup, I'm thinking NS should take the Horse off the nose of that locomotive and replace it with a silhouette of the Grim Reaper.  :( 
 
Todd ~ 




NS_TotowaInd_009.jpg

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