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From: "Schuyler Larrabee" schuyler DOT larrabee AT verizon DOT net
Date: Fri, 02 May 2008 23:01:54 -0400
Subject: May calendar photo and other things, such as Chester.
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Wow, there is such a thing as thread wandering, and this thread is a really strong example!

But along the way, John Adams asked about Chester and how the track was arranged? To quote his
question (and his story):

"Does nobody know what the track layout was in Chester and where those cattle cars were dropped
relative to the slaughterhouse which was on the South side of 17 while the Erie mainline was North
of 17 and a fair distance from the slaughterhouse. Occasionally in the late sixties after those
cattle deliveries had stopped Port Jervis would get a car load of hogs yarding in Port Jervis which
needed to be cut out and taken down to the stock pen for watering and feeding which was almost
directly across from the station at the East end of the Port Jervis terminal close to where the
concrete base of the water tower for I believe pushers still exist to this date. The first time I
was involved in this was when a stock car had to be dug out of the east end of train in the west
bound yard. We grabbed the cars behind the stock car including the stock car and pulled back. The
conductor then instructed me to ride the car as we kicked it into a track. The first thing to get by
was the smell. The second thing was the fact was the car was old and had one of those old vertical
type brake wheels. They kicked me and with that type brake wheel I wasn't able to slow down the car
enough to the satisfaction of the conductor and when the car coupled up the pigs started squealing
like crazy. I started laughing as well as the other member of the crew while the conductor started
chewing us out about how much damage to freight cost the railroad. I was about 20-21 years old about
that time."
_______________________________
At first I thought you were asking about the spurs right adjacent to the Chester Station. That area
is shown in the attached image from Google Earth. The track is, of course, the "Heritage Trail"
now, a bike trail, but the station is still there and has a pretty decent local museum. And in
there are images that show that the buildings at a diagonal to the track were served by spurs. I
suspect you can sort of pencil in where they would have been in that image.

But then I read John's question again: "South side of 17 . . . ." Hmm. So back to GE, and you
can see (Google Earth search "Greycourt.") where the L&HR crossed the ERIE on a bridge, and the
connection, which branched off the ERIE about under that bridge, and swung around to the south. It
joins the L&HR around "Hudson Street," and then heads south and under 17. So, John, where was there
a slaughterhouse south of 17? Can you ID this on Google Earth?

It appears to me that any slaughterhouse "south of 17" would have to be off the L&HR.

Here's another interesting image to look at, too.

http://docs.unh.edu/NY/gshn08ne.jpg

SGL
La vita e breve, mangiate prima il dolce!




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