(erielack) Before the Lackawanna hired him...

["MDelvec952_@_aol.com"]

It's a small world, indeed.

For those of you with a copy of Ed Miller's Trackside around Scranton, turn 
to page 23 and look at the top photo.  The driver of the dump truck about to 
unload coal is non other than Paul G. Borher as a "yute," taken September 13, 
1953, as 44-tonner 51 works nearby on the Laural Line.  Paul is unloading 
"silt," light powdered anthracite picked up from river bottoms, and he was 
wiating to dump that load directly into the next hopper once the car was 
moved into position.  He was working for Joe Garrison & Son trucking, and 
that's a Brockway 260SL dump truck.  Paul was already working at the Erie 
roundhouse at Avoca by this time, but got laid off when the diesels came.  He 
bounced around a few jobs before hiring out on the Lackawanna as a switchman 
at Taylor Yard in December 1954. When that job withered he applied to 
Greyhound bus, and to the Lackawanna t Hoboken. He got calls for both the 
same day, May 8, 1955, but got on a 4:00 a.m. No.8 bound for Hoboken to 
report for work.  He was an engineer trainee and worked the float bridges 
with the old timers. When that engineer's board was cut, he then took a spot 
at Port Morris, and he was there since, and worked through the EL merger and 
retired from NJ Transit a few years ago.

Paul is a Tri-State member and is liked by everyone.  He comes to the 
meetings complete with an authentic cigar, and his stories and recollections 
are priceless. It's quite a coincidence that with all the rail photographers 
around, that the one photo of him in a book shows him as a trucker.

                                   ....Mike

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