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(erielack) Good Friday
Good Friday is one of the key foundations of Christianity. But it also has some railroad memories for me.
I really didn't know much about the Lackawanna until about the 5th or 6th grade when a friend of my family started giving me timetables showing a whole other world of the DL&W that I never imagined existed.
I was amazed to find the number of trains that ran "via Morristown" and that they ran on electricity. In addition there were these trains that went beyond New Jersey to Scranton and Buffalo.
Well, when you lived in Mountain View, you didn't see much of that action. The only train that had any hint of long-distance operation was No. 47. The rest with all of their finery ran "via Morristown". I had always hoped that at least on one summer day there would be a derailment on the Morristown Line so I could spend the day watching the long-distance trains re-routed over the Boonton Line. It never happened.
I first saw 47 on a Good Friday around 1959 or 1960. It was pulled by two E8's and had a bunch of Railway Express boxcars, baggage cars and proably milk cars and an RPO with one 246-type coach on the rear. I was amazed to see how the engineer could spot that coach right about at the station while the engines and most of the head-end cars were well beyond the Parish Drive bridge curving to the west. I started to make the appointment to be at the Mountain View station to see the train in the coming years.
It didn't take long to see the consist shrink. In later years there might be a few Railway Express cars, the RPO and a 301-type coach. Around 1962 it consisted of a GP-7 and and F-3B with just the RPO and a former Erie rebuilt AC coach. In 1963 a Boonton car was used.
In the mid 1960s when 47, now 49, ran from Hoboken to Denville. I did ride that one summer morning and got to ride through the wye as the train was turned a Denville.
I had often wondered who actually rode 47. The first time I saw it the single coach seemed to be pretty full. After that it looked like only a handful were on board. I suppose that by the time the Boonton car was used, only the crew even knew the train existed.
Some thoughts.
Ed Montgomery
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