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Re: (erielack) Re: Fw: DL&W Depot Johnson City, NY 1965



I must have missed the original discussion.  Where's the photo being
discussed?

Jon Scaptura
Endicott, NY

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- ----- Original Message ----- 
From: <WSmith5957_@_aol.com>
To: <dougellison_@_stoneconsulting.com>; <laurellines@juno.com>;
<railroaddoug_@_erols.com>; <alfred_runte@email.msn.com>
Cc: <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net>; <johnkluge@citcom.net>;
<OverCrailway_@_aol.com>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 10:06 AM
Subject: (erielack) Re: Fw: DL&W Depot Johnson City, NY 1965


| Doug,
|              Neat foto of the DL&W Johnson City station. If memory serves
me
| correctly, the station was on the East side of the tracks so this view
would
| be looking West toward Vestal. In the early 60s, there was a roustabout
| called the 'over the river' job that worked Johnson City, the power plant,
| and on to Vestal. We'd leave the Conklin DL&W yard in the afternoon with
15
| or 20 cars & a GP9 or maybe an Alco switcher and run the former DL&W
mainline
| past West BD where the ERIE & DL&W lines parted company. At that point,
we'd
| begin switching industries - maybe sometihing for EJ shoe Co. then on to
the
| Johnson City station area where there was a small cluster of industries -
one
| of them sticks in my mind, a manufacturer of caramels. Cars for him were
| known as the 'candy man cars', thence to the power plant near the DL&W
bridge
| over the Susquehanna river, always good for a few hopper cars although the
| Company lost that business due to poor service (in an 'economy' measure,
the
| yardmaster cutoff a yard job and had us switch the yard for hours -
sometimes
| the full shift - and the coal didn't get to the powerplant when they
needed
| it. Niagra Mohawk decided to TRUCK the coal in so they wouldn't have to
shut
| down. Whatever money this saved the RR, it lost them another customer.
Hey,
| 10 cars here, 10 cars there & now you have a whole train you've
eliminated.
|       As an official told me,'We have to be cost effective'. They were and
| now there's no more Erie-Lackawanna.
| Regards,
| Walter E. Smith

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