(erielack) Pushers between Hornell and Cuba

[Wdburt1_@_aol.com]

Since my last post on this subject I had an opportunity to review several 
local newspaper articles from before World War One.  

They confirmed that before the River Line opened the Erie used pushers to 
assist freights between Hornell and Cuba.  The pushers got into the newspaper 
because they were constantly tangling with train movements.  A Mother Hubbard 
pusher backing around a right hand curve, with the engineer unable to see and the 
fireman unable to talk to him, was a recipe for disaster--one of the reasons 
the Erie decided to stop ordering them and the ICC outlawed new purchases a 
few years later.  There were several wrecks at Cuba for this very reason.

One of the articles also confirmed that the pushers used a turntable at Cuba. 
 This might be the water-filled pit I explored as a kid, located at the west 
end of the old narrow gauge yard, which the neighboring landowner told me was 
the old BE&C/TV&C narrow gauge turntable pit.  The biggest brown snake I ever 
saw slithered into that pit when I approached.

An 1882 "birds-eye view" (drawing) shows another turntable--clearly an Erie 
turntable, not BE&C or TV&C--right next to the West Main Street grade crossing 
and Erie depot.

WDB  

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