The General Foods distribution center was located on Colfax Avenue in Clifton NJ, along the former DL&W mainline just "Timetable" east of where the DL&W Mainline is merged into the Erie Mainline in Paterson. I recall riding my bike up to Garret Mountian and looking down at the N Scale sized Paterson Yard and seeing it filled with shinny new strange "Blue" EL Boxcars. Must have been 1975. Somewhere I recall seeing an EL add highlighting the NEW General Foods building, boxcars IN trailers OUT. It spoke of how much revenue it would bring EL in 1975. The view from the Garden State Parkway today matches the add perfectly. GF abandoned it sometime after Conrail took over, the large one story building is now for lease or sale, partially occupied... like most of the former EL Customers in the area. Todd- Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 20:48:41 -0500 From: bill guimes Subject: Re: (erielack) EL blue boxcar Paul, Mike: They were painted blue to signify that they were not part of the EL property, or so I remember. That was around the time EL went into bankruptcy, and General Foods owned or leased the cars through the EL or something convoluted (dedicated service?). Anyway, by painting the cars blue, they were somehow different from the rest of the EL cars. Bill Paul R. Tupaczewski wrote: > Mike, > > The "blue" cars were built at the end of 1974 (Nov. and Dec.), > and were dedicated to General Foods service (hence the blue color). They > traveled the system, though the GF plant was in New Jersey (Clifton, I > think?). The cars could be seen anywhere in the US. They hauled food > products, as far as I can tell... > > - Paul - --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! ------------------------------
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