Ed Montgomery wrote: > That led me to reviewing a 1955 Lackawanna mainline timetable > I have. Issued July 1, 1955 in "Eastern Standard Time" it > had some interesting pre-storm things in it. For instance, > on weekends between July 9th and September 2nd Train 21 > preceeded the Phoebe with a buffet-lounge car and coaches. > This train left Hoboken at 10:05, ran over the Boonton Line > and made no stops until Stroudsburg arriving at 11:27. The > non-stop trip: 1 hour 22 minutes. The Pheobe left Hoboken at > 10:35 making the usual stops on the M&E along with Blairstown > and arrived at Stroudsburg 12:02. The trip 1 hour 22 > minutes. Do the math. At the time the Boonton Line and the > cut-off were maintained at 70 mph. This train didn't carry > express or mail. It was really an advance No.3. I was > surprised that they couldn't get the vacationers to the > mountains faster. Well, let's see. On Route 80 today, you can get to Stroudsburg in about an hour. Back in the 1950s, you didn't have the speed limits of today, nor the superhighways, and you'd be lucky to beat the DL&W to Stroudsburg, time-wise. Also remember that even though the track might have been maintained for 70, you still had bottlenecks (such as the area around Dover where speeds were restricted) and physical issues (there were grades on the Boonton Line where trains were probably not going full-bore 70 MPH). So even with three stops for the Phoebe (Newark, Morristown, Blairstown), you STILL did the trip in 1 hour 22 minutes. This would roughly equate to an average speed exceeding 60 MPH. - Paul ------------------------------
This HTML page is © 2000-2008 Blue Moon Online System and The Railfan Network
This page and the data contained therein may not be reproduced
for any form of commercial use without the explicit permission
of J. Henry Priebe Jr. or his duly authorized agent.