Ed,
Actually, roughly 80 miles in 82 minutes is pretty good considering how
much time the train would have been spending under 40 mph (speed
restrictions and station stops). In addition, the Morristown Line was
mostly 105 lbs rail in those days, so I think--correct me if I'm wrong--the
speed limit for the Phoebe Snow was 60 mph until west of Dover. Somewhere
along the way there could have been some high-stepping at times. Regarding
the Boonton Line, however, even though it was a great freight line, prior
to its severing in the early 1960s, it still wasn't a high-speed passenger
line. It was good for a steady 50-55 mph, but don't forget the westbound
1% grade. My guess is that when they made up the schedule they made #21
match #3's time to East Stroudsburg and probably didn't do a lot of
thinking about it. Paul may be right that they ran "hot" to Stroudsburg
and then sat there until the schedule caught up.
Chuck
"Tupaczewski, Paul R
(Paul)"
<paultup_@_lucent.com> To: "'Montgomery, Edward T'" <Edward.Montgomery@fcps.edu>
Sent by: erielack_@_lists.railfan.net
erielack-owner_@_lists. cc:
railfan.net Subject:
RE: (erielack) LACKAWANNA IS NOT FAST
08/31/2004 11:00 AM
Please respond to
"Tupaczewski, Paul R
(Paul)"
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
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