Having just received my copy of the Diamond and reading the great article by Art Erdman where he mentions the BT Man, I remembered that someone had asked about that train last week and I don't recall anyone responding. The BT Man was a westbound, called out of Croxton, that usually ran light to Coalburgh Jct (BT), know as Passaic Jct on the Susquehanna, to pickup empties left in the yard by the NYS&W. I recall the crew spending a lot of time in the yard, sometimes 2-3 hours, sorting out their train before going west. This provided the young railfans that used to patrol BT (myself included) a great oppotunity to ride in the cab with the friendly crews as they drilled out their train. When they were ready, they would call the operator at WJ tower in Ridgewood for permission to go west. The conductor would walk up to the phone box at the signal on the yard lead to get his permission as the radio's were still not that reliable. The move west out of the yard often left Midland Ave. crossing blocked for quite a while as they slowly climbed the grade up to the mainline switch. Often, they departed with 50-60 cars. Power for this train was usually not more than 2 big units: 2 SD45's or U33C's. But on Saturday you could depend on 3 or 4 RS's and GP7's from the commuter pool working this job. As Mr. Erdman's article say's, the BT Man could fillout is train with empties from Suffern after picking up at BT. Mike Galesi ELHS #145 ------------------------------
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