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(erielack) DL&W Freight Cars



The 40-ft BX cars aside, both groups ( the 1950 and 1957 cars) carried
only reporting marks all through the DL years. Other DL freight cars
repainted around 1958 and later seem to have received just the reporting
marks as well.

I think it was not the coming merger that caused this.  (Erie was fully
repainting freight cars in the Erie scheme right through 1960.)  By the
late 50's, Lackawanna was in serious trouble financially and looking for
any way to economize.  Considering any small savings, they tried that
solid gray paint scheme on locomotives (later discarded).  Perhaps too,
with the freight car fleet, leaving off the name reduced the cost of
repainting cars.

A couple of other examples of  DL's attempt to reduce costs and raise
revenue at this time included a proposal by Perry Shoemaker to turn the
underutilized first floor of the Scranton station into a multi-use
transportation center.  That would have meant buses and airline
ticketing.  Not sure how this would have worked. Scranton already had a
bus depot and two of the four airlines serving Avoca had downtown ticket
offices (Allegheny at Hotel Casey and Eastern at Hotel Jermyn).
Fortunately, that idea never went anywhere.

In 1960, the railroad real estate department put most of the stations on
the market for lease or sale to raise revenue and reduce taxes and
maintenance costs.  The thinking was they would still be used for
railroad purposes while undergoing commercial development.  Again, I
don't think much of this was accomplished before E-L.

Mike Oravec



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