(erielack) Musings on a 1962 employees timetable

["JG at graytrainpix" <graytrainpix_@_hotmail.com>]

The 1962 employee’s timetable that I won thru eBay showed up in my mailbox 
yesterday (NY Division # 4, Oct. 28, 1962).  As advertised, it was signed by 
the late, great EL / Erie tower operator and dispatcher, Charlie Howells.  
But aside from that bit of historical significance, the timetable brought up 
a variety of other interesting issues.  Since there hasn’t been all that 
much written about EL operations during the early 60s, I thought I would 
share some stuff that I noticed.

First off, you can tell that this timetable is a mix of pre-merger Erie NY 
Division pages and Lackawanna M&E Division pages, with just a few 
post-merger changes.   The typefaces and printing styles change somewhere in 
the middle, with former Erie schedules and special instructions seperated 
from former DL&W material.  In fact, there wasn’t even a unified rulebook 
yet; the timetable points out that former Erie rules remained in effect on 
the Erie side, and the former DL&W book still ruled on the old Lackawanna.

The DL&W portion of the timetable is admittedly more informative and 
organized.  You have to search around for times when towers and block 
stations are opened and closed in the Erie section.  And not all manual 
grade crossings (having gatemen) are listed either.  You search in vain for 
info about Park Avenue in Rutherford and Central Avenue in East Rutherford 
along the Bergen County Line.  Since these gatehouses were closed at night 
and on weekends, you would think that the Erie would have provided train 
crews with an easy way to find out when someone would be on duty.  However, 
the gatehouses on the NJ&NY and the Orange Branch are listed, along with 
their on-duty times.  But these listings show up in odd places: for one 
line, near the station listing; for the other, in the line’s special 
instructions.  Not until EL employee timetable number 1 in October 1964 was 
this cleaned up.

Speaking of gatehouses, the timetable cleared up a minor mystery presented 
by John Henderson on page 38 of his great book “Four Great Divisions” (no 
pun, that book is worth the price alone for the centerspread on p.48 and 49 
of the board at Grove Street Tower on the former Erie in Jersey City).  
Henderson tells of how he hired on as a New York Division tower operator in 
1961, and was given his first assignment at the Watchung Avenue block 
station and gatehouse in Montclair (on the Greenwood Lake line).  What?  OK, 
I knew that prior to the big 1963 line rearrangement, the Greenwood Lake 
line did not have automatic signals west of Orange Junction (Forest Hills, 
Newark) and was run by block operators and rules.  OK, you can see the block 
semaphore in the picture of the gate shanty that Mr. Henderson provides on 
p. 38.  But anyone familiar with Watchung Avenue in Montclair knows that it 
was very unlikely that there was a grade crossing at that station in 1961.  
The “Lake” goes over Watchung Avenue on a trestle and the landscape is 
generally depressed from track level on both sides of the station.

Despite the inelegance of how block stations are listed in the Erie section 
of the timetable, I finally found a reference to “North Fullerton Ave. Block 
Station” in Montclair.  OK, that makes sense out of Mr. Henderson’s words 
and picture.  North Fullerton Avenue is a level grade crossing about ½ mile 
to the east of Watchung Avenue station, near the center siding that NJ 
Transit still uses occasionally for maintenance equipment.  But wait, a new 
mystery arises: North Fullerton was staffed as a block station from 11:30 AM 
to 7:30 PM.  What about the morning rush hour?  Perhaps North Fullerton was 
a westbound block station only.  The Erie station at Walnut Street, about a 
½ mile to the east, was open from 6:30 AM to 3:30 PM – which would cover all 
of the morning rush hour, but not the evening commute.  Perhaps Walnut 
Street then served as an eastbound block limit, and North Fullerton served 
as a westbound block station.  Fine, but one more thing.  Who operated the 
gates at North Fullerton Ave. during the morning rush hour?  Another wild 
guess, maybe a regular gateman manned the shanty from 7 to 11 (and didn’t 
touch the block signal lever or OS trains, since gatemen weren’t paid to do 
that), then spent another 4 hours later in the day at one of the gatehouses 
on the Orange Branch.

Speaking of block operation, there is also the Newark Branch, which in this 
timetable has been temporarily disconnected from the Erie Main Line through 
Paterson.  Why?  Because the Branch through South Paterson was being 
elevated as to become the connector between the Boonton Line at Paterson 
Junction and the Erie Main at XW Tower (under Route 80 today), as part of 
the closure of the Main Line thru downtown Passaic.  Henderson describes 
this on pages 56 and 57 of Four Great Divisions.  Instead of originating and 
terminating at Waldwick and Paterson Station Lower Level, the 3 daily Newark 
Branch trains now deadheaded from Hoboken in the AM and deadheaded back 
there in the PM via the Boonton Line, then started or ended their Newark 
Branch runs at South Paterson.  I’m going to guess that an old low-speed 
freight track connection between the DL&W Paterson City Spur and the Erie’s 
Newark Branch at Paterson Junction was used, and that the elevated stretch 
of “New Main Line” from Paterson Jct. (former DLW Boonton Line) to XW (Erie 
Main) was still under construction in October 62.

XW Tower was not shown as a train order office in October 1962, so I’m 
guessing that it had been closed just a bit earlier in the year, once the 
work on the Newark Branch elevation began.  But as with WR Tower in West 
Arlington, which was closed in the early 70s, XW probably was opened as 
needed for work trains needing access to and from the elevation area, and 
for single track passenger train moves on the Main due to that work 
(Henderson describes this also on page 57; he was assigned as a temporary 
operator in early 1963 at the crossovers just east of XW and Paterson Yard, 
to allow work on the track rearrangement at XW).

Quick digression on XW:  Len Allman asked the other day about plans for 
those unique Erie towers constructed of block having 2-sided, barely 
slanting roofs covering 2 opposing faces of the structure, and zig-zag 
parapets towering over the roofline at the other 2 faces.  I wouldn’t know 
where to find plans, but there are a number of photos available of this 
style of tower.  OS Tower can be clearly seen in Trackside with Bob Collins 
and Route of the Erie Limited, HB Tower (NY&NY Jct. Rutherford) is seen in 
Pascack Valley Line, Cass Street Hornell appears in EL in Color 4, SN 
Levittsburg OH is seen in EL in Color 1 (and probably other places).  
Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any good pics of XW, which was also of 
this style.  Hope I’m wrong about that, or that an upcoming book will soon 
change that.  You can barely make out XW in the distance in Henderson’s pic 
on p. 58 (of the commemorative last train down the Erie Main Line thru 
Passaic).

Back to the Boonton Line for a second.  In October, 1962, train 15 (the Owl 
mail train for Buffalo) was still scheduled on the Boonton Line, with first 
stop at East Stroudsburg.  Its eastbound equivalent, number 10 the New York 
Mail, ran via the M&E with stops in Dover and Newark.  Interestingly, the 
late night Erie mail trains had the same pattern: westbound number 7 (the 
Pacific Express) ran as an express via the Bergen County Line, first stop 
Middletown, while eastbound number 8 ran the Erie Main with stops in 
Ridgewood and Paterson.  Hmmm, perhaps there was enough time in the evening 
to gather mail from northern New Jersey locations and take it all down to 
Hoboken for westbound shipment at midnight; whereas coming east, the Post 
Office wanted the mail dropped off at local stops as to give enough time for 
local street sorting.  That might better allow eastbound mail to be ready 
for daytime delivery in New Jersey.  Again, just a guess.  As to number 15, 
it was put back on the M&E thru Summit after the big rearrangement in 63.  I 
gather that a through mail train would have difficulty making good time on 
the Greenwood Lake portion of the “revised Boonton Line”, given the speed 
restrictions at DB and WR Draw (20 mph), the grades up to Great Notch, and 
the curves from there to Wayne.

One final passenger train point: I never knew that 21 and 22 (the Delaware 
Division connections for trains 1 and 2, which in 1962 were still called the 
Erie-Lackawanna Limited) were scheduled thru to Hornell.  Unfortunately, my 
timetable (or really Charlie’s timetable) only shows the schedule to Port 
Jervis, but the train destination is clearly marked as Hornell.  A note says 
“no passengers west of Binghampton”.  Hmm, wonder if 21 and 22 thus became 
the Buffalo connections at Hornell, i.e. trains 31 and 32.  As such, they 
would really be operated as thru Hoboken to Buffalo runs, perhaps for 
purposes of handling thru mail and express cars to and from Buffalo (without 
burdening 1 and 2 with extra switching in Binghampton and Hornell).

Just some musings on an old timetable, I'm ready for any and all corrections 
to my guesses.

Jim Gerofsky



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