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(erielack) Re: Moodna Viaduct - aerial view

I had ridden the Lackawanna side to Syracuse, Buffalo, and Chicago 
between 1952 and 1965 but my Erie experience was limited to riding the 
ferry, the H&M tubes, the Northern Branch to Leonia, and watching the 
varnish arrive and depart from Jersey City. Until March, 2005, that is. 
Armed with my new senior discount Medicare card, I rode Metro-North from 
Fairfield, CT, to Grand Central (no senior discount in the am to GCT,) 
and headed for the shuttle to Times Square. Of course, the doors closed 
just as I got to it. I got to the west side IRT, express or local to 
34th St. would have been fine, but strangely, the platform was mobbed 
and I couldn't get near a stairway. I didn't know what was going on, but 
I needed to get to Penn Station to catch a train to the Secaucus 
transfer station to make a daylight trip to Pt. Jervis and back to 
Hoboken. The senior fare was nice. I started walking from the IRT to the 
42nd St. IND station, a free transfer not available in the 60's when I 
worked in midtown Manhattan. I got to the 8th Avenue platform to hear an 
announcement that trains were halted due to an "incident" at 59th St. 
and a police investigation. Finally some train arrived no doubt from 
Queens and the 53rd St. tunnel. I got on it and happily got to Penn 
Station. I bought my ticket to Pt. Jervis only to hear that due to some 
problem, only one tunnel was operational and trains were being held. It 
was too late to attempt to get to Hoboken so I waited nervously until 
they announced a North Jersey coast train which I could take to the 
transfer station. I got to the transfer, and for a first-timer, it took 
me a while to figure out where to go. The station was beautiful and very 
clean, but for this old rail fan, it was a little confusing to figure 
out how to get from my southbound Pennsylvania RR train to a northbound 
Erie train. I had plenty of time, although the announcements were not 
really precise, nor was the display board comprehensible (c'mon, I'm not 
that old!)

I guess we went out the Bergen County Line and returned the Main Line, 
whose station names I recognized from my Erie timetables of 50 years 
ago. I watched everything, all the NJ towns and the real scenery began 
once we passed the NY border. Spring had not come, so the trees were 
bare and you could see quite a distance. I expected Maybrook to be 
deserted since the Poughkeepsie bridge burned, but it was busy and 
several NS engines were there and waiting. I thought of the "old money" 
around Tuxedo and Harriman. We passed several freights. The Moodna 
viaduct was an experience, I remember the road under the north end from 
the aerial photo.

It was a neat trip, I could imagine the same trip in the "Erie Limited" 
or the "Pacific Express." The Erie really smoothed out the trip, I often 
drive I-84 to Scranton and it sure has its ups and downs. The Burger 
King in Pt. Jervis (in lieu of a diner) and the old turntable and 
remnants of former days filled the time until the same train "pushed" 
back to Hoboken. I had always wanted to make this trip, a free day came 
up in March with beautiful weather forecast, so I went. The 
misadventures on the subway and the Hudson River tunnels gave me some 
excitement, but the trip was glorious. "Carpe Diem" sure fit, I'll 
probably never get such a chance again. A few rides on the light rail 
completed the day. An uneventful PATH trip and subway to GCT, with a 
senior fare back to CT fulfilled a long-time wish, to ride the Erie 
route, at least as far as Pt. Jervis. I would recommend it to anyone, 
but not while the leaves are in bloom. They would obscure too many of 
the remaining r-o-w's and abandoned r-o-w's. Ooh, by the way, a few 
weeks prior to this, I had followed a route I saw in some NJ tourist 
magazine of the Lackawanna Cutoff. It was a bittersweet month.
Joel McEachen
Fairfield, CT (formerly of Leonia, NJ)

>EL List Daily          Monday, June 6 2005          Volume 03 : Number 1673
>
>>From Archives_@_Railfan.net
>Message-ID: <20050606024557.6115.qmail_@_web41125.mail.yahoo.com>
>Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 19:45:57 -0700 (PDT)
>From: "Gary R. Kazin" <gkazin_@_yahoo.com>
>Subject: (erielack) Moodna Viaduct - aerial view
>
>Here's the Google maps view of Moodna Viaduct.
>
>http://maps.google.com/maps?q=middletown+ny&ll=41.429862,-74.098309&spn=0.005300,0.007832&t=k&hl=en
>
>Gary R. Kazin
>DL&W Milepost R35.7
>Rockaway, New Jersey
>  
>


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