The Erie's reluctance to permit RDCs was, I believe, because they were so light they would not reliably trip the signals in the Arches. That grade crossing still exists; it's still a horror and a terror. The road crosses the Northern just north of the NYS&W junction at Babbitt and right underneath the West Shore, which is crossing over the Northern at that point. If you modelled it, nobody would believe it. Randy Brown - ------------------------------------------------------------- BTW -- The NYS&W also tried to use RDCs on the two Saturday Butler trains -- they did it for two weeks -- until the Erie decreed that they would refuse any train whatoever using RDCs (even though the NYS&W trains were the only user of the Jersey City Terminal on Saturdays). The Northern moved to Hoboken the Monday after the end of Jersey City ferry service. The NYS&W was then alone at Jersey City for more than a year. > Of course, there was that time the Northern smacked into a truck at Babbitt -- and the Northern riders piled off and squeezed into the NYS&W train to the Transfer, with the Erie conductor runing after then "That train doesn;t go to Jersey City!!! It only goes to the Transfer!!!" but people wanted to get to work, not spend the morning waiting for a crane to dislodge the wreckage of the truck and the RS3 -- wedged together under the West Shore bridge. One can easily fix the exact date -- that was the same day the PRR quit Exchange Place. Cheers, Jim Guthrie The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org ------------------------------
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