Dear Paul,
It may be a red herring, but I've read that Conrail might have retained the
Scranton route had it not been for the severing of the original Boonton
Line around Garret Mountain in Paterson (now part of Route 80) back in the
early 1960s. Conrail apparently didn't want anything to do with the use of
the routing of trains over the Greenwood Lake Branch, which was always a
potential operational headache even without heavy commuter traffic. It
makes for interesting speculation about what might have happened if the EL
had retained one track around Garret Mountain, as NJDOT had originally
proposed.
Chuck
"Paul Brezicki"
<doctorpb_@_bellsouth
.net> To: "EL Mailing List" <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net>
Sent by: cc:
erielack-owner_@_list Subject:
s.elhts.org (erielack) Boonton Line freight train analysis
10/04/2005 06:17 AM
Please respond to
"Paul Brezicki"
I think you're on the right track, Chuck. While most of the funding for
reconstruction came from the federal 3R program, some states were also
involved, and the various beaurocracies didn't always spend the money
wisely. Some of the decisions were more political than pragmatic. Maybe
that's how a crafty NJ pol got some work for his underemployed
constituents.
It was small potatoes compared with, say, rehabbing the multiple track PRR
main across PA. In the early going there was also still some uncertainty
about how much traffic would go where. So it doesn't surprise me that the
cutoff had a tie program in '76, and then in a year later they were
dragging
recently installed cwr off the Poconos and relaying it on the Delaware
Div'n. I think that early on, the CR operating folks determined they wanted
no part of muscling heavy freights over the Boonton line rollercoaster. So
the shift back to the Erie side was pretty rapid, and after that the
Scranton route saw online traffic and detours.
Paul B
Dear Paul B. and all,
So what remained on the Scranton side once the shift to the Erie side was
completed? There were definitely CR freights that operated over the
Cut-Off, at least during 1976. Whether this continued in 1977, I don't
know. By 1978, Port Morris to Slateford Jct. had been placed out of
service. Once again, I'm curious why there was significant tie replacement
on the Cut-Off after CR took over. Maybe they had all that federal money
to spend, or maybe it was something else? It doesn't make any sense. Any
speculation?
Chuck
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