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(erielack) NJ locals

From the mid-60s to the very early 70s:

The Pusher worked Harrison yard and the Harrison branch, as well as working 
up to Orange Street yard.  At Newark Tower, you would be looking to make a 
hot move to squeeze the pusher in between scoots up to Orange Street.  You 
always needed to assess who the conductor and engineer were, and if they 
would work with you.  Of course, it depended on if they were counting on an 
early quit.

Never called the P&D drill The Bloomer, I imagine this went away with the 
business on the Montclair branch.  From at least 1964 on, but the indeed 
real wood, on occasion, service the Montclair branch as needed. They rarely 
went all the way to Montclair, and if they did, and tower had to be called 
out to open up Montclair Tower to make the moves.  That was one very 
expensive switch. I got to do it twice, 60 to 90 minutes were, plus travel, 
for a day's pay and travel time.  Of course the pay for Newark Tower, as I 
recall, was $2.7908 per hour. Yes, for some reason our men's pay was 
calculated to the hundredth of a cent.

The closing of the yard at Orange, and shortly thereafter, South Orange 
tower in 65, she coincided with the virtual elimination of any local 
switching beyond the  pushers territory, and the Montclair branch, until you 
got to somewhat.  The P&D (Gladstone drill), typically ran straight through 
Croxton to Summit.  At summit, rahway valley interchange was handed.  This 
would be one to five cars, typically.  The drools day was spent on the 
Gladstone branch, dodging scoots.  Very occasionally, really quite rarely, 
they might shove a car up to Chatham lumber.

During the summer, it was not unusual to have a stone train to Millington 
and back on the P&D. power was always two RS3s, which were needed back in 
Hoboken for the rush.

In the 60s, the Newark drill worked the Newark branch, and was still busy.

The Silver Lake drill did the work on the Orange branch and that North 
Newark on the Greenwood Lake.

The Greenwood Lake haul by this time had very little, if any, work before 
great notch.  It should be noted that the P&D and the Haul were not blocked 
out of Croxton.  The P&D she would switch out his train at summit.  How long 
this took was dependent on both the size of the train, and whether they were 
going for an early quit, or they were going to milk the clock. They really 
liked to rack up the overtime on this job.  Occasionally an assistant 
trainmaster would be sent out to monitor the operation, and then things 
really slowed down.  Drilling out the train of say ten cars for both facing 
and trailing .sightings on the branch, compounded with a bunch of malarkey 
about where meets would be made and win, and contingencies, would totally 
baffle the young man sent to tighten things up. Everyone would laugh and 
tell stories about how the poor guy was totally suckered and flummoxed. 
This is just part of a culture of the railroad at that time, and the tension 
between the autonomy of the crews and the need of the company to reduce 
costs.

The Greenwood Lake haul switched his train out at great notch, and typically 
would either go of the Caldwell branch, or make the long run of the 
Greenwood Lake as far as necessary.  It was not practicable to go up the 
branch to Essex Fells the same day work was needed far up the Greenwood 
Lake, like Wanaque-Midvale. There was still work at Little Falls, and the 
Totowa industrial track, which had not really been developed much at that 
time, having been the freight main for the DL.

I hope this helps, Paul.  People on this list seem to get confused about 
names and places.  My weaknesses are along the lines of what year did 
something in particular change.

Len VanderJagt
EL 1965 -- 1972


>>>> From Archives_@_Railfan.net
> Message-ID: <006c01c5d6e3$a54722b0$7a01a8c0_@_paul>
> Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 04:36:06 -0400
> From: "Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>
> Subject: (erielack) NJ Locals
>
> Questions for Rich and others. I'm filling in the blanks on the locals 
> west
> of Newark. The "Bloomer" served the Gladstone branch (P&D), but what about
> the M&E between Summit and Newark, and the Montclair branch: was this
> territory also covered by the Bloomer, some other local job or was there 
> no
> local traffic here? Also the NY&GL between Newark and Little Falls,
> presumably covered by the Greenwood Lake Haul: any local traffic on this
> segment? Finally, how about the ex-DL&W branch between Kingsland and 
> Newark?
>
> Paul B
>
>
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