(erielack) Re: Seatrain

["Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>]

I'd like to know how those Seatrain boxes were handled on NY-97, with or
without chassis. You're right about the sideloaders: Cx and Co had 3 each,
and the others were all circus-loading, so the latter couldn't handle them
"on the deck". They may also have been empties, which were generally handled
in non-priority trains as we discussed with SF-100. I think the most likely
scenario was as you outlined: forwarded from Marion on a runthrough. EL did
handle containers other than Seatrain; the Diamond article on 51st Street
has photos of SeaLand and Polish Ocean Lines boxes, and there were others.
The article mentions that the trend was to handle an increasing portion as
COFC, but one of the reasons they didn't like this was because of limited
parking space at the facility: when they loaded a container, they still had
to park the chassis. (Later on, larger terminals used vertical chassis
stacking racks.) The earlier REA boxes I believe were loaded with a
side-transfer device such as the Steadman. I'd bet Paul T has a photo of one
he can post.

Paul B

Given the logistical difficulties of COFC that you cite, I wouldn't think
that the Seatrain cars were going to an intermediate location on the EL like
Akron.  I thought that the only sideloaders were in Croxton and 51st Street,
the other ramps were circus style.  Not sure how that Weehawken operation
worked, never peeked in on it.  I'd guess that the Seatrain cars went to
Marion on NY97 and were switched into a direct interchange train like CNW97;
maybe it was a slow, low-rate landbridge for low-value lading.  I gather
that Seatrain was the EL's only COFC traffic, other than the REA boxes that
you would see on long flatcars on EL mail trains in the early 60s.  I never
figured out how they were handled either.

Jim Gerofsky



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