(erielack) Ray Ruff, Denville, etc

["Len VanderJagt" <lvj911_@_worldnet.att.net>]

Just for clarification, please.  Do I understand from a previous post that 
Ray wound up his career as the station cleaner at Summit?  I always wondered 
what happened to towermen as everything was consolidated in Hoboken.

I don't have the picture in front of me right now, but it was taken in 
Denville Tower.  There simply is no other tower with that machine and 
interior.  All of those white levers would indicate that this photo was 
taken after they tore out most of the plant and tracks on the Boonton side, 
after I left..

I listened to the first landing on the moon while working Denville Tower, 
and I posted there under Jack Swenson, including the day which marked his 
54th year on the railroad, almost entirely spent in Denville.  He hired on 
in 1913.  So we still can have the second person accounts of things on the 
railroad that happened a hundred years ago.

With regard to "running the clock" and "grinding off the time", I can 
remember almost every time I had to do that.  As Rich said, those two to 
four minutes lasted forever.  During that time you would have to notify the 
dispatcher what was up, never a happy message. At the very least, you were 
in technical violation of having signals cleared in advance of an immediate 
move without authorization.  That was a "jaywalking" type of offense, 
however, particularly on the Lackawanna side where all signals cleared 
themselves if you kept them pulled off.  No big deal would be holding up a 
through passenger train or hot freight.  On the Erie side, signals did not 
clear themselves and so railfans could have a pretty good idea of if a train 
was approaching if the home signal was not at "stop."

Len VanderJagt 


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