(erielack) Dover tower

[jdent1_@_optonline.net]

I sent a copy of the emails in the "Railfans Run the EL"  and "Slide show in the tower" thread to Ed Weber.  As you may know, Ed was Tom Tabor III's photographer and friend.  He responded with the following:

"I never knew any RR men who were railfans.  I did "hang around" in the Dover and Summit towers (in the early 1950's), but there were only towermen, trainmen, occasionally a trainmaster, namely Carroll and Synder.  I remember a heated argument one evening in the Dover tower between Synder and an M of Way electrical foreman about the wiring of a track switch and signal.  The trainmaster didn't think the track signal was wired properly and the foreman didn't like being told that.  About 13 years later after I had graduated from college, worked six years in Pittsburgh, and moved to another job in Virginia, I met the son of that electrician at the place where I was working.  I told him about the incident.   Snyder later decided not to be a trainmaster anymore and became stationmaster at Newark.  He announced all the westbound trains as they arrived.
 
There was another funny incident with Snyder at Dover:  a mid-morning MU train used to pick up a Borden's milk car that was coupled on its rear end from Branchville train 1028, and it was delivered to Borden's at Orange.  The day I was there, the train left, but no one had turned the air on to release the brakes on the milk car.  The wheels were locked tight as the train left.  Snyder saw this and shouted to the RPO clerk in the next car to stop the train, and the clerk ignored him.  He then shouted to the towerman to turn the signal to red down at the Salem St. bridge, which he did, but as the train approached, the signal turned green.  Snyder then took off in his car to meet the train at Denville.  Maybe that's why he became a stationmaster."


Jim Dent


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