RE: (erielack) TOFC

[Wjm2223_@_cs.com]

On the subject of UPS fast freight I haven't seen anything about the apparently short lived Adv NY 100 that ran in 1969 once a week, Sat nignt, out of 51st Yard with an entirely meat consist of refrigerated trailers all for "Bergen".  Bergen was operating personnel jargon for Croxton.  This had to be a unique operation in that there could not have been many examples of solid Croxton trains out of Chicago.

I learned of this from one Warren Barber who ran a kind of market research operation in Cleveland during a job interview I had with him in the Spring of 1969. Most of the interview was taken up with Warren incessantly "scratching his head" trying to figure out how to generate a positive return handling refrigerated meat into the New York market and not lose the traffic to the then new Interstate highways.  A trial was the Sat. only Adv. 100.

I was living in Rochester, N Y at the time and called the yardmaster at 51st in Chicago to learn that the first trip had left just after 6pm on this Spring Sat in 1969.  I figured the best it could do to Hornell, an hour and a half south of Rochester, was about 16 hours. That would put it into Hornell around late Sun. morning or early afternoon.  So, I called the crew dispatcher Sun a.m. and inquired as to whether there was an Adv. 100 in sight. To my pleasure, he said it was called for 11:00.  Well, this I was not about to miss.  I drove to Hornell, stopped in the "Beanery" across  from the depot to eveasedrop on the latest rumors while having the lsst meal I expected to have before Croxton and right on the advertised at 11:00 in pulled a couple of Alco Century's and around 40 TTX flats all with the ear-splitting sound of refrigeration units humming.  The crew change was made on the main and within minutes we were moving at close to 60 down the Canistio Valley.  One bit of conversation I recall haveing with the engineer was the relatively rough ride on the Century's.  I inquired whether this was characteristic on this locomotive or was it the track.  His response was an emphatic, "Both". When we hit the welded rail on tk. 2 east of Southport Jct.(Elmira)and the ride was as smooth as a Pullman car I knew the rail needed work on the "Swale".  All in all, it was a 50 and 60 mph run with good running even around those notorous curves of tne Delaware Div.  There were no stops other than for a very quick crew change at Port Jervis. We arrived Croxton just after 6pm with all switches lined into the piggyback strip as it was called then.  The head brakeman consantly repeated, "Hotter'n hell, hotter'n Hell". I would expect this was one of the best runs the EL ever made from Chicago to N.Y.  I don't recall how long this operation persisted but I will always remember it as an all too quixotic if not naive bit of EL optimism.

Oh, the job interview.  Warren offered me the job but he couldn't get me my bottom salary requirement so I went with the New York Central and always felt a conflict of interest.  I never told anyone at the Central of my EL emotional attachments.  However, I didn't last long at the Central.  With the PRR merger iminent I did not feel confident casting my professional lot, so to speak, with a sinking ship as the industry appeared to be at the time.  I left and went to dental school, and now I am reading of people I knew at the time taking their pensions.  It makes me wonder, here they are leaving their working lives behind and I'm busier and more productive than I've ever been and don't see retirement even on the radar.  I can't but wonder if they are not running away from something, something from which I have no need to escape.   It is a source of mystery to never know whether or not you have made the best decisions for your life.  We just never know.

Bill McDonald
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