(erielack) TOFC

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

What a great story! That was a helluva run, 24hrs (23 if the 6pm departure was CT), vs I think 26.5 hr for NY-100 at that time. The
P-70 likely had all the trailers on the ground by 8pm. Interestingly in 1971-72 BN had a Friday-only TOFC train called BE (Beef Express) out of Denver at 4pm due in Chicago (Cicero) at 5pm Saturday; no such train appears in CB&Q's 1969 schedule but I wonder if there in fact was one that was forwarded as A-NY-100. The BN train didn't last long. TOFC trailers hauling meat from SD and western IA arrived in Chicago in early afternoon and for the most part were then "rubbered" to Eastern connections like EL; however IHB had a 2pm cutoff for steel-wheel interchange to NYC and then PC. The meat business was huge for EL, with volume peaking at 38,000 trailers in 1968, equal to UPS volume in the mid-70's. However the profits weren't there, and in 1972 it had been pared down to 6,200 units.

Paul B

From: Wjm2223_@_cs.com
Subject: RE: (erielack) TOFC

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

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