RE: (erielack) Advance 100

[Wjm2223_@_cs.com]

Jim:



>I don't know whether an Adv 100 ever made the Chicago Croxton run in 18 hours but acoording to a piece I clearly recall reading the an issue of Railway Age sometime in 1963 a passenger special for railroad officials traveling to Chicago for a convention did, according to the writer, make the trip in about 18 hours from Hoboken.  Of course, there were no stops other than to change crews and the train ran via the Plymatuning cut off (2nd sub) bypassing Youngstown.  The writer was very complementary toward the EL, almost as though he was surprised to find the physical plant as sound as it was.  He sounded as though he had never been across the N J Cutoff.  His praise of that line bordered on the superlative as well it should have.    So, 18 hours was possible of the EL.

I vividly recall my first trip across the DL&W in 1958 as a 15 year old aspiring tycoon on old #49 one morning going to Binghamton.  I just had to see what the Erie was competing with.  My jaw literally dropped when I took in the view of the Pequest Valley with the L&H running up through it as I stood on the back vestibule.  So too was the view from and then of Tunkhannock as #49 made its brief stop for a few bags of mail at Nicholson, Pa. on a left hand curve at the north end of the viaduct.  I was transfixed by both scenes. I could only dream of the Erie completing the Jefferson Railroad from Lanesboro not to Carbondale but to the Honesdale area and on to rejoin the main at Lackawaxen  cutting some 14 miles, many curves and Gulf Summit Hill off the mainline.  I suppose we can fault Messrs. Gould, Fisk and Drew for preventing that from coming to fruition.  And while I am dreaming here, how about the proposed Mahoning Div. cutoff between Meadville and the North Randall-Cleveland area with joint rinning on the Big Four to Galion and then on to Marion.  No more hill and dale running in northern Ohio.  I would expect that this was prior the New York Central control.  I can not imagine the Vanderbilts aiding the loathed Erie in so grand a manner.  Oh, what cold have been.  But would it have done any good?  Probably not.  The East was just overbilt.

Bill McDonald
>
>
>
>    The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
>    Sponsored by the ELH&TS
>    http://www.elhts.org
>


	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	Sponsored by the ELH&TS
	http://www.elhts.org

------------------------------