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RE: FW: (erielack) Special Day? What if?

Ed, 
Yeah, I remember when I first moved to Wayne (from Union City, NJ) and climbing the Boonton Line fill behind my house with my brother and cousin. I was only 5 but remember very well the double track and  the funny looking diamond at Mt. View where the GL crossed the Boonton Line. I also remember waiting at the Wayne, station for a train to Hoboken and looking in the distance and seeing a Boonton Line train cross the diamond in the morning fog. Anyway, I am an Erie guy since my dad originally worked for them..BUT....there were alot of things that should have been more Lackawanna oriented. Hope that doesn't cause a controversy here. :-)








Fred Stratton

MP. 7.2 NS Asheville line

Salisbury, NC


From: "Montgomery, Edward T" <Edward.Montgomery_@_fcps.edu>
Reply-To: "Montgomery, Edward T" <Edward.Montgomery_@_fcps.edu>
To: <erielack_@_lists.elhts.org>
Subject: FW: (erielack) Special Day? What if?
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 18:56:34 -0400
>
>
>________________________________
>
>From: Montgomery, Edward T
>Sent: Thu 10/19/2006 6:55 PM
>To: Charles_Walsh_@_Berlex.com
>Subject: RE: (erielack) Special Day? What if?
>
>
>Over the years I heard that The Regional Plan Association had proposed that the Boonton Line/Greenwood Lake Branch be combined to secure commuter service. I suppose passenger traffic east of Mountain View was low even in the 40s and 50s. This was a politically correct thought in the 60s when EL was in poor financial condition. At that time they were 
running most of the freight through Port Jervis with the Scranton Line becoming more and more a secondary route. Add to that the EL-Erie management attempting to downgrade Lackawanna ROW and you see why the Boonton Line was severed. I remember it, rode it as a kid and was there for the last train to pull into Mountain View in 1963.
>
>Ed Montgomery
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
>
>From: erielack-owner_@_lists.elhts.org on behalf of Charles_Walsh@Berlex.com
>Sent: Thu 10/19/2006 9:24 AM
>To: Fred Stratton
>Cc: erielack_@_lists.elhts.org; erielack-owner@lists.elhts.org; mdelvec952@aol.com; paultup@lucent.com
>Subject: RE: (erielack) Special Day? What if?
>
>
>
>Fred,
>
>Actually, there was room in the NJDOT plan for retaining a single track by
>Garrett Mountain. I 
don't know if the track would have been between the
>lanes of I-80 or off to the south side of the highway (I don't they would
>have placed it on the north side). Certainly, it would have complicated
>the engineering of the road and the exits at Squirrelwood Road (west of
>Garrett Mountain, but east of the Passaic River high bridge) and, to a
>somewhat lesser extent, what is now Route 19 (just east of Garrett
>Mountain). The catch was that the EL would receive $$$ (I believe 1-2
>million, someone can correct me if I'm wrong) but only if the line was
>completely severed. If the EL wished to retain the one track, they could
>have, but they wouldn't have received any money. This begs the question of
>the Boonton Branch being TWO tracks through Garrett Mountain and why would
>the EL would give up one track in order to get 
nothing in return. Of
>course, at that point in time, the EL was cash-strapped and very little
>freight was moving via Scranton, so this appeared to be a win-win
>situation. Fast forward ten years and one wonders what the EL management
>was thinking...and this isn't just 20/20 hindsight, as there were those who
>testified against the move and pointed out the shortsightedness of severing
>the line...all to no avail...EL needed the money more than a second
>high-speed freight line...or so they thought. As Zimmermann mentions in
>his book, this would be a move that would come back to haunt the EL.
>
>Chuck
>
>
>
>
> "Fred Stratton"
> <erief7_@_msn.com>
> Sent by: To
> erielack-owner_@_li Charles_Walsh@Berlex.com
> sts.elhts.org paultup_@_lucent.com
> cc
> 
erielack_@_lists.elhts.org,
> 10/19/2006 08:55 mdelvec952_@_aol.com
> AM Subject
> RE: (erielack) Special Day? What
> if?
> Please respond to
> "Fred Stratton"
> <erief7_@_msn.com>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>In retrospect, it would have been nice to have the Garrett Mountain line
>retained with it's multi track. If the state would have balked about
>dropping commuter service or cutting it back, we could have had a junction
>istalled for the Greenwood Lake Branch to be serviced north of Mountain
>View off the Boonton Line. Remove the diamond in MT. View, and retain the
>Lackawanna's Mt. View station instead of the Erie's and cut back the
>Greenwood Lake Branch south of Mt. View since alot of it closer to Hoboken
>was serviced bu the D,L&W. But once agin, this 
is in retrospect and
>hindsight is 20/20. I'm sure the homeowners along the GL would be happy not
>to have long heavy trains falling in their back yard.
>
>
>
>
>
>Fred Stratton
>
>MP. 7.2 NS Asheville line
>
>Salisbury, NC
>
>
>From: Charles_Walsh_@_berlex.com
>Reply-To: Charles_Walsh_@_berlex.com
>To: "Tupaczewski, Paul R (Paul)" <paultup_@_lucent.com>
>CC: erielack_@_lists.elhts.org, mdelvec952@aol.com
>Subject: RE: (erielack) Special Day? What if?
>Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:26:07 -0400
> >I'll agree that the DL&W was desparate...no argument there. The Garrett
> >Mountain deal with NJ-DOT was definitely with the EL's management,
>however,
> >and Conrail used it--the abandonment of that short segment--as one reason
> >for 
abandoning the Scranton Division 15 years later. As for the NY section
> >of DL&W mainline...who knows? Actually, if the truth be known, I'm more
> >upset with Perry Shoemaker than the Erie folks. Even Shoemaker
> >subsequently had misgivings regarding his involvement in the EL merger.
> >The big question
>is what could be have done differently?
> >
> >Chuck
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > "Tupaczewski,
> > Paul R (Paul)"
> > <paultup_@_lucent.c To
> > om> "'Charles_Walsh_@_berlex.com'"
> > <Charles_Walsh_@_berlex.com>
> > 10/18/2006 12:08 cc
> > PM erielack_@_lists.elhts.org,
> > mdelvec952_@_aol.com
> > Subject
> > RE: (erielack) Special Day? What
> > if?
> >
> >
> 
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Chuck Walsh wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Yep. We're looking at the same map...and west of Binghamton,
> > > as a result
> > > of the EL merger, what wasn't abandoned outright on the DL&W side was
> > > eventually downgraded to branch status during the early EL
> > > years (that's
> > > about 200 miles of a 396 mile mainline).
> >
> >Wasn't
>htis process started pre-merger, when the Erie and DL&W consolidated
> >their lines? Remember - the DL&W was beginning to struggle, with
> >consolidation and single-tracking (think Cut-Off) the result of that. All
> >the EL merger did is make it easier to "rationalize." Even without the
> 
>merger, you would have seen the Lackawanna chopping to save $$$.
> >
> >
> >
> > > In addition, the
> > > Garret Mountain
> > > section of the Boonton Line that you refer to, as well as the
> > > mainline west
> > > of Vestal, NY were sold off to the states of New Jersey and
> > > New York to
> > > become parts of Route I-80 and NY-17, respectively...for
> > > which the railroad
> > > was compensated.
> >
> >
> >But once again, the EL merger had no bearing on this, either.
> >
> >By
>the way, at least one person came up with a way to "resurrect the DL&W"
> >- read Steve Kay's "Background history" of his HO scale Lackawanna
>Terminal
> >Railway here to see how he addressed 
restoring the DL&W:
> >
> >http://www.ltths.org/lack.html
> >
> > - Paul
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
> > Sponsored by the ELH&TS
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>
>
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>
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