Follow up thought on the Hoboken Dispatcher's radio back in the late 60s and 70s. I believe that the East End Dispatcher used the radio a lot more than the West End did, especially after the thru freights started moving over to the Scranton side in '72. Denville Tower might be able to tell a train what was going on at Lincoln Park by radio, but east of there it was up to the dispatcher to keep the trains informed (e.g., telling a w/b commuter train that he was going to get hosed at GA while an NY98 or NY74 was crawling uphill from Mountain View on the single track). WR never had radio, and DB only got it in '74. Come to think of it, I remember once encountering a BC-2 stopped at the east end of Lincoln Park, in late '75. After being enlisted to make a coffee run, I was invited up into the cab for a quick chat. There was some track maintenance work going on near Great Notch, and I could hear Bob Collins on the East End desk talking to the track foreman. So the Hoboken radio could be heard by a train at Lincoln Park back then. I think that the BC-2 crew did talk to him just before I got off (as they finally had the signal and were about to leave). The Hoboken radio probably also came in handy at Paterson (recall that the East End desk covered the Boonton Line and the Main Line from Bergen Jct. to Ridgewood), when a road freight had to make a set out or pick up from the yard. As to the M&E Dispatcher, he was pretty much lived in a pre-radio world, as none of the MU's had radios (I think -- maybe a few did by '76?). He would depend on Denville and Port Morris for radio contact with freights and diesel passenger trains west of Denville. Jim G. _________________________________________________________________ Add a Yahoo! contact to Windows Live Messenger for a chance to win a free trip! http://www.imagine-windowslive.com/minisites/yahoo/default.aspx?locale=en-us&hmtagline The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org ------------------------------
This HTML page is © 2000-2008 Blue Moon Online System and The Railfan Network
This page and the data contained therein may not be reproduced
for any form of commercial use without the explicit permission
of J. Henry Priebe Jr. or his duly authorized agent.