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(erielack) 1963 Notes
I was looking at the Montclair Library web site today, and discovered that
it lets cardholders search and view old articles in the NY Times. So, of
course I punched in "Erie Lackawanna". Saw lots of articles about the
merger, the big operating losses in the early 60s, the negotiations and
legal maneuvers in response to the N&W-NKP-Wabash merger, the arrival of
William White, etc. But I also discovered two little things that I never
knew of, even though they involve my two 'specialties', i.e. freight
operations and the Rutherford-Carlton Hill (NJ) area.
With regard to freight operations: there was a short article saying that on
May 3, 1963, the EL, Reading and CNJ inaugurated a 31 hour TOFC service from
Philadelphia to Chicago. The article didn't give any details about routings.
Now, that's one I never heard of. I can't imagine this service was a
roaring success. If the CNJ was involved, that would eliminate a routing
via Newberry Jct. My guess would be that the RDG ran a TOFC train up the
Bethlehem Branch and handed the train over to the CNJ at the Bethlehem Union
Station. It then ran the CRP up to Taylor, and got on to the EL. The June
1, 1963 EL Freight Schedule indicates that HB3 left Scranton at 1:15 AM, and
connected to NE-99 at Binghamton. If the Reading train left Philly around 7
PM, it might have made Scranton by 1 AM, assuming it was operated as a
priority train with 2 to 3 HP per ton. NE-99 was carded into Chicago at
1:30 AM Central Time on the following day, so that would be around 31 hours.
I would imagine that the Reading and CNJ ran the train for maybe a month
or so, and that it never exceeded 10 cars. However, if anyone knows more
about this service, and what they called it, and how long it lasted, I'd be
very interested to hear about it.
The second article of note regarded a passenger train collision that took
place on October 14, 1963 about a mile east of Rutherford Station, in the
meadows just west of HX Tower. It was a very foggy morning, and train 1116
from Carlton Hill rear-ended train 1158 from Suffern. About 21 passengers
were hospitalized with injuries, mostly minor. 1158 had 9 cars and about
650 passengers, while 1116 had its usual 3 cars, but had 450 passengers on
board! IIRC, the Stillwells seated around 90, so there would have been a
lot of standees that morning. I'd guess that most of the injuries were from
1116 then. Obviously, the Carlton Hill trains hardly ever carried passenger
loads like that. People obviously felt that the train was the better choice
that morning than a bus on Route 3. Actually, it still might have been.
The article also mentioned two bus accidents on Route 17 and Route 3 that
morning, one fatal.
One final 1963 note. Tomorrow, April 2, is the 44th anniversary of the 1963
ceremony regarding the retirement of the Main Line through downtown Passaic.
The special dignitaries train (with the 819 and two 1300 coaches) rolled
in from Paterson around 11:30 am, and the first section of track was
symbolically lifted just ahead of it. Most if not all of you have seen the
shots of this in the various Morning Sun books. Passaic was looking forward
to a bright future on that day, the triumph of automotive modernity. Ironic
how things work out sometimes.
Jim Gerofsky
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