Paul B. and list: HF98 was the abbreviation for Meadville 98. - -W97 The first letter is a "C". This is CNW97. The first trick man was an old timer who wrote in a fine, ornate, copperplate handwriting style. His train orders were a good example of the old time operator's style. AF97 This was not a common abbreviation. AF is a telegraph call symbol for somewhere on the Erie, but right offhand I can't remember where it was. It could also be an unofficial abbreviation for AtsF97. Note the small box provided on the trainsheet did not give enough room for some symbols. SMT, feel free to add anything as your memory may be better than mine! Yes there were plenty of E8s running on the West End right up till the end. 35 is the westbound local. At this point the country was just starting to recover from the 1974-1975 recession and the first phony oil shortage contrived by our friends at OPEC (remember when gas went from .33 a gallon to .50 a gallon almost overnight?) and traffic was light so the local ran west one day and east the next day as 34. In earlier years when traffic was better 34 started out of Huntington every day and 35 started at Marion and they would meet at Lima, exchange cars, runaround their trains and go back to their respective terminals. D.T.&I. trains were recorded on a separate sheet. At this time in 1976 there would have been about 6-8 D.T.&I. trains per day plus some D.T.&I. yard engine moves across the diamond. All southbound D.T.&I. trains got orders at SJ to run extra, meet orders, slow orders, etc. The D.T.&I. conductors rode the 2nd or 3rd unit so the operator handed up 3 sets of orders:engineer, conductor, and flagman on the caboose. Some of them didn't slow down much for the operator so you had to know the proper spot to stand with the train order sticks! Always exciting to stand close to the track and watch as a train approached you at 35-40MPH and hold up those train order sticks as the engines rolled by you literally inches away! Ah the good old days! Paul thanks for the explanation of why there was no 2/NY100. I noticed also there was no NW1 or EL2, the remmants of the New York and St. Louis Cannonballs. They also may have stopped running at this late date. PA
This HTML page is © 2000-2010 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.