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(erielack) Early Xmas Present - REA Traffic

Paul T, those REA piggyback memos were a really great find, thanks for posting.  One detail that interested me was that the G85 flats were assumed to be loaded and unloaded at "Monmouth Street", and not in Croxton (on the east end of the operation).  I wonder if anyone knows whether this loading ramp was in the Erie terminal area, which had a Monmouth St. yard, or was part of the DLW float yard in Hoboken, perhaps where the DLW TOFC operation had been located.

The DLW trailer operation in Hoboken must have been an extremely tight arrangement, and I'm somewhat surprised that the DLW didn't have a ramp in Secaucus (unless they did -- I stand ready to be corrected here).   I had assumed that the Hoboken ramp was closed soon after the merger, and that all DLW TOFC traffic was diverted to Croxton.  But then again, some of the DLW fast-freight symbols like HB-3 kept operating out of Hoboken  through mid-1962, according to arranged freight schedules, so perhaps the former DL Hoboken ramp was still in service in the early days of REA trailer service, and was where the traffic to and from #7 and 8 was handled.

I do know, from observing old block sheets and talking with former EL tower operators, that by 1966 if not before, trains 7 and 8 (and then 3 and 4) stopped at Bergen Junction east of HX tower, to add on or cut off their TOFC car(s).  A switcher would be sent up from BR on the High Line to either place a TOFC flat or two onto #7 / #3, or pull a flat from # 4.  

There's a bit of a wrinkle regarding #8, which ran via the Main Line through Paterson.  After April 1963 it would operate via Kingsland on the revised Main Line (on the former Boonton Line east of Paterson Jct), so it would not come over HX.  Perhaps the REA cut was made on the "Lackawanna side" of Bergen Jct., controlled from West End Tower (HX controlled the "Erie side" where the High Line went off).  The switcher would have had to go through a zig-zag move to and from the High Line, between the two sides of "greater Bergen Junction"; but it could have been done.  When #8 became non-passenger #4, the train ran via the Bergen County Line and HX, and stopped at "Erie-side" Bergen Jct to cut its power off and allow the switcher to pull the TOFC flat (or if the flat was at the hind end, pull east of the Jct. as to allow the switcher to grab the rider coach, set the flat over to the High Line, then tack the rider back on #4).

Another observation -- I looked through the picture books for shots of 7 and 8 taken from '61 to 65, and it appears to me that  on some days the flat had trailers with wheels, and on others it was container loading.  I couldn't see any pattern to it.  Wonder what the rationale was between REA and EL regarding container box loading vs trailer loading.  After '65, the shots of 3 and 4 always show TOFC.  (I myself remember once seeing #4, rolling east through the meadowlands in Rutherford, while in the family car with my parents at the old drive-in movie theater on Route 3, swatting mosquitoes.  I was definitely watching the trains more than the movie.  I do recall two E8's on the head end, and a TOFC flat in the consist).  

Recall that TOFC showed up on trains 21 and 22 for a time; the shots I saw of that were in the 1964 - 65 range.  One caption indicates that the TOFC traffic on those trains was "mail".  However, I also seem to remember hearing about milk traffic being handled via TOFC off the S&U from Homer NY, switched at Binghamton to or from passenger trains to or from Hoboken.

Ah, there were so many interesting little operations on the EL back in those years.  Too bad they went by so quickly.  

Oh, one final thought not having anything to do with Christmas, REA or TOFC, and maybe not even with the EL, depending on how "cosmic" your point of view is.  For those of you interested in modern physics, there is an interesting article in a recent Scientific American about the sub-atomic "Standard Particle Model" and its underlying mathematical / geometric structure.   The brainy theorists are trying to extend these structures to cover all known forces and phenomenon, including gravity, dark matter, and dark energy.  One of the leading candidates for such a comprehensive math-geometry structure is called the "E8" set.  They are hoping that the new CERN particle collider in Europe will eventually provide evidence confirming that our Universe is an "E8" universe.

I couldn't help but smile about that. Given that the EMD E-8 was so well known and so widely used on the EL, perhaps it could be said that the EL was in tune with the Universe . . . 

And a happy and prosperous 2011 to all !!

Jim Gerofsky
 		 	   		  

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