Railroaders' Nostalgia > My Dumb Luck: the AFT years 31

31 Scranton PA July 19-21/ Morristown NJ July 23-25

Scranton was a rather short run, barely 60 miles, on the old Lackawanna RR. Today, Scranton is home of the Steamtown National Historic Site, but in the summer of 1976 that operation was still up in Bellows Falls VT. Scranton was still an industrial town and not a “tourist destination.” I wandered around and took a few photos of what was, for all appearances, an Erie-Lackawanna operation – last chance. There was really no sign of the new Conrail takeover yet.

Photos 1-4. Poking around Scranton Yards.

From Scranton it was on to Morristown, NJ, still on the old Lackawanna RR. (I got a kick out of keeping track of the heritage of lines we were running on. I was very much aware of the fact Conrail would soon be blurring all of this history!) I'm not sure about Scranton, but I know Morristown was another quick calendar filler to cover the void left by NYC. (See #28 of my stories)
In Morristown, we were at the Mennen Sports Arena, but I guess it was adjacent an active Mennen Plant. In researching this story (What? You thought I just made this stuff up?) I talked to Ed Immel whose job it was to make the sites work. He told my there was a bit of drama about the plant's appetite for plastic pellets, a constant stream that could NOT be interrupted. (New Jersey in the summer? Mennen was doing the lord's work!) (I'm just say'n ... ) and the AFT was going to be blocking access to the plant. Anyway, a fresh hopper of pellets had to be spotted at the last moment before we arrived, and it was calculated they'd just about be running dry when we left. I guess it worked out OK.

The coolest thing about Morristown was that we were just off the Morristown-Hoboken electric line. The former Lackawaana MU cars dated back to the 1920s, and some of the trailer cars were from the teens! They were original to the point of still having cane seating. A couple of us, Dale (Operations) and Craig (4449/ Security), and I made the trip into NYC on a hobby shop/camera store safari.

Photo 5. The Lackawaana MUs. I'm standing on the Mennen spur – the AFT is maybe 100 yards or so behind me.

I'm sure NYC was fun – but the trip in and out on the old MUs is all I really remember about the outing.

SR Bush
Dutch Flat
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/14 22:03 by BoilingMan.

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cont 1

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Talking from memory about your posts it is amazing how much of the display tracks no longer exist.

Interesting angle of the Valley engine. How did you get it? Never mind. Here we go again!

The MU's are long gone but the wicker seats seam to last forever! In fact, I have one along with an extra isle side pedestal that has made it all the way to CA and I believe some of the MU's actually went to S America.

Great memories!

Actually, I think something like 150 (a little more than half the fleet) of the MU's still survive on various tourist lines as coaches. Rather like the old SP Harriman Subs off the Peninsula- built to last!
SR

So what would the routing have been to get to NYC before that fell through?
Seems to me what happened instead was much better for the citizenry of this country especially the rail buffs.

never saw a red wreck train!

I joined the train in Jan 76, about 2 weeks before NYC fell through, so I don't know what an itinerary would have looked like much before that.. Below are three itineraries. (There were many versions of these itineraries, these are just 3 I saved.)

The 1st doesn't have a date, but I think it's probably from very late 1975. It shows us in 3 separate NYC locations: Grand Central, Nassau County, and Westchester County. It spans July 14 thru August 8, 1976- 4 weeks. Notice it has us in Washington DC on the 4th of July.

It lists 10 cities we never went to: Nashville KY, Louisville KY, Hartford CT, Poughkeepsie NY, Philadelphia PA, Roanoke VA, Winston-Salem NC, Ocala FL, Boca Raton FL, and Fort Lauderdale FL.

What's probably more relevant to your question are the 24 cities that were NOT on the original list, but were added after NYC backed out of their 4 weeks. However, some of these are a result of other cities having backed out also (the 10 listed above).
Added cities: Knoxville TN, Lexington KY, Evansville IN, Dayton OH, Cumberland MD, Brackenridge PA, Binghamton NY, Morristown NJ, Milford CT, New London CT, Meriden CT, Terrytown NY, New Brunswick NJ, Atlantic City NJ, King of Prussia PA, Hagerstown MD, Newport News VA, Fredericksburg VA, Danville VA, Greensboro NC, Greenville SC, Florence SC, and Gainesville FL.

The 2nd one is dated April 26, 1976. It simply shows "New York Area" and still has the cities we never went to, except Louisville is gone now.

And the 3rd doesn't have a date either, but I guess it was done in June or July. It's pretty close to the way things worked out, except that it still lists Roanoke.

SR Bush
Dutch Flat






RRTom Wrote:
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> So what would the routing have been to get to NYC
> before that fell through?
> Seems to me what happened instead was much better
> for the citizenry of this country especially the
> rail buffs.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/14 13:59 by BoilingMan.

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It's lettered Lehigh Valley. Looked pretty sharp!
SR



dan Wrote:
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> never saw a red wreck train!

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> In Morristown, we were at the Mennen Sports Arena,
> but I guess it was adjacent an active Mennen
> Plant. In researching this story (What? You
> thought I just made this stuff up?) I talked to Ed
> Immel whose job it was to make the sites work. He
> told my there was a bit of drama about the plant's
> appetite for plastic pellets, a constant stream
> that could NOT be interrupted. (New Jersey in the
> summer? Mennen was doing the lord's work!) (I'm
> just say'n ... ) and the AFT was going to be
> blocking access to the plant. Anyway, a fresh
> hopper of pellets had to be spotted at the last
> moment before we arrived, and it was calculated
> they'd just about be running dry when we left. I
> guess it worked out OK.

Running out of plastic pellets is a lot more costly than just the down time. Depending upon the product being produced, and with high heat being involved, there are shutdown procedures and timers that must be followed (with accompanying scrap material) as well as startup procedures and timers that must be followed (again with a lot of accompanying scrap material.) For example, on a blown film line, the shutdown takes about a 1/2 hour but the startup takes about 2-4 hours depending upon the size of the tube and will waste between 20 and 500 pounds of product.

As I said, it was a big deal for Mennen.
I was just a lowly asst. curator, and this problem surely had nothing to do with my job- but I was aware of it at the time.
SR