Nostalgia & History > LV: Newark NJ to Pattenburg in the 1950s

Railroad Media Archives has a video up on the U tube covering the engine swap at NK tower in Newark NJ out to the Pattenburg tunnel. Most of the clips are 1958-1959.  Lots of detail on the GG-1 to Alco cutover for passenger trains.

The engine swap in Newark was interesting. A pup with the express car(s) was waiting for the GG-1 to bring the outbound train up the hill from HUNTER. The G cuts off, the switcher puts the express car on the head end of the train. The switcher pulls away, and the Alco PA set backs down, and couples onto the train.

The video shows various locations, including Manville station, Flemington Jct with passengers waiting, the tower at Bellwood (OX), the tunnel.

This was GREAT, a must for Valley and PRR corridor fans, "Lehigh Valley Newark to Pattenburg 1958" should get it up once you're on You Tube.
The passenger consist footage alone is amazing. Thanks for the heads up!
WOW

Great video! The Lehigh had such an eclectic collection of passenger cars. The 1958 Maple Leaf consist was also quite interesting with its heavyweight Pullmans in NYC livery and a CNR lightweight sleeper. 

Train 4, the Major -- what's that?

Turns out train 4 "The Major" did exist in 1958, eastward only

https://timetableworld.com/ttw-viewer.php?token=a6b7dc8f-0b21-41f7-a944-4efa4245e459

Strange to see all that white smoke from the PA
at 6:40 +.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/24 12:57 by timz.

Good link of the timetables, thank you.

The Major got plenty of work enroute. Dropped a car at Sayre, picked up a car at Ithaca, split the train in Allentown (guessing), and changed motors in Newark / Hillside.

JPB Wrote:
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> Great video! The Lehigh had such an eclectic
> collection of passenger cars. The 1958 Maple Leaf
> consist was also quite interesting with its
> heavyweight Pullmans in NYC livery and a CNR
> lightweight sleeper. 

Couldn't agree more....super video.  Hard to believe that in just three more years the Maple Leaf would, as one of only two remaining LV passenger trains, close out LV's passenger operations.  It's final eastbound run in 1961 famously fell something like eight hours behind due to a blizzard, terminating in Newark rather than New York City.

BTW, the CN car pictured is a coach, not a sleeper.  However, the train would have dropped a CN sleeper in Allentown to be forwarded to Philadelphia by the Reading.  I'm not sure if the two-tone grey of the heavyweight Pullmans was inspired by the NYC, but it was pretty much Pullman's standard post-war livery for pool service cars.  A version was also adopted by the Southern Pacific for it's Pacific Coast overnighters such as the Cascade and Lark.

Dave

Most amazing in all this is how clean the LV pass cars appeared as well as the pool cars from Pullman that covered many of the sleeping car lines. Four-five years from the end of Psgr service the train(s) looked good.