Nostalgia & History > Waycar Wednesday, LV . . .

.   .   .   in AUG '73, I THINK somewhere near Nenevah Junction, NY? D&H pushers are shoving on LV caboose. I did not take notes back then.
JB

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Great photo, JB.  You sure got around!  Were you living in LA at the time?

This train likely came off of the LV in Sayre and ran east through to Binghamton which entailed EL trackage rights from Owego to Binghamton.  West of Owego the single track LV ran side-by-side with the twin tracked EL.

D&H trains northbound (eastbound?) out of Binghamton Bevier St. Yard frequently required helpers the ~15 miles up to Belden Hill Tunnell near the top of the grade.  Ninevah Junction was another 3--4 miles further east.  The graded area of the junction provided a tree-free zone for shooting trains.

I traveled to Binghamton regularly in the early 70s from home base in north Jersey.

Tim Costello

Yes, LA area until retirement in '09. Thanks.
JB

I'm thinking this might be an NE-84 that ran the Penn Division, not up Belden Hill.
The LV trains operating into Binghamton were transfers and kept their cabooses.
These were trains OF-2 and FO-1 and the D&H ran a reciprocal pair OF-3 and and FO-4 at night.

The NE84  & NE-87 were run throughs with mixed LV and D&H power and cabooses pre-Conrail.

Not sure of the specific location with the houses in the background.

My guess is that this photo shows a northbound train taken at Forest City, PA, which is on the Penn Division between the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton metro area and Ararat summit.  See the photo in this TO thread showing similar houses up on a hillside in Forest City, which is situated on the west bank of the Lackawanna River.  Most photos I have found labeled taken in Forest City in the 1970's and 1980's appear to have been taken from a highway overpass, or highway overpasses, either north or south of Forest City, and do not show any of the rail facilities in town.  Back in the steam days, according to the last reply in this thread, helpers were cut off at Forest City, as the toughest part of the grade ascending out of Carbondale ended at Forest City.  I do not know enough to say that diesel helpers cut off here as well.

There is what I assume to be a going-away shot that pairs with the photo in the OP; that photo is the third photo in this thread started by 3rdswitch in 2011.  Perhaps the head end power of this train is shown passing under Starucca viaduct in Lanesboro in this thread.

Matthew

Here is the head end shot if this helps.
JB

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Thank you, JB, for the additonal photo.  Methinks I need to do some more research on this location.  Last night I ran across a photograph in Delaware and Hudson In Color Vol. 2 published by Morning Sub Books showing a scene in Carbondale where there are houses up on a hillside parallel to the tracks, and the single-track in your new photo is making me doubt this photo and the one you originally posted in this thread were taken in Forest City.  A curve similar to the one in your new photo was located near the depot in Forest City, but there would have been two main tracks and perhaps some other tracks in that curve in 1973, I believe.  There is old aerial photography of Forest City on the Historic Aerials site for 1959, 1960, 1969 and 1981, and the resolution of the photography for all those years makes it hard to determine what exactly is going on with the track work there.

Matthew

Roadmaster, I am thinking the same as you, Carbondale, Providence, Forest City area, but the single track is throwing me off.

I have figured out where the two shots were taken. There was an S-curve on the D&H on the north side of Forest City; this was north of FT cabin where two main tracks from the south ended, so single-track here in 1973 makes sense. It appears to me that JB took the head end shot at the south end of the S curve and then moved a bit north for the shot of the caboose and helpers as they entered the second half of the S curve. The houses on the hillside in both shots are located in the 1100 block of Upper Main Street in Forest City. There were very few trees along that S-curve to obscure view of those houses in the 1969-1981 timeframe, according to aerial photography on the Historic Aerials website.

In my earlier post I referenced a shot of the helpers looking north at the second unit, DH 707 (photo #3 here: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2637013,2637014#msg-2637014). I was watching part of John Pechulis Media's Railfanning the Delaware and Hudson Volume 6 this evening, and a film clip of a southbound coming through Union Dale, north of Forest City, jogged my memory. JB's shot was taken looking north from the Skyline Drive crossing in Union Dale. I posted a reply to that thread pointing out the location of the house partially visible along the left side of the photo.

Matthew

Roadmaster Wrote:
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> I have figured out where the two shots were taken.
> There was an S-curve on the D&H on the north side
> of Forest City; this was north of FT cabin where
> two main tracks from the south ended, so
> single-track here in 1973 makes sense. It appears
> to me that JB took the head end shot at the south
> end of the S curve and then moved a bit north for
> the shot of the caboose and helpers as they
> entered the second half of the S curve. The
> houses on the hillside in both shots are located
> in the 1100 block of Upper Main Street in Forest
> City. There were very few trees along that
> S-curve to obscure view of those houses in the
> 1969-1981 timeframe, according to aerial
> photography on the Historic Aerials website.
>
> In my earlier post I referenced a shot of the
> helpers looking north at the second unit, DH 707
> (photo #3 here:
> https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11
> ,2637013,2637014#msg-2637014). I was watching
> part of John Pechulis Media's Railfanning the
> Delaware and Hudson Volume 6 this evening, and a
> film clip of a southbound coming through Union
> Dale, north of Forest City, jogged my memory.
> JB's shot was taken looking north from the Skyline
> Drive crossing in Union Dale. I posted a reply to
> that thread pointing out the location of the house
> partially visible along the left side of the
> photo.
>
> Matthew

Excellent detective work !!