The Key To Compeition
It's "Grab-a-Box" week once again. This time I reached into the cabinet in the hall and opened a shoe box containing maybe thirty of those little yellow boxes. This one would held 20 slides, but only 15 were in it. I scanned them all and will post them all so this theme will run for a little over two weeks. All are from the 80's decade. There are six railroads represented. So, with no direction to go with but chronologically, we'll begin with the earliest one from 1980 and make our way to the final ones in 1988.
In this photo we find New York, Susquehanna & Western's little isolated operation along the former Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad tracks in Vernon, NJ. It may not look like much, but it was the start of big things to come as you will read below. This job ran maybe once a week, usually on Saturday's. The 1804 and caboose 0100 were stationed at Sparta, NJ and ran to Warwick, NY to interchange cars with Conrail to serve customers in Franklin and Sparta. I believe the switches pointed north, so the caboose was necessary for the 20 plus mile shove south.
What's so important about this? Competition. Unlike today's railroading where everyone in the schoolyard must play nice and we all get a trophy, (does Shared assets and the Pan Am merger/B&E ring a bell??), Susquehanna was up to no good and was going to reinvent David and Goliath, railroad style.
Clipped from the NYS&W Tech & Historical Society website:
"1982 - DO (new NYS&W) assumed operations of the former Lackawanna Railroad's Syracuse and Utica branches.. These new New York State rail lines were dubbed the "Northern Division". The disconnected original NYS&W main in New Jersey was dubbed the "Southern Division". Also purchased was a portion of the former Lehigh and Hudson River Railway (L&HR), from Franklin, NJ to the New York state line at Vernon, New Jersey/Warwick, New York. 1985 - Purchase of the remaining L&HR in New Jersey by acquiring the portion from Sparta to Franklin was completed. The NYS&W began an isolated service from Warwick to Sparta on this newly acquired line. They would receive cars from Conrail in Warwick and deliver them to customers in Sparta. Seeking to link their two operations, The Susquehanna Southern Division was extended north to Binghamton, New York via Conrail haulage rights and procurement of additional existing track.
1986 - The NYS&W rebuilds its line to Sparta. There was now a competitor in the northeast for Conrail's business for the first time since its inception a decade before."
As you can see in my photo of GP18 #1804, there are many more tie gondolas than revenue freight tied behind her coupler, so change is coming. The legal connection were made with government approval. The double stack containers from Hanjin and Sea-Land are already running under the Conrail Haulage agreement via the Southern Tier Line between Binghamton and Passaic Jct that I wrote about in an earlier post. Soon, a move will be made to here, the key to the whole shebang.
The Key To Compeition
It's "Grab-a-Box" week once again. This time I reached into the cabinet in the hall and opened a shoe box containing maybe thirty of those little yellow boxes. This one would held 20 slides, but only 15 were in it. I scanned them all and will post them all so this theme will run for a little over two weeks. All are from the 80's decade. There are six railroads represented. So, with no direction to go with but chronologically, we'll begin with the earliest one from 1980 and make our way to the final ones in 1988.
In this photo we find New York, Susquehanna & Western's little isolated operation along the former Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad tracks in Vernon, NJ. It may not look like much, but it was the start of big things to come as you will read below. This job ran maybe once a week, usually on Saturday's. The 1804 and caboose 0100 were stationed at Sparta, NJ and ran to Warwick, NY to interchange cars with Conrail to serve customers in Franklin and Sparta. I believe the switches pointed north, so the caboose was necessary for the 20 plus mile shove south.
What's so important about this? Competition. Unlike today's railroading where everyone in the schoolyard must play nice and we all get a trophy, (does Shared assets and the Pan Am merger/B&E ring a bell??), Susquehanna was up to no good and was going to reinvent David and Goliath, railroad style.
Clipped from the NYS&W Tech & Historical Society website:
"1982 - DO (new NYS&W) assumed operations of the former Lackawanna Railroad's Syracuse and Utica branches.. These new New York State rail lines were dubbed the "Northern Division". The disconnected original NYS&W main in New Jersey was dubbed the "Southern Division". Also purchased was a portion of the former Lehigh and Hudson River Railway (L&HR), from Franklin, NJ to the New York state line at Vernon, New Jersey/Warwick, New York. 1985 - Purchase of the remaining L&HR in New Jersey by acquiring the portion from Sparta to Franklin was completed. The NYS&W began an isolated service from Warwick to Sparta on this newly acquired line. They would receive cars from Conrail in Warwick and deliver them to customers in Sparta. Seeking to link their two operations, The Susquehanna Southern Division was extended north to Binghamton, New York via Conrail haulage rights and procurement of additional existing track.
1986 - The NYS&W rebuilds its line to Sparta. There was now a competitor in the northeast for Conrail's business for the first time since its inception a decade before."
As you can see in my photo of GP18 #1804, there are many more tie gondolas than revenue freight tied behind her coupler, so change is coming. The legal connection were made with government approval. The double stack containers from Hanjin and Sea-Land are already running under the Conrail Haulage agreement via the Southern Tier Line between Binghamton and Passaic Jct that I wrote about in an earlier post. Soon, a move will be made to here, the key to the whole shebang.