Last Two at Last Light
After the CNJ heritage unit the second most sought after New Jersey Transit passenger train is this one. And thanks to some exceptional local guides and photographers I managed to snag the last two NJT owned and lettered F40PHs that are still operating in revenue passenger service...and back to back on the same train no less! Taken at 6:39 PM, sunset was officially 6:35 PM this was cutting it pretty close!
Here is train 1171 (Hoboken to Suffern) crossing HX drawbridge over the Hackensack River from the town of Secaucus into Rutherford on NJT's Bergen County Line at about MP 5.5 as measured from Hoboken Terminal. But historically this was former Erie railroad territory and their passenger trains ran out of Pavonia Terminal on the Jersey City waterfront. But in 1958 they shifted Hoboken as a harbinger of the 1960 merger with the Lackawanna.
HX Draw was built in 1911 and was designed by Joseph Strauss who is slightly better known as the chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge is one of the earliest Heel trunnion bascule spans built in the US and is a two track cousin to the unique first of its kind 4 track span I shot in Port Clinton, OH earlier this past summer. The Heel trunnion bascule was designed with the machinery installed on the hip end of the truss while the struts pinned to the counterweight bridge tower with brackets and collar bearings, the railings of stairways are on the truss span to the machinery.
Sequentially numbered 4120 and 4119 are F40PH-2s built new for NJT in Nov. 1981 and both were rebuilt by Conrail and Juniata shops in 1997 and called F40PH-2CATs. Of a 17 unit order these are the last two left and have long been relegated to non revenue work train only status but were recently pressed into revenue service due to a motive power crunch despite the railroad fostering 162 units (including switchers) of various diesel and electric models.
Rutherford, New Jersey
Friday October 2, 2020
Last Two at Last Light
After the CNJ heritage unit the second most sought after New Jersey Transit passenger train is this one. And thanks to some exceptional local guides and photographers I managed to snag the last two NJT owned and lettered F40PHs that are still operating in revenue passenger service...and back to back on the same train no less! Taken at 6:39 PM, sunset was officially 6:35 PM this was cutting it pretty close!
Here is train 1171 (Hoboken to Suffern) crossing HX drawbridge over the Hackensack River from the town of Secaucus into Rutherford on NJT's Bergen County Line at about MP 5.5 as measured from Hoboken Terminal. But historically this was former Erie railroad territory and their passenger trains ran out of Pavonia Terminal on the Jersey City waterfront. But in 1958 they shifted Hoboken as a harbinger of the 1960 merger with the Lackawanna.
HX Draw was built in 1911 and was designed by Joseph Strauss who is slightly better known as the chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge is one of the earliest Heel trunnion bascule spans built in the US and is a two track cousin to the unique first of its kind 4 track span I shot in Port Clinton, OH earlier this past summer. The Heel trunnion bascule was designed with the machinery installed on the hip end of the truss while the struts pinned to the counterweight bridge tower with brackets and collar bearings, the railings of stairways are on the truss span to the machinery.
Sequentially numbered 4120 and 4119 are F40PH-2s built new for NJT in Nov. 1981 and both were rebuilt by Conrail and Juniata shops in 1997 and called F40PH-2CATs. Of a 17 unit order these are the last two left and have long been relegated to non revenue work train only status but were recently pressed into revenue service due to a motive power crunch despite the railroad fostering 162 units (including switchers) of various diesel and electric models.
Rutherford, New Jersey
Friday October 2, 2020