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Good to see trains in Denville.

The collision occurred when the operator in the signal tower at Suffern failed to hold the westbound train No. 53 at Suffern

In the late 1930 my grandpapa escaping from Germany as a child born in 1889 met Mr. Furler in Ramapo observing trains living with family in Pompton Lakes NJ and saw him shooting with a beautiful 8X10 VIEW Camera. I remember the chat they had as he told me years later with pictures after I was born in 1947. My Mom gave all the copies of the shots to her nephew Paulie, my cousin before he moved to NT somewhere north of us. I remember the film size as I saw a piece, not normal size I think. The engine was dragging milk cars as we got one one from the old ice house in Riverdale NJ brought down full from Greenwood Lake NY. They were quite large. I should have brought that to Florida when I moved here 1990. I still have a shot of our back yard showing that milk can. Ray C. Florida. I have negative scans from 2 Engineers of the B&M as one is a magazine editor, and the other a regular engineer Conrad a great friend who passed last year. My Site has original slide hi res scans wiith a film scanner of prototype, and my own ho scale road working on it 34 years now in my home in Florida. gcn.cx/myray for a look Two houses down Ringwood Ave in Pompton had the Eirie Lackawana crossing the New York Susquehana & Western right near my home. The tracks were called Pompton Jct. which was right after Dupont Powder Plant and the Pompton Station crossing Wanaque Ave. The Susie still runs there I am told. I like your site, & history, I subscribed also !! XO

m y favoty railroad, the big e

32:52: That's a Gantlet Track, not Gauntlet. Different meaning.

Great stuff! Thank you Doug. A bunch of these shots of my hometown (Suffern) that are new to me. A couple of times Doug refers to the station next to the still standing express building in Suffern as "original." It was in fact the third station at Suffern. The are no pics of the original (1841-1869) station but there is a drawing that shows the track in all its six foot gauge glory. There is at least one photo of the 1869-1887 station. The beautiful Victorian station shown several times in this presentation served from 1887-1941. The current station opened in 1941. Also while talking about Suffern, I think one time when he meant the express building Doug said freight house. The Suffern freight house was on the Piermont branch and appears in several of the pictures. The lead to the Ford plant was built in 1953. That year is cast into one of the concrete bridge abutments on the lead and is still visible today. There were two Erie stations at Sterlington. Both are shown in Doug's presentation. I learned from the presentation that the second one had been built by 1940. I've been wondering what happened to the first one, and when and why the second one was built. There is no bridge over the tracks near the Sloatsburg station. It is a grade crossing (Ballard Ave). The bridge Doug mentions and shows in one pic is Seven Lakes Drive which is maybe a quarter mile west of the station. Thanks again. I learned quite a bit.

The old Erie Mainline the fourth Trunk line between the Atlantic Coast to Chicago,which was the second best engineered Line besides the NYC Water level Route

I appreciate you mentioning the Sterling Mtn RR. My 7th grade friend & I walked from Glen Rock NJ to this RR one day. . We walked up to where the golf course cuts off the tracks. We made this walk on Good Friday 1964. I saw the Sterling Mtn RR tracks from Rt 17 one day. I remember trees were growing in between the rails as I passed by on Rt 17. I had to see where they went. I remember how steep the incline was going from the Erie tracks up towhere the tracks ended at the golf course.. Famous Sterling Iron mines a little further than where we walked to. I picked up two small dark colored rocks on the Strlng Mtn tracks. Turned out to be magnetite. A magnet sticks to them. Still have them. Magnetite was the mineral that was extracted from the mines.

I lived right across from the abandoned train station in Washington, NJ. I remember E-L going right by my bedroom window. If we waited outside they would toss candy to us. Then Conrail took over and eventually everything was torn down. Old photos of Railroad Avenue and the train station showed how magnificent the whole area was at one time.

How well do you know this 'Chuck' guy? The reason I ask is,... this all seems sloppy. He claims he is a train enthusiast, yet he has over 60 videos on his You Tube channel and none of them have him in or next to a train. No trains in any of his videos! He says he used to be in 'Big Pharma' and that he is the president of 'the North Jersey Rail Commuter Association', but I have never seen a commuter or anything like that in his videos either. No commuters in any of his videos! I live next to this line and some of the things he says about it are straight-up lies. I asked him in the comments section on his You Tube channel if he even lived along this line? And if not, why has he been pushing for this line for decades? He acted all squirrely and made my comment not visible to anyone that reads the comments. Seriously, what is all of this? It all seems like sloppy work. All I wanted to do was see some videos with trains and this 'Lackawanna Cut-Off Chuck' guy took offense at me saying that. I have autism and I love trains, is it too much to ask for some trains?

WRT the question at 20:43 regarding electrical interlocking and loss of power. From my research on interlockings in the 1920s. Electrical interlockings were not getting primary power from the electric grid. First because in the 1920s the grid as we know it today didn't really exist. There were limited grids near major cities, but throughout the countryside, not so much. Second, because interlocking by design have to fail safe, they were usually powered by large battery banks usually located on the first floor of the tower. Batteries were a well understood technology by the 20s and the design rules for operating electrical towers were well defined. There were good rules for estimating the energy required to operate an interlocking. Calculating the power took into account the number of devices that needed to be operated, the number of operations per day, and an arbitrary percentage to be added. The engineer would then add a second bank to the system. These banks would be operated independently of each other. So during a two week period bank a would operate on say even numbered days and bank b would be operated on odd number days. The bank that was not running the system would be available for maintenance of the battery, changing cells, charging the bank, topping off the electrolyte, etc. Don't forget that at this time the track circuits were for the most part battery operated as well with battery vaults along the mainline to provide power to the line relays and signals.

This history was above par. I'm glad I stumbled across this site. Rich, I've been retired for 10 years from NJ Transit. I'm enjoying the ELRH videos.

I was employed as a tower man at Dover third trick from 1970 to 1974. Dover still had the arm strong levers but the plant was electric powered switches. There were two traffic levers governing reversible traffic between Dover and Denville, tracks 1 and 2. I was also qualified at Denville, Port Morris, Suffern. With the advent of ConRail I transferred to train service, retired 10 years ago from NJ Transit, 43 years of railroad service. Nice explanation.

Thank you. Any photos of any Montclair, NJ railroading.....to the old Lackawanna station in downtown Montclair.

There should be a waiver for environmental issues when former lines are being restored. Treat them as if they had never ceased service.

I thought the Erie was double track all the way to Chicago.

Great presentation, I grew up in this area but never got to experience any of this because I was too young. Got to see everything I missed! Also, milepost 46 was saved and relocated to Harriman square where it is on display.

So much great detail of the Suffern area and the old Ford Plant. Fills in a lot of gaps for me, a periodic NJ resident!

I saw F7 6321 in the very early CR era as pictured. Also, in 1977 we took a tour of ARMCO in Middletown, OHIO. Running around in the black wings scheme were ex EL Lima switchers. They were filthy. BUT in the bone yard were two more of these, and one of them was in original ERIE paint. These were not filthy. Also in the bone yard was a ex B&O Lima switcher.

I hope that Dan is my long lost cousin. Though younger than Dan, I did begin photoing trains early enough to see PURE EL F units.

I grew up in Linwood NY, we had a Agway with a siding and a Depot thats been moved, tracks are gone. Agway's gone. I used to ride my dirtbike alongside the tracks on a service road (that was also an old bed for a second rail I believe) to Batavia one direction, and Mt.Morris the other way. I mostly saw coal trains headed towards Buffalo/Rochester as well as salt from the Retsof mine before it moved to it's new location. I saw lots of EL engines in the 60's and 70's, I remember the 1776 engines going by during the bicentennial.

i reference the photos in his collection CONSTANTLY. mostly for enjoyment and quite often to refer to the prototype when modeling. wonderful presentation! thank you so much for posting this. its wonderful to see these collections coming back to life

I thoroughly enjoyed this presentation! I wish I could have been alive in that era to experience this, but I can enjoy it now! Thank you.

Chuck what are the best books with maps on the cut off etc? Also thank you I watched this whole thing it was wonderful

Great and expansive presentation!

Excellent video.. Thank you 😊

What a great video to supplement viewing Chuck's channel.

What a fantastic presentation. I really enjoyed seeing some of the parts of the railroad i missed.

Yes, the Lackawanna did build a "Combined Water Tower & Signal Station" in Summit, NJ. (Video 10:15) The "water tank above signal tower" was located at the northwest corner of the Summit Avenue Bridge over the railroad tracks (delineated on a 1921 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map). In 1911 (and perhaps earlier), the New Jersey State Board of [Railroad] Assessors listed the assessed value of the Lackawanna's Summit "water tank above signal tower, 16 x 24 feet" as $1,285. That structure continued to be assessed at that value until at least 1926.

I wonder what the commuter ridership from Wanaque-Midvale would be today.

Great video--thanks..My Grandfather was yardmaster at the Silver Lake yard for the Bambergers warehouse for The Erie and Erie lackawanna(?) till he retired around the early till mid 60's...I drove an engine about 3 feet when I was around 5 or 6 years old at the Silver Lake yard....my Dad and my Uncle worked for the Erie, Erie Lackawanna, Penn Central, Conrail and NJ Transit from after WWII till he retired in 1989..he worked out of Secaucus on freight, then passenger on the Hoboken to Spring Lake with his friend of the whole time of Bob Fischer. My Dad and Uncle are long gone, but Bob Fischer is still kicking it!

Sloatsburgh north. A stone yard. Remember a l&n boxcar in 1979 in industry

Thanks for the look at an old friend

As a person who was also born in Olean, I enjoyed this immensely. It's amazing to explore the history of the Erie RR.

Loved the presentation. Was an operator at SF tower from 1969 to 1972. This was something I was looking for

This was great!!!!

Great presentation! There were two signals located on the Ford Plant lead. Both were G type tri-light heads mounted on masts and faced (RR west) toward Hillburn Yard. The first signal was located just south of SF Tower in the curve by the northern bridge (which spanned a dirt road). The second signal was located on the two track lead (across the Ramapo River) just north of the vehicle access bridge over the Ramapo. Anybody know the purpose of these signals? My guess would be they were controlled by the yardmaster to direct inbound movements?, as to not snarl a working switch job who may be working the lead at the time?. Any thoughts? Thanks.

WANT TO STAY "POOR". NOT "LEAD". LIVE IN "FEAR". KEEP VOTING DEMOCATE !!!!!

Thanks for the memories. My wife was a commuter fro Mountain Station and loved trains. I was one lucky guy It is strange though to see pictures and names of men I worked with and the DL&W before I joined NJT My souvenir from Maplewood day was a commemorative tee shirt which needless to say doesn’t fit anymore but the big prize was an MU headlight I was lucky enough to be high bidder on. It’s still in my collection. 👍

great video, my dad was general yardmaster on the lackawanna side in secaucus nj, cherish the year we rode phoebe to buffalo

Awesome job. Love historical docs.

Mike, Great presentation. Enjoyed it very much. Enjoy learning more about the EL west of Hornell.

I remember walking through the DLW MUs stored in the Mahwah Ford Plant yard in 1984, they were littered with the last DLW Electric Celebration papers. I collected a bunch of them and have them stored away.

Thank you for sharing. Great information and enjoyed very much.👍

Excellent presentation!

The train ran near my house in Monroe. I remember hearing it as a kid

This is great, thanks so much - anyway to get a copy of the photos in Suffern and the Piermont line?

One of the early slides shows an Alco road switcher which appears to be #908. The caption identifies this as an RS3. I thought that Alco road switchers through #915 were the RS2 model. I could easily be wrong.

Thank you all your time for the video, i was wondering if you have any pictures the train that used to run through downtown Passaic NJ and into Rutherford NJ I think year was 1950 or the 1960s thankk you once again

Amazing! Will there be one of the Lackawanna main as well?