The little box of a station at Andover NEVER closed. Never any key for the door that I knew of.
There WERE times when you wished you had a key for the door at night for a few scary situations.
Anyway, it's going on eleven PM and bid the second shift guy farewell after a little update.
The last two westbounds are gone, first OA-3 and later #33. The DL&W is totally dead.
A new train is heading your way, #35. Created for two really important reasons, to get power down to Hudson Yard for the "Sputnik", EO-2, and pressure from the New Haven to handle hot forwarder traffic and the beginnings of piggyback over to the DL&W. The crew's been waiting for BO-1 at Maybrook and the 2 RS-3 are panting to get this new venture over the road. They will do sixty plus Warwick to Andover.
So it's to the hand throw connection to the DL&W and turn the toggle to the east leg power switch - - hope the milk truck drivers coming down 206 are awake because #35 WILL roar across that highway.
#35 arrives just past midnight and curves around the connecting track with a relatively short consist. Those silver NH vans with that new logo tilt side to side ever so much.
Now we wait about a hour and half for two light burbling Alco's to come back up the Sussex, pick through Andover "yard" for anything to spot west to Belvidere.
Next up will usually be the first of two off the Lackawanna if the connections worked. #30 most of the time went by before the DL&W woke up with the early morning westbound milk/paper train or the first eastbound. What #30 lacked in number of cars it made up with the best paying freight.
Rounding out your shift was the "2:10 AM Andover Local" often waiting somewhere for #30 to go east.
Refer to my 1950-1960 L&H schedule posted way back 04-10-04 at this site to understand the freights better. Remember that all Port Morris trains and Hudson Yard jobs were paired up and back the same day. The two (later three) Allentown pairs had lay overs.
(We'll transfer over to the "day" man now and continue with this into daylight in the near future.)
There WERE times when you wished you had a key for the door at night for a few scary situations.
Anyway, it's going on eleven PM and bid the second shift guy farewell after a little update.
The last two westbounds are gone, first OA-3 and later #33. The DL&W is totally dead.
A new train is heading your way, #35. Created for two really important reasons, to get power down to Hudson Yard for the "Sputnik", EO-2, and pressure from the New Haven to handle hot forwarder traffic and the beginnings of piggyback over to the DL&W. The crew's been waiting for BO-1 at Maybrook and the 2 RS-3 are panting to get this new venture over the road. They will do sixty plus Warwick to Andover.
So it's to the hand throw connection to the DL&W and turn the toggle to the east leg power switch - - hope the milk truck drivers coming down 206 are awake because #35 WILL roar across that highway.
#35 arrives just past midnight and curves around the connecting track with a relatively short consist. Those silver NH vans with that new logo tilt side to side ever so much.
Now we wait about a hour and half for two light burbling Alco's to come back up the Sussex, pick through Andover "yard" for anything to spot west to Belvidere.
Next up will usually be the first of two off the Lackawanna if the connections worked. #30 most of the time went by before the DL&W woke up with the early morning westbound milk/paper train or the first eastbound. What #30 lacked in number of cars it made up with the best paying freight.
Rounding out your shift was the "2:10 AM Andover Local" often waiting somewhere for #30 to go east.
Refer to my 1950-1960 L&H schedule posted way back 04-10-04 at this site to understand the freights better. Remember that all Port Morris trains and Hudson Yard jobs were paired up and back the same day. The two (later three) Allentown pairs had lay overs.
(We'll transfer over to the "day" man now and continue with this into daylight in the near future.)
