In 1960 and 1961, when I was a yard clerk at Yonkers, we had one traveling switcher, KD-12, a day job, that primarily worked the Anaconda plant. I think he usually took about 20 cars or so each day to Hastings, and returned with the same number. He also served the very light traffic at other stations like Dobbs Ferry between Glenwood and Tarrytown. I recall that a good bit of the traffic, both inbound and outbound, went via the car floats at 60th street to points south on the PRR, etc.
Benny Patera was the conductor, Jim Carey was the engineer, and his nephew Joe Carey was the fireman. It was a desirable job in terms of work, hours and remuneraton. They usually had an S-1 or S-3, 800 or 900 series. The 895 sticks in my mind.
HS Tower at Hastings was closed around 1959, but the building and the interlocking were still in place. Before HS closed, KD-12 went west on track 1 or 3, and crossed over at HS to go into Anaconda. After HS closed, KD-12 would get a train order with superiority over opposing trains on track 4 between Glenwood and Hastings, and GD blocked with OW at Tarrytown for the manual block. He returned on track 4 with the current of traffic on verbal permission to enter the main track at the manual switch at Hastings.
A few years after my time there, NYC set up TCS on track 4 between GD and a remote signal at Hastings, to permit KD-12 to make that move without a train order. At about the same time, GD was closed and remoted from DV.
