FL9's + 5 headed east

About 40 minutes ago the M&E FL9's headed east at track speed out of Morristown en route to Paterson Junction. In the consist were PV's 'Ohio River', 'Mt. Vernon', 'Morris County', 'Alder Falls' and a maroon cigar band Ob.

The entire train is to be turned over to the NYS&W for an excursion this weekend.

Oh man! And here I am in Ft Campbell , KY missing the action. Somebody please take alot of pictures. Knowing Railpace they will only have one or two picsand a small paragraph. Thats the only best way to see something that special. They did they same thing when M&E launched passenger service in Maine with their equipment.

Yes, nothing like a pair of F's back to back hauling express ass with FIVE vintage coaches in tow down the Morristown line on a nice sunny autumn afternoon.

Sure beats the daily same-old, same-old blah of NJTransit !

Would be great if someone nabbed some pics at Highland Ave., Orange, Newark-Broad, on the West End wye or in Paterson on the ex-Erie....

Tom you've got no idea on how much I really want to see an 8 car Midtown Direct Train right now or even a 6 car diesel goign to Hackettstown from hoboekn. Here in Clarksville, TN there isn't a dam nthing here for railroads and the only way to get around is via cab which is expensive as hell since there are only 2 cab companies.

for places on base it's $4 anywhere but off base it can be as high as $15! Esp if you want to go to the Greyhound bus Terminal or the local Governor's Square Mall (which is no bigger then the mall at Ledgewood, NJ)

Atleast Dover,NJ has a damn good station. Here in clarksville you have a dumpy Greyhound station no bigger then the waiting room at the Dover Station. The entire dover Station would be able to fit that Greyhound ticket buildign and still have room! CSX does freights in Nashville but thats the only thing of a real railroad you'l lget in the Tennessee and Kentucky area.

Supposedly the State of Tennessee will have commuter service next year from Nashville to Lebanon or Clarksville using 2nd hand double decker commuter cars with diesel engines all bought from Metra. As a guy from NJ used to riding NJT 4 days a week and riding the NYC subways, LIRR and MN qutie frequently this is too much of a culture shock!

NJT -

How've ya taken to country & western radio ???

God Bless and stay safe....and as a citizen - THANKS !

Thanks for wishing me well tom. Looks liek for my entire 3 yr contract up until I get out in August of 2007 Ft Campbell will be my home (Too bad it wasn' Fort Drum in upstate NY near Watertown) Atleast I would still be in the try State Area and Amtrak isn't too far off even though MN,NJT and LIRR is still worlds away.

But atleast a few hours riding Amtrak would've changed all that. almsot al lthe radio stations here are country with the exception of 3. 2 are deicated to rock n roll and aleternative alogn with Pop and then you have one which is an all Rap station. As long as I can get an equivelant station here in Clarksville to that of 95.5 WPLJ, 92.3 KROC and 103.5 KTU and even 100.3 WHTZ all in NYC then I'm happy.

But I was told it could've been worse. I could've been stuck out in Ft Sill, Oklahoma out i nthe middle of now where where you have to take a 3 hr bus ride to get to Oklahoma city and 3 hrs south to get to Dallas Texas or I could be stuck in Ft Polk where the nearest city (New Orleans) is a good 4 hr drive.

Here Nashville is a 1/2 to an hour drive while St Louis and Atlanta are within 3.5 hrs. Unofrtioatly for some reason Greyhound will take journeys to St Lousi and Atlanta from the Clarksville bus dept and double the time or even triple it! Hell one day a ticket attendent told me that it would take 8-12 hrs to get from Clarksvile, TN to Chicago Illinois!!!

God I wish Amtrak was here. Atleast I'd be leaving/commign fro ma station thats nice, cleans and surrounded by firendly peopel unlike Greyhound where the clientele looks like they were just realsed on Parole at 1 AM in the morn and the stations don't look like some bullet riddled dump transplanted from Fallujah.

Forgot to mention that when I'm on leave and I come home to see family and friends I get on a direct early morning Continental flight from Nashville to EWR and then an NJT train from Newark Broad to Dover it already feel like I'm home.

I'm thankful I can visit rr.net and call up henry at All Aboard and talk to him about railroad related stuff and buy from him and add to my collection. If I couldn't do that I'd go nuts. Back in Morris County, NJ you have a vast selection from All Aboard ( my favorite) F&M hobbies and Kenville Hobbies. Here in clarksville and the surroundign areas there isn't one place that sells trains at all. Closest is an hours drive to downtown Nashville and I'm not going to spend half a day in Greyhound and cabs to hunt down stores.

To henry or others in the Binghamton area -

Looking for a keen eye to alert us to the departure of the M&E FL9's and the 5-6 PV's en route back to New Jersey. I'm not a regular Susi-Q fan and thus not 'up' on their eastbound freight schedules during the week that would bring this consist home.

Would love to grab some pics/video of the M&E bringing the train back to Morristown from Paterson Junction....

From a post on the NYS&W yahoogroup posted Monday night;

"The coaches are on the SU-99 tonight ( no
frieght). The 142 is staying in Bing for awhile.- Mr. M"

No mention of the FL-9s, but I would assume they are on the train too. I will post if I hear any additional info.

Chris

SU-99, with passenger cars and the FL-9's, southbound through Warwick about 0230 hrs Tuesday morning.

Tri-State Tom wrote:About 40 minutes ago the M&E FL9's headed east at track speed out of Morristown en route to Paterson Junction. In the consist were PV's 'Ohio River', 'Mt. Vernon', 'Morris County', 'Alder Falls' and a maroon cigar band Ob.

The observation car is the former PRR 7129 ALEXANDER HAMILTON, built by Budd in 1952 for PRR's Congressional. M&E Railway acquired ALEXANDER HAMILTON from the Acadian Railway Company & Denver Car Company bankruptcy auction earlier this year. It is Amtrak certified private varnish, so we may see it on the rear of a Northeast Corridor train someday.

Those 5 cars, plus New York & Greenwood Lake business car CHESTNUT HILL and NYSW dome track inspection 509 were used as the 7 car first class section of the NYS&W OCT 16-17th excursions between Binghamton and Syracuse.