L&H Memories: Before Metrics...

Long before Railroader of the Year Wick Moorman and his counterpart Michael Ward and their "metrics" buzzwords, the L&H had their own and it was simple.

Mr Huyler said just get 300 loads into Maybrook everyday and we'll be OK.

Having arrived at AD on the weekend after noon it was easy. All the eastbound parade was gone and you just added up the consist slips. Most days it was indeed over 300 plus. About 60% from Allentown/Hudson Yard and about 40% from Port Morris. After the EL merger it did decline.

The Yankee Jet Marty brought to our attention just recently and the B&O increasing their "New England Time Savers" programs built it back up. And HO-6 still ran too.

Joseph of Vermont

Bob Huyler was L&HR President from '56 to '60- arguably one of the high periods in the company's history.

Another (related) very smart policy applied to per diem payments. Any foreign road cars on the property at 12:00 midnight required a payment to the owning road; the L&HR's traffic was predominantly 'overhead' (bridge traffic), so the simple solution was to try to get all cars offline at either end before the clock struck 12. As a result, the per diem burden was passed off to the New Haven, Lackawanna, Pennsy, CNJ, et al.

For the most part it worked, saving substantial money over the years.

Oh Yes!!

Heads did roll if OA-3 didn't pass L&H Jct by midnight (just across the Delaware). I understand it the L&H didn't pay much per diem other than online at customers. #33 seemed never a problem.