Nocturnal mail train on Hudson Division

Back around 1964 I remember often seeing what I believe was a mail train on the Hudson Div., headed west through Tarrytown right around midnight Saturday (probably ran other nights too, but I remember Saturdays). It was diesel powered, so it didn't originate in GCT. I guess it must have come up the west side. Can somebody tell me about this job --- exactly what it was, where it went, etc.

That was probably Number 13. In 1965 it was scheduled to depart 30th Street at 10.55 p.m., passed DV at 11.39 p.m., Harmon at 12.15 a.m. and Albany at 2.15 a.m., Eastern Standard Time (Daylight time was one hour faster, but the railroad did not observe it in 1965). No. 13 handled mail and express from the 29th Street Post Office Facility and the 33rd Street Railway Express House, daily except Sunday, from New York to Chicago. No. 3, another Mail and Express train, followed it by about two hours.

Their eastward counterparts, 4 and 14, terminated at Harmon. There were three other westward and four eastward mail and express trains scheduled each day just between Harmon and 30th Street. They handled most of the traffic from 4 and 14, as well as mail and express cars that moved beyond Harmon on the regular passenger trains. Switching mail and express cars into and out of passenger trains in conjunction with the engine change was a big deal at Harmon.

Thank you --- that's what I wanted to know.

What power did those mail trains generally have --- E units? That's what I would guess

Tom -

By 1966 the Mail and Express trains like 3 and 4 often had new GP-40's, the 3000's, after they started running Flexivans in mail service. Before that, passenger (80 mph) GP-7's and -9's were common. Most of the shuttles between Harmon and 30th Street in 1960 and 1961, when I was working on the Electric Division, had one or two RS-2's or RS-3's. But I remember one night when I was Yard Clerk at Yonkers; Track 6 was blocked with cars and one of those Harmon jobs had to run through the freight yard. I met him at Babcock Place and "piloted" the crew through the yard to GD. They had 2 PA's (4200's)!

Up to the early 1960's, good E-7's and E-8's for passenger service were in short supply, and they didn't often show up on mail trains. But by 1965 there were more E's than passenger trains, so they were more common on mail trains. I can remember No. 23 (Boston-Chicago) at Cleveland many times in 1966 with five E units. Those were long trains, sometimes as many as 40 baggage/mail storage cars, express refrigerators and RPO's.

Up to the late 1950's they would have a caboose for the crew - some had been modified with no cupola and added air signal lines. Then NYC took some surplus commuter coaches, blanked out the windows in the middle of the car and installed oil-fired heaters with a big oil tank in the darkened center of the car. They were used as rider cars on most of the mail trains. When the oil tanks were full they would slosh all over the place, and the darn cars would stink of diesel fuel.