EL Diners 741 and 770 on NS H74 Today

Erie Lackawanna dining cars 741 (Ex-Erie 941) and 770 (Ex-DL&W 470) will make a brief visit to New Jersey today on the rear of NS local H74 out of Allentown. They will travel up the Portland Secondary on their way to the Delaware-Lackawanna interchange in Portland, PA. This will mark the first time EL 770 has returned to New Jersey since 1972. Once the cars are delivered by the D-L to Scranton, it will mark the first time all three of our dining cars, including DL&W 469 already in Scranton, will be together under our ownership, and the first time all three have been together period since 1972.

For pictures of the cars in transit, visit our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ELDCPS

For more information on our project, visit http://www.eldcps.org

Cool to see. Been following on FB.

Were these part of the Phoebe Snow? How many other EL passenger cars similar to these exist and operable condition besides what Metro North has? And has there ever been anyword if you guys were going to get those 3 cars?

And as they looked eastbound through Emmaus on 16N Saturday afternoon @ 1510 hours...
http://njtwom.rrpicturearchives.net/sho ... id=3108868

And arriving in Allentown Yard some 25 minutes later...
http://njtwom.rrpicturearchives.net/sho ... id=3108872

Best of luck with the restoration, Michael, good to see the girls all together again; Joel has a few images that I sent over, feel free to use them if they are of acceptable quality.
Chris

Steve F45 wrote:Cool to see. Been following on FB.

Were these part of the Phoebe Snow? How many other EL passenger cars similar to these exist and operable condition besides what Metro North has? And has there ever been anyword if you guys were going to get those 3 cars?

There were four cars ordered by the Lackawanna in 1949 from the Budd Company for the Phoebe Snow. Two dining cars, and two tavern-lounge cars. EL 770 is one of the Phoebe Snow diners, DL&W 469 was the other. Both of these cars are owned by ELDCPS, and now both are in Scranton. EL 741 was originally an Erie car, built in 1927 for Pullman, used originally on the Atlantic Coast Line, and then purchased by the Erie around 1929-1930. We hope that when the time comes, Metro-North will think about us when they do dispose of the T-L cars.

There are a handful of other Erie Lackawanna "long distance" cars that still survive, including Pullman 10-5 "Spirit of Youngstown", which is owned by CSX and used as business car "Youngstown", a small handful of former Erie Pullmans that were sold to CN and turned into coaches, Erie 6-6-4 "American Life" at the Mad River & Nickel Plate Musuem, Erie 6-6-4 "American Unity" at Railroad Historical Center in Greenwood, SC, and a few ex-DL&W coaches that were also built for the Phoebe Snow. As far as we know, none of the Lackawanna lightweight sleepers survive today. Two additional ex-Erie diners also exist, both both are off rails. One is used as an office in Ohio, the other is at the Greenwood, SC museum.

RailsEast wrote:Best of luck with the restoration, Michael, good to see the girls all together again; Joel has a few images that I sent over, feel free to use them if they are of acceptable quality.
Chris

Chris, yes I do have the photos from Joel, thank you very much. I will probably be posting them tomorrow to our website and FB page.

Thanks for the info. I was wondering what that was. I drove past the hump on along River Road in Allentown yesterday and saw the roofs of passenger cars on the south side of the hump. Because NS was pulling a line of cars eastbound over the hump, I couldn't see anything but the roofs, and it was too damn humid to go out the canal path for a better look.