BR&P wrote:Some organization in Hamlin put out a booklet for their Centennial somewhere about 1976. One item I remember (hopefully with reasonable accuracy) was that in....1920 maybe?...during the harvest, ONE customer there shipped out 225 carloads - in ONE week! Multiply that by other customers in Hamlin, and by several weeks during the harvest season, and multiply that again by how many other stations there were along the line....it boggles the mind!
Yes, they did.....I want to say the Seymour Library in Brockport has a copy of this, at least they did last I knew. It's called
"Tracking Hamlin, the White Elephant Line", by Mary E. Smith. I would like to land myself a copy at some point.
In the 40's and 50's there was a West Local,which came out of Goodman Street Yard and worked west one day, back the next. Instead of a caboose, this job used a combine which had bunks, a stove, etc for the crew to stay in at Niagara Falls. (A similar arrangement was used for the Red Line, which worked the East Hojack to Oswego and back). In the busy season extra jobs were called to go where needed, for instance Hamlin. The crew called this the "Hamlin Backup" because the steam engine had to run in reverse one way since there was no wye or turntable available out there.
I bet it took a while to get to both Oswego and Niagara Falls! From what I remember reading, track speeds weren't
all that fast even back then. Quite a few bridges and a couple trestles at Waterport and Burt.
Charlie