Refueling in P'burg

Okay, guys, let's go back to 1975-77 or so. Train 5713 was the mid-day run to P'Burg. Once it got there, the train pulled to the very west end of the yard, and the GP-40P was refueled by a local fuel oil truck. After that was done, engine ran around train and coupled on. It then headed back to Newark as 5726. I rode the train in December 1977 as I was moving to Minneapolis in January 1978.

Why was this refueling necessary?

DocJohn

Maybe it was for convieience. Transit Locos would have smaller capacity fuel tanks compared to the same loco set up for road freights. By that time it may have been hard to schedule that loco to run to a service facility simply for fuel so they brought the fuel to the loco.

I posed this question to the second trick Raritan Engine House foreman who started out as a CNJ machinist up in PBurg in 1972. He said if a train set made a couple of turns to Raritan and a quick turn was needed in Newark to cover 5713, the loco would not have time to fuel in Harrison yard. Hence, the engine dispatcher would call the fuel truck out to meet the train up in PBurg and top it off while it was waiting to head back to Newark on the next eastbound. This same scenario played out in the Conrail era too. I believe the fuel company was a local PBurg dealer.