Remnants of the Erie mainline

I found these items relating to the Erie mainline on my walks along the Heritage Trail, the former Erie mainline in Orange County NY.

peterde -

Love these photos/artifacts....

I get what the first 2 are but can you identify the items in the last 2 photos ?

thanks

Peterde:

Thanks for sharing these great pics. I too am wondering what the third item is.

I kick myself for not having ridden on this line before its abandonment. While riding the Heritage Trail is great, it's not the same.

MSC

I believe the last photo is a the top cross member a telegraph pole. Those silver studs would have been the studs that attach the insulators to the pole. That metal strap would have attached to the pole itself to stabilize the cross member, there would have been one of them on either side so the cross member could not tilt one way or another. I'm not sure what the third artifact is, but it appears to have a cable running out of it. The stand does not have any holes in the bottom so I doubt it was ever fixed to the ground.

Yes, the last picture is a telegraph pole cross member. That was still there as of 2 days ago. The third item was a bit of a challenge for me also. However I did identify it as a cable riser for the signal system made by the Railroad Accessory Corporation. Very similar to the one below.

Sometimes this item is referred to as a "chicken head".

I never heard of that term, but I did hear it referred to as a "bootleg" . It amazes me that all these things survived over 30 years after the line was abandoned. I believe it was torn up soon after the last train run, but I'm not sure exactly when.

You would be surprised how long these those types of things last, especially when they are tossed in the weeds and not disturbed. In Jamestown for example, I have found ties in the ground from the original Erie grade before the grade crossings were eliminated and that has been 80+ years!

How about did you figure out what that cable riser was? Was there a name stamped on there somewhere that you were able to search? I searched for Erie Railroad signaling devices last night for about an hour and couldn't find anything.

Cast into the head was the words "RACO RISER PATENTED NO 44?" took me a while to identify the company as the Railroad Accessories Corporation, and google searches for imagines for that turned up patents for other models.

As they say, ya learn something every day !

Until today never saw or ever heard of a 'cable riser'. So based on the drawing, these things were mostly buried next to the rail ? Any idea when they were installed ?

Great find and photo pete !

Now there is no commuter service to Monroe, Chester, Goshen, or Middletown. And the trip to Port Jervis takes at least an hour longer via the Graham Line. They really hated commuters in those days, didn't they? Was there any other justification for tearing the rails up (steep grades or whatever?) Or was it just to get a few bucks for the scrap? When was the Main Line cut? Who owned the route then? Was any move made to save service?

I always questioned why the ERIE had the 2 routes to begin with. Pretty rural back in the day and a long ride to JC or Hoboken. I don't know the primary factors that effected the decision to favor one line over the other but guessing it was more about moving freight trains than moving money losing passenger trains.

The reason for building the Graham Line was to provide more favorable gradients for freight trains. As on-line industries on the Main Line dried up or moved away, Conrail determined that it had no further use for the Main Line and offered it to Metro North for sale if they wanted to buy it. I believe MN concluded that it would make more economic sense to develop the Graham Line rather than spend money on the Main Line (even if Conrail had sold it for $1, MN would be on the hook for maintenance); availability of parking may also have played a role.

But almost nobody lives on the Graham Line! On the old Main Line, there were commuters even then from the towns ultimately bypassed. A couple of them are sizable, and I have known some commuters from there who complain about having to drive to distant stations, or to take buses. So what logic could Metro-North have been applying? The logic of developers who wanted the land on the ROW, perhaps?

I'm trying to remember the sequence of dates here. Up until Jan. 1, 1983, transit agencies from MBTA to MARC contracted their commuter services to Penn Central and later Conrail. If Conrail sought abandonment of the Main Line prior to 1983, the question for MN would have been whether to acquire the Main Line from Newburgh Jct. almost to Port Jervis and assume responsibility for all operation and repair (and hiring the people to do it) versus paying PC or CR under existing terms to operate over the Graham Line. When the North East Rail Service Act became effective on 1/1/83 Conrail was excluded from providing commuter services under contract, and all those agencies had to decide whether to take on the responsibility themselves or hire a different contractor. As we know, NJT and MN (was MN already operating on its own prior to 1983?) elected to run the service and own the tracks themselves, but back then I they weren't to know that the transit agencies were going to have to make that decision in the future. It's hard to say what choice would have been preferable without knowing what the costs of acquiring the Main Line would have been at the time.