Stack Train Questions

I was a kid during those years (7-10) so I remember a bit of the trouble the trains had stalling out and needed rescue.

Remember too, that the westbound stack trains were mostly empty containers going back to the left coast. The eastbounds were the heavier loads.

The debris traffic is originating on the NYS&W, so they get the lion's share of the shipping rate, correct? And there is much less to share, since its only going to Ohio, so theres less overall mileage.

I remember the problems with the stack trains in the mid 1980's it was always a crap shoot if the train would make it. I remember hearing the trains going trough Butler around 8-10 pm at night, and my Dad and I would get up the next day and go to Port Jervis getting there around 8-9am to catch it going west from there. We did that many times, it just took that long to go west. Track was crappy, and power would more than likely shut down, than keep running.

This is the darn trouble with getting older. I'm slowly realizing this was twenty years ago when all this started, seems like it wasn't that long ago, but man, those SD-45's are OLD now... and they were old then!
I'm also feeling like the kid whose mom threw all his baseball cards away... I had the Block Lines that had all these original writeups, I think the only thing I have left is the reprint of the Railroad and Railfan article that NYS&W distributed with one of their annual reports in the late '80's. All amazing memories.

The only thing worse, than the train stalling on the mountain, due to engines "buying the farm", was the amount of time wasted, doing the "pull-by's". The train had to change direction, to get from the L&H to Bingo, and the train was pulled apart, in sections, dragged into a siding, and the power was run around. piece by piece, to keep the blocks in correct order, this was the biggest waste of time, in the whole operation. Hard to compete, as a road that spends more time going from WS to Bingo, than the competition takes, to go from OI, or SK, to somewhere west of Buffalo.......

Those pull bys always suprised me. Would it have made more sence to put power on the rear of the train and make that the head end once they rolled off the L&HR for the Graham line?

If I remember correctly, the properly facing lead onto the LHR was supposed to have been done very quickly, maybe within 6 months of the renegotiated trackage rights agreements. At least that was the expectation, the Maybrook flips were intended to be a short-term fix. I guess the Conrail boys figured they'd cause a little pain after they realized they'd been trumped, and delayed access and signal upgrades as long as possible.
I'll defer to Golden-Arm again, but I believe it wasn't so easy as just to put power on the rear end, because of the car blockings as he described, and in particular the positioning of other general merchandise rolling stock, as well as HAZMAT container positioning on the stack trains themselves.

That was a great summer 20 years ago! I worked in an office overlooking the tracks in Butler during the mid-80s. Until 1986, only the local freight would crawl up through the weeds to Butler, where the tracks became impassable, once a week or so. The stacks were already running, but over the ex-Erie to Passaic Jct. When I heard about the reactivation of the tracks in late '85 and the transcontinental trains, nobody I told believed me.

But then that following spring the work began of rebuilding the railroad. At times more than a hundred people were living in dorm cars based in Butler. The local bars did quite well that summer. It was quite a sight, seeing a railroad resurrected.

The first train, IIRC, ran west in the middle of an October night, and didn't not attract too much attention. But then the next day, the people of Butler met their first stack train.

It was about 6 p.m., and just getting dark. I was walking along Main Street in Butler and I heard the horns to the west. A stack train was coming! I don't think the people on the street had grasped just what a 150-car train pulled by five six-axle locomotives was. They were used to on GP-18 pulling one or two cars.

The train got closer, and the entire town began to shake. It roared around the curve at the station, and had to be doing 40 mph. I could not get over the looks of shock and disbelief on the faces of the people.

But most important, I don't know how this train stayed on the tracks. And judging from upcoming events, the people of Butler may have been luckier than they realize.

About a week later, another westbound derailed and dumped the stacks near Mathews Ave in Riverdale. Luckily for everybody, the cars fell to the left. Had they fallen to the right, they would have landed right on top of several chemical cars at Mathews Chemical.

There was another spectacular wreck in Franklin a few weeks later in which a number of containers burned. The wreck damaged an overpass, closing a very busy Sussex County road for several months. The locals were not too happy.

After that, the trains were restricted to 10 mph over the entire length the orginal NYS&W tracks. (I don't remember if the restrictions applied to the former Lehign and Hudson section of the line.)

You could chase the trains on a bicycle for a while, which in fact I did a few times.

The NYS&W went back and replaced most of the light rail with welded rail during late 86 and early 87. After that, things fell into a routine that existed until just a few years ago.

It would seem the pull-by's would have worked, had you been able to just run the power around, and get on the hind end. We used to build the train backwards, for what was needed going into Bingo. The size of the siding for the pull-by didn't allow for a single move. Somewhere along the way, the "powers that be" decided that if the train was going that way, anyways, why not add freight, to the hind end? Another bit of switching, when pulling-by. I thought we had the "Super Unleadeds" to run the freight, but what did I know? (I was the night TM, for a while until I got tired of watching everyone else run....) One night, the train went into emergency, coming around the "new connection". The cndr walked back, at 2 in the morning, and found the marker missing from the last car. He walked a ways back, then gave up, and the train ran sans marker. Imagine the suprise, of the next train coming by the connection, when they saw 10 LPG tank cars, still coupled together, laying at the bottom of the hill, along the outside of the curve. The marker hadn't fallen off, but the last 10 cars in the train did!!! I had the unpleasant task, of running those cars back to WS, with a pair of SD's, one engineer on each end, and no air, or brakes, on the train. No dynamics, and an engineer who thought I was yelling "faster" on the radio, made for a harrowing trip, down the mountain, at speeds exceeding 60 mph. At one point, we slowed to below 40, and I saw a wrecked ATV sitting beside the track. MTV had plugged the air, upon seeing the ATV on the tracks, but never told me. He recovered the air, for his engine, without stopping, and we kept on rolling, all the way back to WS. The FRA woulda had our asses, on that one.......

IR the wreck at Mathews Avenue in Riverdale was the second eastbound train over Sparta Mtn. My father and I chased it from Port Jervis all the way to Riverdale. We were at the Paterson Hamburg Turnpike crossing when the derailment occurred. Train slowed to a stop so we knew something was up. Then about five minutes later they started pulling east again, probably pulled 5-10 more cars off the tracks by pulling.

I have photos of that train and the aftermath still at my father's house. Need to pull them out and scan them in the computer.

Also have some dark photos of the westbound 'test' train that ran one set of stacks west with the popemobile a few days before.

I remember the weed choked tracks in Butler too. Could chase a train on a bike at that time, no joke.

during the first year or two the hand off at buffalo was to the old B&O(BR&P) to pittsburgh,not what you would call high speed service but it was the only game in town.
I can remember eastbound stacks would need a 1000 mile inspection at binghamton,Conrail would not let them hold the main and forced them into the yard or up the D&H.when the inspection was completed it was a back up move onto conrail.this was the scene of more than a few small mishaps. infact the first e/b the one that has a photo in railfan or trains with D&H and NYSW people shaking hands in front of the engine is on the ground.

charles

Was the B&O ex-BR&P routing used because it was the only line with the necessary clearances west of Buffalo at the time?

Appreciate all the great stories everybody has posted about the struggles to get over the hill etc.