Morristown & Erie 110th Anniversary Excursion

[wolfboy8171981]

Slight correction. The train had a Maximum Allowable Speed (MAS) of 65MPH. The track speed from CP-Aldene to CP-Bethlehem is 50MPH for freight, and since there is no speed for passenger trains, they too must not exceed 50MPH. On Conrail between CP-Newark and CP-Aldene Freight speed is 40 MPH and Passenger Speed is 60 MPH the train could have reached 60MPH if the crew change was at Newark Penn.

Could is the key word. Had more than one locomotive been online leaving Hoboken, we would have made some pretty good time. But, a tripped power cutoff switch on M&E 18, and a balky MU connection between it and the NJT P40 left only the NS GP40-2 as power from Hoboken to Roselle. Even so, the NJT RFE had us up in the mid-40 MPH range on one locomotive between CP Newark and Roselle. The situation with the power was rectified while stopped at Roselle, which allowed us to go track speed the rest of the way to Bethlehem ... excepting, of course, the fact that we were catching up to the advance track patrol on NS, and had to slow down to give them time to release their track authorities. The extra time we encountered because of them was actually a good thing. Had we made track speed the whole way, we would have arrived at the old TV ramp an hour ahead of schedule, with the caterers still setting up lunch.

Incidentally, the NS crew was on the head end right from Hoboken, and we only booted the NJT train crew off at Roselle.

One would think with all the OCS trips on the NEC that the NS crew had been making they could have kicked them off at Newark...............

[Off Pending]

One would think with all the OCS trips on the NEC that the NS crew had been making they could have kicked them off at Newark...............

That possibility was actually considered, but because the crew wasn't qualified on Amtrak (the NS OCS trips used both Amtrak and NS personnel on each respective section of railroad), "Plan A" was what ended up happening.