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Re:Re: Re: (erielack) DL&W Track markers, Hoboken 1952

The lights were new to Hoboken because the concept -- maybe even the lights themselves -- came from Jersey City.  As for being lit incorrectly -- that didn't happen often, because track assignments were pretty stable and regular.  The Northern, for instance, usually used Track 11, where they would stage the second train in back of the first, holding it out on the track that was under water at high tide.  When the 5:15 left behind its K1, the 5:40 would come wading up out of the river behind a dripping K4 to start loading; even the lowest steps would be wet.

Commuters are creatures of habit.  Each knew just where to stand at Jersey City to board a coach that would stop at his station close to where he parked his car. See The DIAMOND, vol. 1 #1 for the regular track assignments.

Randy Brown
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Thanks for all of the responses.  Jim, do you have a link to that photo with the two blues lit?   The fact that they were added with the coming of the Erie trains was interesting -- I'll admit that's new information for me.

Does anyone else have any recollections of them or stories of them being used or relied upon?  How about them being incorrectly lit?  Might anyone have one of those Head to Hoboken brochures that they could scan?   Would like to write a small piece about them in Tri-State's newsletter The Block Line, which is available on line  www.tristaterail.org

I photographed them long after they were out of use, and I'll try to track down where at least one of them went.  

Many thanks                        ....Mike



In a message dated 06/26/09 10:34:57 Eastern Daylight Time, jguthrie_@_pipeline.com writes:
>I believe that the lights were an ERIE innovation at Jersey City, and were quite helpful at the H&M concourse under the far end of the platforms, where there was no room for milling about looking at train boards, and no way to correct your error if you came up onto the wrong platform. 

Randy -- I think I recall a "Head fo Hoboken" brochure telling Erie Passengers that these were **new**. I have some of the Enamel/Metal train numbers from the H&M Erie Concourse. Given the decrepit state of things even when the NYS&W pulled out, I just don;t recall seeing anything -- but that would be long after the Erie itself was gone. 

>I don't recall the lights at Hoboken, but my Hoboken experiences were only with through trains (to Scranton) in 1944, and >getting to and from the NYSME railroad upstairs when it was there.  The only time I took a Northern train from Hoboken was >on the last day. 

Two Blue Lights -- I have a slide I took on the last night -- and posted it here some time back if anyone wants to see these indicators in use; I rode the last train to Nyack, and a few months later, the last train to Sparkill. The EL was smart enough to get rid of as much interstate service as they could earlier thatn the big October 1966 cutbacks -- having been stuck with running Suffern-Port Jervis locals a few years earlier when they didn't co-ordinate their regulatory filings properly. 

In any case, on both occasions, the Friendly Service Route let us all ride the deadhead back to Hoboken, where many of us lined up at the ticket counter for souvenirs. The clerks gave away all the station rubber stamps -- I have "Leonia." 

Cheers, 
Jim 

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