Photo of the Day First PRR diesel on the Long Branch

[IB PEDERSEN]

If an E7 was the first diesel to power a PRR passenger train on the NY&LB, the use of E7s there did not last long. EMD units were not regularly used until after the Baldwin BP20 Sharks had been used almost exclusively, up until at least 1961. The NY&LB was where diesels went to die after being bumped from more glamorous duty.

[daveklepper]

You are correct.  The E-7 was used for the publicity of the first diesel train because it was a relatively new diesel.  But Baldwin Sharks held down the runs until long-distance train-offs, one being the all-Pullman overnight Steel City, made E-7s available to replace them.  The Baldwins were mostly used rush hours only, like on most commuter railroads, so there was more time for maintenance.  More train-offs and combinings allowed the line to go all EMD.   The Sharks did preserve a tradition, because the NY&LB did see the Baldwin Centapedes as the first Jersey Central diesels, during the period when the PRR ran with K4s (around 1951). Alco road-switchers, I think RS3s, quickly replaced the Baldwins for the CNJ, while the K4s were still running.  Before and still during the Baldwins, the PRR K4s were matched against CNJ 4-6-0 Camelbacks.  I cannot remember seeing a CNJ end-cab steam engine on the NY&LB.

I rode the line regularly when at ROTC Summer Camp at Fort Monmouth, summer 1951, also when assigned to Fort Monmouth autumn and winter 1954-1955, before being transferred to Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, NC.

[K4sPRR]

For a brief period from 1956 into 1957 there were four EP-20's on the NY&LB, assigned to the Meadows terminal in Kearny.  Preferring to have the EP-20's assigned to Harrisburgh with the others they devised an MU cable enabling the units to be moved with E-44's thus avoiding deadhead moves.

[daveklepper]

What exactly were the EP-20s?

[K4sPRR]

The E-7's.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

CNJ did not have any Centipedes, they did have six double-cab baby-face Baldwins that spent time on the NY&LB.  I believe that CNJ Train Masters included trips on the NY&LB in their regular assignments.

[IB PEDERSEN]

My experience was post 1956 unti 1962, when the CNJ trains on the Long Branch were mostly assigned GP7's and H15(or16?)-44s or H24-66s. I never saw an RS3 down there, but I also never saw a K4. Wish I had. The good old days.

 

[daveklepper]

If the Trainmasters regularly ran on the NY&LB in 1954,  perhaps my memory confusingly changed them to RS3's.

And I had forgotton that there were other double-cab Baldwinds than the Centapedes, so it must have been your baby-faced Baldwins that I regularly saw in 1951.  But any time I caught a CNJ power was a camelback.

In 1951, when I went from Little Silver to Princeton Jc. on the Red Bank - Trenton train, the doodlebug was in for maintenance, and I had my one of two rides behind an E6. wiith one combine and one coach.  The other  E6 ride was at Strassburg many years later.