As a teen I spent much of my railfanning time riding my bike to the Conrail River Line. Here are two new scans.
First we see a train I have recorded as TV16 coming south. I don’t recall TV16 carrying autoracks, let alone only autoracks. Anyone know if this is incorrect? Also, anyone know this conductor? He shows up in a lot of my shots waving.
Is that where the tracks are on a ridge next to a side road? Its a nice spot. A friend and I almost had quite an amazing shot there…but not in a good way. We were about to watch (he was taking pix) Conrail train OISE (Newark-Selkirk). It was barelling down on the crossing when a station wagon, complete with kids and all,crossed right in front of it. It got out of the way with only a few moments to spare. Would have been a heck of a picture, but thankfully we didn’t get this one.
That might have been the same day when we saw a NJT bus rip a door off a car after the guy opened it right in front of it.
Sorry not to be clear on this, I meant Haworth. If I recall,(haven’t been there lately) the road sort of goes down a little next to the tracks so it looks like the River Line is on a bit of a hill. It was a nice spot for a picture or just to watch trains.
Up by the road that went to the north end of the Oradell Reservoir? I think I know what you mean. To be honest, however, I haven’t been at that grade crossing in 30 years. I did visit the Haworth Ave (Road?) crossing about a month ago when I was in NJ. The trees and other growth are much closer to the tracks now.
As to the jugs on the nose, yeah those were pretty common back then. I believe that it was drinking water, kept out there so it would be cool. As I type this, I realize I’ve never had that confirmed… but that’s what we all thought it was in those days.