CNJ 1951 Public Timetable, Suburban Trains

Notice the double-ended Baldwin 'babyface' unit on the cover.

The Big Little Railroad occupied a particular economic niche in transporting suburban New Jersey commuters to Manhattan by rail and ferry. For many years, another profitable business of the CNJ was hauling anthracite coal. 

As these two lines of business became increasingly obsolete in the 1950s, the railroad suffered ... from its lack of 'bridge traffic' income ... from the stranded capital in its obsolete coal-powered commuter motive power and coaches ... and from the extensive physical plant it maintained in urban settings. 

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The map below shows good station detail for most of the important Jersey Central lines. The Reading obtained control of the CNJ in 1901 ... and the B&O bought the Reading. The objective of the B&O was to get access to New York City via those other two lines. 

The CNJ had some really large steam power for its freight business which included its traditional anthracite lines into Pennsylvania. A couple of photos are shown at the end of this post.

from: Official Guide, June 1941.

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The map below identifies all of the important commuter stations in the timetable.

from: Northeast Railroad Scene, Vol 5 The Jersey Central; Bob Pennisi; 1980; Railroad Avenue Enterprises.

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The old 1912 map, below, shows how CNJ's ferries connected the New Jersey commuters with Manhattan.

from: Industrial Review of New York; 1912; George F Cram.

from: Jersey's Own Railroad; William R Frutchey; Trains, Dec 1946; Kalmbach. 

The camel-back locomotives were apparently designed to provide a large grate area for the slow-burning anthracite coal. This low-smoking hard coal was in high demand for urban space heating and substantial deposits were in production on the Pennsylvania end of the CNJ. 

On the camel-backs, the engineer occupied the 'well-heated' cab which straddled the boiler and the fireman took his traditional place with his shovel at the backhead of the boiler where he could get a nice sun tan. This arrangement was tolerable for commuter service, but it is hard to imagine engine crews happily working on these engines in the 1940s.

On the excellent public relations video linked at the end of this post, there are only two very quick glimpses of these anachronistic locomotives shown. 

This is the end of the Monday-Friday westbound timetable.

Saturday/Sunday westbounds are below.

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from: Diesels from Eddystone; Gary & Stephen Dolzall; 1984; Kalmbach.

On 6 November 1946, Baldwin and CNJ officials celebrated the delivery of a DR-6-4-20.

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Here are the Monday to Friday eastbound timetables.

The Saturday and Sunday eastbounds are shown below.

Accounting for inflation ... a US dollar in 1951 equals about 32 US dollars in 2024.

This transfer was found between Pages 28 and 29 of this timetable.

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from: Jersey's Own Railroad; William R Frutchey; Trains, Dec 1946; Kalmbach. 

Above: The eastern terminal of the CNJ, Reading and Baltimore & Ohio at Jersey City. 

The engine in the photo is pushing a passenger consist into the stub-end terminal at the water's edge. 

When I was preparing the image I had to double-check ... 

yes, indeed, that is the Manhattan skyline beyond the signal bridge. 

You know ... if everyone wasn't burning so much coal ...

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from: Jersey's Own Railroad; William R Frutchey; Trains, Dec 1946; Kalmbach. 

Above: The service tracks outside the Jersey City roundhouse.

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A very good  25-minute YouTube video ...

On YouTube I've watched many short railroad publicity films from the 1940s and 1950s. The film linked below is one of the most interesting ones I've seen. Above all, it maintains a brisk and energetic pace. It shows a great amount of railroad operating detail. There are a few unusual pieces of equipment and operations one doesn't often see in these videos.

• In keeping with its optimistic message, only two quick views of the old camel-back engines are shown.
• The Ashley Planes are shown in operation. This was an old-fashioned 14-degree (max) inclined-plane standard gauge branch (primarily for coal) ... powered by stationary engines and used until the late 1940s.
• A particular hopper car is shown being loaded from an enormous old anthracite pit and we see it a few times as we follow the line-narrative from Pennsylvania ... to the unloaders at the waterfront opposite New York City - where the same car is emptied.
• Two types of Baldwin 'babyface' units are shown being used in passenger service.
• A Jordan spreader is seen in action during ditching. And a large primitive Speno ballast cleaner operates as well.
• CNJ passenger ferry, car float and lighter operations are shown.
• A tender-top generator for commuter car interior lighting is seen. 
• The original 'oil-electric' locomotive ... which had been working continuously on a Class 1 railroad since 1925 ... is seen in two views. This was the Alco/GE/IR boxcab used at the (fascinating, modeller's favourite) water-isolated 'Bronx Terminal'. A couple of short clips show it in operation. One source said that oil-electric was the preferred term in 1925 because the Germans had just been defeated in The War, and calling it a Diesel-electric after the motor's inventor would not have seemed appropriate.
• Bonus: You can hear Mauch Chunk and Wilkes-Barre pronounced by a professional!

The Big Little Railroad (1948)

CPR 1948 Rolly Martin's Student Trips as Fireman

Don't waste coal, don't clinker the fire, anticipate grades and train acceleration needs to ensure there is adequate potential energy in the boiler to meet the demands of the engineer.

With the knowledge of basic science, these key principles of firing are easy to understand. 

However, to be able to consistently achieve these goals on steam locomotives with different characteristics, coal of variable quality, the array of valves mounted on the boiler backhead, and the tools at hand ... required knowledge and skills which the student fireman was expected to pick up quickly. 

from: The 5137; David Plowden; Trains, Sep 1961; Kalmbach.

Just after the end of Canadian steam, Trains magazine printed a short photo essay of an engine from the same class as the one on which Rolly took his first student trip. The 5137 photos were taken between Brownville Jct, Maine and Megantic, Quebec.

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Rolly had Algoma Central maintenance of way experience and Schreiber roundhouse experience, before taking his student trips to qualify as a fireman. Unlike trainmen on trial trips in 1977, I think these trips were probably done on the candidate's own time - without pay. 

These six trips probably represent three round trips taken on the Heron Bay and Nipigon Subdivisions with six different crews. The student might choose to have a shorter turnaround time at White River or Fort William than the assigned crews. The student would also benefit from learning from six different engine crews (engineman + fireman). In some cases, the engine crews would be happy not to have a student with them on the return trip.

I had always imagined that this document represented Rolly firing by hand. However, in checking Lavallee's Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotives, I believe that all of these individual engines had mechanical stokers. (Note: While these devices are often referred to as 'automatic' stokers, they certainly did not work 'with little or no direct human control'.)

Although it would have been a lot of heavy work, hand firing would have been easier to master than being confronted with the controls shown below ...

from: The 5137; David Plowden; Trains, Sep 1961; Kalmbach.

As was often the case in steam locomotives, nothing is labelled in the photo above. Recently we've interpreted this historical fact by inventing a mythical hard-bitten engineer's statement: 'If you don't know what those valves do, you don't belong in my cab!'

The 5100-clast engine had an HT-1 stoker and the 5400-class engines had HT stokers, as shown below.

from: Locomotive Cyclopedia; 1950-1952; Simmons-Boardman. 

The stoker was just a steam-powered auger which transported coal from a channel in the bottom of the tender. Over this channel in the tender are 'slide plates' - mentioned in the booklet reproduced below - which prevent all of those tons of coal from pressing down at once and jamming or breaking the auger. 

Once the coal reaches the distributing table (16, above) it is positioned in the firebox by adjustable jets of steam operating in different directions. 

Right off the bat, the student had to learn how to run the auger to avoid starving or smothering the fire, and how to control those steam jets to evenly spread the coal on the grates.

A steam locomotive cab was an extremely noisy workplace (the banging and rattling of the stoker didn't help) and 'instruction' on the road would consist of shouted advice or commands at key moments. 

A builder's photo of one of Rolly's locomotives is shown above.

The builder's plate is enlarged for any CLC fans.

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Although some would see it as anathematic to present a CNR-titled booklet on firing ... in a blog post featuring CPR power ... the same firing challenges were shared by the engine crews of both roads.

In the booklet below the 'Hand Firing' section is considerably longer than the 'Stoker Firing' section. 

With hand firing, you could get a good look at your fire when you opened the butterfly doors ... and choose exactly where to place your scoop of coal (albeit on a rocking, lurching engine). 

The evolving disadvantage of the finely-tuned craft of hand firing ... was that the fireboxes were getting longer, wider, and hungrier all the time - as steam locomotives became larger and more powerful. With all the rocking, and lurching ... and shovelling literally tons of coal during a trip ... they had reached the limit of human endurance for a single person working on a standard 100+ mile trip.

So with newer locomotives they took away the butterfly doors and installed a steam-powered auger to move the coal into the firebox opening. This made any hand firing into the remaining 'hole' more difficult. Student firemen also had to develop a mental picture of how turning those valves would place their coal exactly where it was needed on the firebox grates.

from: Canada Year Book; 1948; Government of Canada.

from: The 5137; David Plowden; Trains, Sep 1961; Kalmbach.

In this undated photo the freshly-coaled 5146, 5162 and 2819 are lugging freight up the hill from Hochelaga.

(Montreal Railway Landmarks File: Église catholique Nativité-de-la-Sainte-Vierge, Ontario/St Germain Streets)