DL&W MU operations

Two questions:

1) Was there any particular reason why in a paired set the trailer unit was the western most one and the power unit was the Hoboken facing one?

2) On the power units, nearly every time I noticed them, and in most photographs, the eastern most pantograph was the one in use. Was there any reason for this?

I remember one very icy night on the Gladstone Branch, on the eastbound train from Gladstone (#430, two car set, depart Gladstone 8:05pm) when we hit ice that damaged the pantograph. This was somewhere east of Far Hills. They lowered it and raised the other one.

I was told there was no real answers to your questions...it virtually so happened that way and thus it was. Unless it was because all the head end traffic was usually on the west bound end of most commuter trains, thus so should the MU trains be set up that way as it was the tailer cars which had the baggage compartment or the RPO compartment. However, although the west most pantograph was usually up, in the summer months, I believe, they alternated weeks (by bulliten notice). As for icing conditions, yes, that was the way it would have been handled. Also note that in real bad icing conditions they would run a 10 car train up and down the tracks all night long just to keep ice off the cat...and what a light show that was!!!

Yes, and because of the slack in the couplers, on a westbound train upon start there would be a sudden shove start as the second car pushed into the first one. With an eastbound train, it was a smoother start as the power unit then pulled the second one (depending upon how well the engineer stopped the train).

As I remember, there was one master engineer. I believe his name was Art Trimmer. He did a lot of the daytime two unit train runs on the P&D. He drove by the book: never took his hand off the power lever (even at a stop), did perfectly timed horn blasts from between the whistle sign to the crossing, brought the train to a stop smoothly, and started up like he was pouring on hot syrup. Other guys screeched to a stop and upon start just went from zero to full application.