NYSW Crew availability?

The "three eastbounds" got me thinking. How many qualified crews does NYSW have for the Bingo to Little Ferry haul? It would appear they must have three, and maybe even four (last night's eastbound).

At one point, they were down to just two qualified crews, so they must have done some hiring / qualifying.

If they're going to run 2-3 eastbounds on a regular basis, it prob won't be too long before the Southern Div crews ask for some of the work, I'm sure.

As a railroader by profession, I can tell you that crew availablility is always an issue. In the case of the NYS&W, for the longest time, they got by with two "road pool" crews, based out of Binghamton. these were usually held by senior men, and pretty much were able to handle the normal SU-100/SU-99 turns. They also had men on the extra list qualified to work east to NJ when needed, but no assigned crews beyond the two already mentioned. As for NJ, there were, until not too long ago, only two guys qualified beyond Pelton Road. With the advent of the additional traffic, there are now close to 6-8 guys qualified over the road onto NS.
The railroad has hired additional persons up north, and they are getting qualified. It has become quite a bit of shuffling when it comes to crew availability, since not everyone on each end of the railroad is qualified the entire route. In fact, last week(as well as a couple of other times prior), the railroad sent the SY-1 crew from Syracuse as far east as 12 hours would allow, and they made it to Chester on the NS Hudson Secondary. They were then recrewed by the WS-4, a Little Ferry based crew whose engineer is qualified to Binghamton. His normal conductor isn't, so they had to play musical conductors between assignments. its not that unusual, in fact, but it sure keeps the phone ringing for those qualified. in some instances a regular Bingahmton crew will come all the way east, take rest in the hotel then return rest. In order for them to be rested, the railroad has been using the WS-3 crew to go relieve the inbound crew to get them to the hotel earlier, and thus rested earlier for as return trip. In some cases, the westbound will be parked at Pelton Road and a road crew from Binghamton will taxi east(yes, all the way from Bingo) grab the train and head west, all within the 12 hour fereal time limit. Couple the additional traffic with the fact that its vacation tim,e for some of the guys, and things can get(and have gotten) interesting in terms of crew management. Stay tuned!

Thanks for the reply.

I've noticed the recrew at Sparta, Pelton, etc even when the Bingo crew still has some meter time, so that express to the hotel makes a lot of sense.