Interlocking Station - "GS" Syracuse - Date Closed

"GS" was still open in June of 1978, CR ETT No. 1, can someone advise ETT and General Order date and number when closed.

Thanks,

Jack

Jack,

GS was closed c. 1984 or so. I'll check to see if I can give you an exact date.

On the day that we moved the control machine to Utica, the moving outfit supplied an open flatbed semi-trailer instead of a closed semi. To top it off, the weather was not good; rain/snow mix IIRC.

The only outpost operator locations on the Mohawk-Hudson at that time were GS and LAB, and LAB had to stay put because of the movable bridge.

Sheldon,

Then you must have known Al Mead the Chief Train Dispatcher at Utica. He used to let me run the sheet when he was TD at 466 in the late 50's. He is long retired and is living in Florida.

As I am sure you know LAB is still in operation.

Jack

I went searching through my old timetables and found General Order No.
303 to timetable no. 3. The G.O. was effective July 29, 1984 and took
GS out of service and switched control to the operator in the dispatcher's
office at Utica.
In the summer of 1987 while I was riding trains between Selkirk and
Buffalo for the purpose of qualifying, they were still using the term in
Syracuse "Utica Operator". By the time I had qualified and started
working the line in November, 1987, I seem to recall that we just called
the Mohawk Dispatcher for everything in the Syracuse area east of CP-
296.
Hope this is helpful.
Noel Weaver

Noel,

I appreciate the great information very much. I find it most interesting that they still used an operator at Utica for some period of time after moving the machine there. What was the effective date of TT No. 3?

Thanks again,

Jack

Jack Shufelt wrote:Noel,

I appreciate the great information very much. I find it most interesting that they still used an operator at Utica for some period of time after moving the machine there. What was the effective date of TT No. 3?

Thanks again,

Jack

Northeastern Region timetable no. 3 took effect April 29, 1984.
Noel Weaver

Hi, Jack and Noel:

The movement of "GS" to Utica was a transfer of work location and not a re-classification of the job. Therefore, this remained "Operator"s" work and not "Dispatcher's". Saved quite a bit of aggravation for both the management and the personnel. As it was, several of the operators later qualified as train dispatchers after the move to Utica.

While we did lose the benefit of an extra visual inspection of some trains as they passed "GS", the move was part of the general consolidation of dispatching facilities. I suppose that the real surprise was actually moving that old first-generation TCS machine instead of replacing it. Remember the sound of those old machines as the coding took place? "Ka-da-thunk
ka-da-thunk ka-da-thunk as the code impulses went out and again as they returned?

When I came to Utica, Al Mead was the regular 2nd-trick St. Lawrence Disp.; other regulars on the St. Lawrence Desk were Angelo Pacifico, and Don Martin, Sr. Bob Cervo was the STO, and the regular CTD's were Bud Baratier. Avery Van Slyke, Bill Proni, and John Schuyler. Regular Mohawk DS's included Doug Allen, Don Ogden, Tom Rider, and Art

A really professional group that made coming to work a pleasure. That lasted until the forced consolidation of the Mohawk-Hudson Div. with the New England Div. and the creation of the Selkirk Office.

Incidentally, the "GS" was the Control Station designation and was transferred over from the original "GS" Tower which was at Geddes St. on the old mainline vis Washington Ave. and was located west of the street running. The interlocking on the Lake Line at "GS" was Clark St., later "CP-CL".

shlustig wrote:When I came to Utica, Al Mead was the regular 2nd-trick St. Lawrence Disp.; other regulars on the St. Lawrence Desk were Angelo Pacifico, and Don Martin, Sr. Bob Cervo was the STO, and the regular CTD's were Bud Baratier. Avery Van Slyke, Bill Proni, and John Schuyler. Regular Mohawk DS's included Doug Allen, Don Ogden, Tom Rider, and Art

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. It's amazing how one can forget all of the names of people one worked with all those years ago. I have to say that Doug Allen, Don Ogden, and John Schuyler were my favorite actors on the desk in Utica -- particularly from the point of view of the one running trains out there.

I only had one interaction with Mr. Cervo when he asked me, one day when I was in the office in Utica, if I would ever want to be a dispatcher. (I never felt I had the temperament for that kind of work.)

Cervo seemed like a decent guy. It's a shame how his life ended (no need to discuss that here).

I, too, worked with several of the dispatchers mentioned on the Mohawk
and also briefly with a couple more of them at Selkirk coming off the
River Line at (CP-132 at the time).
No better dispatchers anywhere than Doug Allen and Don Ogden.
SHL, at sometime, didn't the Utica Operator get combined into the Mohawk
Dispatcher? Can you recall when that may have happened? Thanks.
Noel Weaver

Noel,

Before I forget, I see that Art Keough got short-cahnged on my prior post.

The operators went away with the move to the then-new Selkirk office when the divisions were consolidated in 1987. The dispatching territories were re-aligned, and the Mohawk Dispatcher acquired the former "GS" territory. IIRC, the Selkirk office opened with 5 dispatching desks: B&A-East, B&A-West, Mohawk, St. Lawrence, and the Dark Territory. We had a heck of a time qualifying the dispatchers on their new territories as well as on the new equipment in the office. It made for a lot of long one-day Hi-Rail rides in order to cover the Hudson Line, Claverack Ind., Beacon Branch, and the Maybrook Line. It got to be that the prison guards at Green Haven (?) would look for the Hi-Railer on the weekends.

By that time, most of the "GS" operators who made the move to Selkirk were qualified as Dispatchers. We had a very good crop of dispatchers, even though some of the best did not make the move to Selkirk. About a third of the force from both Utica and Springfield declined the move, as did my counterpart on the B&A, Ed Thomas. It was at that time that we hired train dispatchers off othe D&H and Guilford in order to get a sufficient number of personnel.

The old TCS machine from the Utica office is on display from a long term
loan by the U&MV nrhs chapter. It's in the Childrens Museum next door
to the Union Station. BTW I also knew D.Allen and both of the Cervo
brothers. Good guys alround.

STEAM ON
/--OOO-;-oo--oo-

shlustig wrote:Before I forget, I see that Art Keough got short-changed on my prior post.

He was one I was trying to remember. He was on the midnight shift for several years. There was another one that gave up daylight for the midnight shift because the extreme pressure on days (track work and Hi-railers) was driving his BP up (no, not brake pipe). All I remember was that his first name was John. Anyone recall?

All I remember was that his first name was John. Anyone recall?

Larry -

Was it John Tinney? I used to talk to him once in a while when I was on the D&H in 1970-72, and I had to take my hi-rail across the West Shore at Voorheesville.

On my second night of NYC service after I started in the M of W Department in June 1963, I had to work my way "down the chain" one office at a time from New York to Syracuse to Utica to Selkirk, where I spent the rest of the month before I went into the Army.

I had finished my day in Syracuse when Irv Olp glommed onto me and talked me into a trip out to Rochester and back for a "per diem meeting." The supper and the conversation were worth the trip, but by the time I returned to Syracuse it was too late to get a hotel room. I caught a ride on 148 to Utica and spent the rest of the night with the dispatchers.

Al Ricci was working the Mohawk, and Myron Crossman had the St. Lawrence and all of the North Country. Myron kept me enthralled with his tales of North Country railroading, like the farmers and other denizens along the Adirondack whom he would call in the middle of the night for an unofficial OS on 164 or 165 if they were a long time arriving at Tupper Lake or Remsen. I remember he had to put out a train order that morning opening the station at Parish for a meet.

I agree - that was a good office. No nonsense, and you could tell that the guys on third trick were good at their work.

ChiefTroll wrote:Was it John Tinney?

He's the one! He had a great radio voice, if I recall correctly.

Jack - any ancestors in the railroad business? I was reading "A Boomer's Diary" in the December 1942 RAILROAD magazine. The author is recalling his early days about 1900 or 1901, and..."Then I borrowed Jack Shufelt's watch and went up to Weehawken NJ to try the West Shore for a job." I don't know you, but I doubt you're THAT old, LOL.

Don't know how much interaction GS had with the dispatchers in the other direction, and it sounds like most of the discussion is about Mohawk men. But here are a few Buffalo East End names - Ernie Matthews, Arnie Aman (Haman?), Bob Burke....there were a couple others but they don't come to me at the moment. I also knew H.E. Wood and Sam Giglia, although by that time Woody was an agent and Sam was Asst. Trainmaster.