LIC before Push-Pull

While rearward viz was never great in any carbody unit, the engr and the fireman (remember them?) both have outside rear-view mirrors. Look carefully at the photo above and you'll see the silhouette of the fireman hunched over at his side window looking down the inside of the curve ahead. The engr is probably eyeing his field side thru the mirror if not looking rearward with head turned, too. All in all, not ideal, but pretty good. And I'll bet they were not going lightning-fast, either (for a few different reasons), so they should've been able to stop if anything doubtful showed up ahead. If there was a condr aboard, he might have been at the back door with a backup hose which could be used to apply the air brake if needed, but I don't know whether they were standard issue back then. Backup hoses, that is, not conductors!

here is a picture from trainsarefun.com of one backing through Jamaica.
note the rear headlight and door. In todays RR they would have a qualified person on the rear at that window at the door. Dont know if they did it back then.
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Enjoying the C-Liners photos, thanks for posting.

Did they always go back to morris park during mid day? If not I suspect many engines were turned via harold & c secondary, back to the yard via lower montauk, at least in the 80s and 90s.

Back then I often would see a mid day move of 2-5 GP38-2s - they'd leave the coach yard and go up to the switch at thompson ave - where they would reverse up the ramp onto the secondary, and I assumed back over the blissville, and then line up back to the coach yard via lower montauk. If I recall right I caught them back at the crossing just outside of the coach yard at least once, after having seen them at thompson ave - with me walking the distance on foot, and no time for them to go all the way to morris park.

They did this every weekday, and I'd see them anytime from say, 11 to 1pm. I have a few print photos of this move...

I saw them send a few engines back to morris park from the coach yard, of course - but they always went straight down lower montauk & not via harold & c.

To turn the power or head to Morris Park,you had to use the C secondary to Bliss,Then up and over the EB Cutoff, then drop
down on the Mainline cutoff,cross to ML 2,F tower lined you to station 2 track(Hunterspoint Ave) back into LIC yard.
Otherwise at the spring switch equiped crossover at Bliss run east on Montauk #2 to the Morris Park shop.

C secondary to Bliss.Montauk cutoff to switch leading to mainline cutoff.Call F tower for permission to open switch.then eastward to westbound psgr track.then HP1 to LIC, the engines were turned everyday,some engines(operated by the initial trains engineer) returned to MP for service and the Change of engines brought them back n the early afternoon.Many times I brought back 4-6 engines.It was not a comfortable trip as i had to look for signals running long nose forward.Then when i arrived at LIC I had to place each engine on its respective train.BUT it was a quit job meaning as soon as the engines were at LIC i could go on my way.AHHH the old LIRR,and the job paid overtime because I worked sunday and had to deliver the freight engines to outlying terminals. My father was a freight conductor and i used to tell him "be nice Dad or you wont get your engine"

Here's a slide scan of the engines being dropped off after being spun for the PM rush. I have another one I have to dig up of some GPs on the mainline cutoff.

March 14, 1977 on the Mainline cutoff heading east towards Bliss:

Cool pics. Thanks.

Great pics!!! Thanks for sharing.