B&M Mechanicville Yard...

From all the pics I have seen...this hump yard looked full and busy up until the end. So how did Guilford get rid of the traffic over night?

cu29640 wrote:From all the pics I have seen...this hump yard looked full and busy up until the end. So how did Guilford get rid of the traffic over night?

"Guilford."

As many know, I work for D&H. Many of the guys said that after the strike of 1986, traffic was down to skin and bones. The managers and scabs were only able to serve the largest customers reliably.

One other point is that with D&H and B&M both under Guilford, some trains ran through. Others trains were pre blocked elsewhere. This precluded running the large hump yard.

I'm guessing that when traffic levels fell in the 80's they probably had enough capacity at Deerfield to consolidate their operations there. Back in the day they had enough volume to run through jobs from Mickeyville to places like Boston, Lawrence, Portland, etc but again when the business shrunk to more or less one train per day to the D&H and later the CP, it made more sense to shuffle the deck at Deerfield.

We used to block E. Deerfield, Fitchburg, and Portland cars in Saratoga. I think Guilford was supposed to block cars for D&H locations too.

Engineer Spike wrote:We used to block E. Deerfield, Fitchburg, and Portland cars in Saratoga. I think Guilford was supposed to block cars for D&H locations too.

Yeah SRED mostly had misc Deerfields, loaded cement for Fitchburg and Concord, sodium chlorate for the mills and empty paper cars (from Quadraphics).

EDMO does block for the D&H - the blocks have changed over time. Usually they are Saras (D&H North), Bings (D&H South) and Enolas (NS).

It will be interesting to see what happens when NS takes over the south end. Will SRED start up again or will you guys continue bringing the Saras down to MX? I doubt NS is going to even want to stop there...


Back to topic what Roberttosh mentioned is absolutely correct. Without car volumes for Boston (with all the blocks) and dwindling carloads following the strikes Mechanicville was closed. Interestingly they tried to close it once in the late 80s and had to reopen it because Deerfield couldn't handle it. It was closed for good a couple years thereafter. It is too bad they sold the land on the south side of the mains I bet NS would love to have it back now. Not much on the north side in the present yard.

In my opinion they should have downsized Deerfield (to Conn River and locals) instead. Mechanicville had a real hump yard with retarders. Deerfield is hand throw and cannot switch the volume that XO could.

Haven't yet worked up the ambition to check B&MRRHS Bulletins from that time, but I seem to recall report(s) of the New York State Assembly having put in place crewing-level protections for the D&H, so mebbe payback and a demonstration of the Law of Unintended Consequences couldamighta been contributing factors in the decision to close down the Mechanicville hump.

I checked the "White Flags" sections of Bulletins up through 1987 and couldn't find any mention of Assembly protections for crew sizes. Mighta been in one or more Newsletters, which I didn't keep.
Or I coulda imagined it.

The B&M side would not be under D&H crew consist agreements. In this era, our D&H system engineer roster was dovetailed with B&M's. I have never heard that UTU did such a thing..

Engineer Spike wrote:The B&M side would not be under D&H crew consist agreements. In this era, our D&H system engineer roster was dovetailed with B&M's. I have never heard that UTU did such a thing..

They did that with the MEC, B&M, ST and PTRR as well. Infact, they dovetailed with prior rights that are still on the seniority rosters. The last man to have B&M prior rights was Arthur Martin in Deerfield. I believe he still gets short crew pay.