LEFT: Penn Central 5512 (still wearing New York Central dress) passes No. 7 at Skaneate- les Junction on its way to Auburn. ABOVE: The conductor on the rear of the Penn Central local ponders the unusual delay as they depart the junction. Caboose 18576 is completely “street legal,” note the New York license plate hanging off the ladder. BELOW: The conductor casts a wary eye on the photographer as the SSL crew switches cars at the junction. He began his career on the New York, Ontario & Western as a waterboy, and normally performed track work on the SSL. Such was life on a short line with few regular employees.
clear the track so they could proceed east to Syracuse?
The Shortline was obliged to tuck its cars in the clear on the interchange track and then run up the passing sid- ing to dodge the Dodge. The Penn Cen- tral crew backed down to put its train together in the proper order and head- ed west, an exasperated conductor no doubt contemplating these events from the back platform of the wooden crum- my as they left town. The van straddled the rails and prepared to leave. When the 999 had cleared the track, consum- ing over half an hour of the crews’ time, the Shortline backed down to finish its chores.
Number 7 picked up its car and sneaked back around the Wheeler House, off into the weeds and on south. The Junction became quiet again, with only the smell of creosote, the clicking of rails expanding in the sun, and the chirp of beetles left to stimulate the senses.
The carloadings became fewer and fewer and the movements became nearly impossible to catch. This would be one of the last times I would see the Shortline in operation and the only time I saw a meet at Hart Lot. The Shortline closed for good in 1981, the locomotives sold off, the rails re- moved. The Auburn Branch rails passed on to Conrail and were later sold off to Finger Lakes Railway in 1993, which keeps them polished with passing freight to this day. The old de- pot became the home to the Central New York Model Railroad Club, and trains pacing cars on the highway to Skaneateles became just a memory.
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