The F unit fleet was still playing a supporting role on many EL through freight runs in the early 1970s. A lot of Instamatic film was burned up on them! Here we see an ex-DL&W F-7 teamed up with an SDP-45 in Croxton Yard.

It didn't take much to get a teenage railfan excited back then. Here we have an EL 2550-series GP35 working on the Rutherford Drill, about to switch some industrial sidings at Carlton Hill, NJ (on the stub remenant of the abandonded Erie Main Line through downtown Passaic). By 1975 it wasn't unusual to see a U25B or GP35 on a local freight, but in 1969 the 2500s were still "priority freight power". Obviously there was a temporary shortage of switchers and road-switchers. I recall that this Drill crew broke from their usual switching work later in the afternoon and ran the unit down to Croxton, so it could be readied for an evening assignment on a westbound road freight. The crew came back with a 400 series switcher that had become available, and finished its chores with that.

It's a grungy day in Denville around 1970, and nothing much is running on the Boonton Line (the EL was still running most of its through freights on the "Erie side" via Port Jervis; the switch to using the DLW route via Scranton was still three years away). But there are some classic old cars in the lot, and a bunch of freight cars on the former Rockaway Branch wye, awaiting the next Dover or Boonton Drill.

Instamatic shots were usually not very sharp, and Instamatic shots taken in grungy weather conditions were even worse. But nonetheless, this is an EL westbound freight pulling into Port Jervis yard with an interesting power consist.

For the finale, I thought I would use this little attempt at "photographic poetry"; it's a sunset silhouette of a westbound commuter local on the Bergen County Line embankment just east of Rutherford, rising up out of the meadowlands. The old telegraph pole was an unintended bonus; back then we took those for granted as part of the railroad scene. Like the RS3's and Stillwell coaches, these too are now long gone.