How Far Do You Think To The Next Gas Station?

Day 15 : 5th October 1996

“If that’s the Lake Shore, did the Niagara go past us when we were at the pub?”

Next morning it appeared we had survived our night in Newark and once in the taxi, the morning sun even made bits of the place look interesting. Not that I’d recommend it as a holiday destination. Arriving at Penn Station we took the alternative route to Manhattan via New Jersey Transit.

NJT GP40PH-2 4217 stands under the vast roof at Hoboken Terminal.

This consisted of a Geep re-build to Hoboken Terminal on the West bank of the Hudson River, where, while wondering the station we stumbled on an amazing site. The station had been built by the Lackawanna Road many years hence as their gateway to New York, the problem being it wasn’t in New York. Manhattan itself was off across the Hudson River, so to fill the gap ferries plied back and forth delivering passengers to and from the station. Now many years later, turning a corner up some stairs was the ferry hall, peeling, and forgotten. God knows when the ferries stopped but the hall still waited, sunlight streaming in through the sky lights and the locked gates to the ferry slips looking out over the Hudson and Manhattan, quite a sight.

Silent and abandoned. The old ferry hall above Hoboken Terminal.

There was now a quick trip under the Hudson on the PATH and a walk to Penn for a quick trip up the Hudson Valley for Lunch. P32 709 dealt with the trip to Croton Harmon for a “Spaceship” forward to the pub at Cold Spring.

Metro North “spaceship” 2041 heads up the Hudson river at Peekskill.

Having lingered over a good lunch in the sun watching trains pass, we made our way back to the station and found ourselves aboard the same spaceship now going South.

Amtrak GE/P32 duel mode at Croton Harmon.

On the bi-directional line toward Croton, the Lake Shore Limited (running late of course) passed going the same way as us. Suddenly Barry came to life, “if that’s the Lake Shore, did the Niagara go past us when we were at the pub?”. We both agreed it hadn’t. The original plan to do the MN train all the way to Grand Central was thrown in the air. If train 286 from Niagara stayed behind us, we would make it at Croton Harmon, we could do it down to NY Penn, and….it might just be an Amtrak FL9!

At each subsequent stop on our local train we prayed not to see anything shoot past us on the bi-directional and on arriving at Croton it was upstairs to look at the screen. No the Niagara-Penn hadn’t gone yet, well it was just a question of sit, wait and hope.

Then in the distance toward North Harmon, it appeared. An Amtrak FL9! Eventually 489 arrived in the platform and we boarded, how was this as a way of getting from the pub to the plane home.

And we were only going home from the pub. Amtrak FL9 489 Arrives at Croton.

Then all at once we were at Penn, AEM7 down to Newark Penn, taxi to the airport, check in and beer. If there was a disappointment it was G-BFAB being the plane home again.

In the end if there had been time to reflect (rather than fall asleep on the night flight home) this had to go down as one of “the” trips. For sheer variety, the places and the good luck it would be difficult to top it. Looking back the 10 years now you can’t repeat it!

All credit to Barry and Smurf (and not just for putting up with my driving) that almost everything they planned or booked went like clockwork, a team effort if ever there was one to get this lot together.

Footnote:

A FINAL CURIOSITY.

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