JT and The Susquehanna Railroad in 1964, and new updates.

This sign was outside the roundhouse in 1964 The following pictures were taken from an 8mm home movie. Grandpa Smith and I filmed these scenes one Saturday afternoon,while Grandpa was at work. Grandpa was in charge of all the operations happening at the roundhouse on the week-ends. So when I was not with my friends in The Arlington Gang,this is where I spent my Saturday and Sunday's from 3pm to 11pm. This was Grandpa's work shift and he allowed me to come with him on most week-ends.

The " Miss Susie-Q " logo

This logo was also on Susquehanna box cars. To my rememberance,not many existed with this lady.

Across the Susquehanna tracks

At the far eastern section of The Susquehanna Yards,was a couple of railroad tracks belonging to the West Shore Branch of The New York Central Railroad. I believe those tracks still exist today,even though The Susquehanna Yards are much different today.

Another look at The New York Central Railroad

The two smoke stacks you see,are from the PSE&G power plant. This power plant still exists,as I personally visited this scene in 1999.

Looking towards the southern part of the rail yard

The southern end of the rail yard was a huge array of tracks,switches,a hump track--used in distributing freight cars to certain areas and tracks of the freight yard. Way FAR in the distance is The New Jersey Turnpike. The Turnpike Is elevated over the far south end of the railroad yard.

A view of the south end of the roundhouse.

The roundhouse was completely demolished in the mid 1980's. What you are seeing does not exist anymore. An old ALCO diesel locomotive is visible too.Thank God for these movies !

Looking north from the roundhouse.

The Route 46 bridge at Ridgefield Park is just barely visible in the distance. The railroad draw bridge, with the huge concrete weight up in the air,is way down there too. The box cars and cabooses belong to The Susquehanna.

14 year old ME--JT--on a special engine.

The number 200 engine was used for removing box cars and stuff off of ships docked at Edge Water,New Jersey. This was a rare scene at The Roundhouse,because this special engine usually stayed at Edge Water.

Me again. I'm in the #200's engineer's seat.

Directly behind the # 200 is a favorite Alco locomotive. The Alco diesel # 250 is pictured here.

In the cab of the # 200

Gramps took this neat movie shot ! Very visible behind us,is the end of the Alco # 250.

The roundhouse locomotive turntable.

Here I am operating the huge turntable. I used to turn two Alco locomotives at one time, on this big thing. This turntable still exists at Little Ferry Yards. Along with a few other side tracks,the turntable is all that is left of the scenes you are viewing. I have a vcr tape of me,Lynda,and Kathleen in this same spot. The vcr tape was taken in 1996,and we took turns running the turntable. I will post that and other photos from that vcr tape in the near future.

The west end of the roundhouse

I'm walking up the tracks,towards all the working Alco diesel locomotives. There were a half dozen on tracks around the roundhouse that no longer ran. They were being stripped for parts and a couple were just empty shells !! The longest railroad track ran completely through the roundhouse. It is visible here on the left and was known as track # 11.

Here is my dear grandfather, Uriah Smith. His nickname was " Why ".

Here is a picture I took with Grandpa's movie camera. We are at the west side of the roundhouse,where all the individual tracks ran into the roundhouse. The Alco locomotive seen behind Gramps,was just put there by me. We had just put it in the roundhouse. The only way to get the locomotives into this part of the roundhouse,is by rotating the locomotive on the turntable. You then must line up the railroad track on the turntable,with the track you want going into the roundhouse. I had many hours of fun performing this maneuver with Gramps.