On Boxing Day 2004, NS intermodal train 205 charges west at Campville NY about to pass an Erie RR phone booth (now a beehive!), a relic of when the railroad had a passing siding here. The siding permitted westbound passenger trains and priority freights to pass humbler junk freights on the double track ABS line. By the time of this capture, passenger trains and the siding were long gone, as was the Erie itself and its successor, the EL. And thanks to Conrail more than half of the EL's daily 30 freights were eliminated. NS gave Conrail the boot in the Southern Tier in 1999 and by the summer of 2010, one of the 2 tracks was removed and ABS was replaced with CTC as there were < 10 daily freights running here. 205 leader NS 9278 has been converted from a Dash-9 with DC traction motors into an AC44C6M with AC motors. The ex-Conrail SD60I trailing unit was simply retired and sold to Larry's Truck & Electric. Lastly, sometime in the past 18 years Erie's concrete phone both and its residents were eliminated.

Photographed by John Barlow, December 26, 2004.
Added to the photo archive by John Barlow, April 9, 2023.
Railroad: Norfolk Southern.

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