This Hoboken-bound MU Train is approaching its 1st stop after leaving the Montclair terminal at the end of the 1st branch of the DL&W to be electrified in 1930. One Thomas Edison helped the DL&W decide to use direct current, and he handled the throttle for the 1st mile out of Hoboken on the 1st electric run to Montclair. I suspect these cars, which dated to that time, looked very much the same in his day, although 'Erie' did not appear on the letterboards until 1960. This car looks as though the letterboard has been repainted and the Erie Lackawanna named is centered. Many of the cars were relettered with the "ERIE" name squeezed in ahead of the Lackawanna name that remained centered where it had always been.
Most of them retained their Pullman Green until retired on August 24, 1984, when the DL&W lines were converted to AC power to allow NJ Transit to use one set of equipment on both the former DL&W electrification and the former Pennsy electrification. This change also allowed the creation of a connection in the NJ Meadows were the Pennsy line to Penn Station crossed over the DL&W line to Hoboken. Today passengers from towns along the former Lackawanna electrified lines can ride directly to Manhattan's Penn Station, avoiding the change to the ferry boats or the Hudsun Tubes in Hoboken.

Photographed by Warren Beckwith, July, 1980.
Added to the photo archive by Warren Beckwith, April 19, 2021.
Railroad: Conrail.

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