On October 26, 1983 while shooting night shots of the GG-1s in South Amboy, I met Howard Pincus doing the same. A few days later the GG-1 era was over.

Later that evening over dinner, the discussion between Howard, Al Papp and myself turned to the longevity of service of the GG-1s and the pending retirement of another NJ railroading icon, the Lackawanna MU’s.

All of us being admirers of O. Winston Link and his images of the last days of N & W steam, the idea was planted to document the Lackawanna MU’s using synchronized flash photography. Over the next few months equipment was acquired and on Washingtons Birthday, Feb. 20th 1984, Rails After Dark (RAD) began a six-month journey.

That night, a westbound split the signals about 75 yards or so at the east end of the Basking Ridge station. During all of the time we were shooting, Al Papp worked with NJ Transit to secure releases and locations where we would be shooting. On this first night however, the crew were not informed. Shortly after this photo we began walking back to the station when we met the crew walking back towards us thinking they had pulled down the overhead wire!


Six months later on August 24th, Howard and I had wired the platform lights of the station in Dover and while Jim Boyd held the right side of the last run banner, another era came to a close in NJ railroading.


Today is the 40th anniversary of that last run.

R. Hart Jr.

Great photos and a nice story. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for posting. If I'm remembering correctly, there was an article in Railfan about Rails After Dark's work.

Also in time for the 40th Anniversary, Charlie Monte Verde posted David Monte Verde's videos of the last three days (Aug 22-24, 1984) of the MUs:

Aug 22: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ZJN7kLQ-M

Aug 23: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iswgdwTl_U

Aug 24: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iZpO0kmsSc