Rail Curtailment Hearing Postponed

Newton--The scheduled hearing on the petition of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad to discontinue service to the Sussex County area has been postponed indefinitely.

This was revealed by the State Highway Department on Tuesday shortly after the Sussex County Board of Freeholders had turned over a letter to the county planning board urging county support in protesting the planned service curtailment.

State Highway Commissioner Dwight Palmer announced the postponement of the two public hearings which had been scheduled for Jan. 15 and 22 in Newark. He attributed the delay to the pressure of other matters.

Earlier in the day the freeholders had received a letter from Thomas T. Taber, chairman of the Morris County Board of Transportation, in which Taber urged Sussex County officials to join in protest of the railroad's action.

The letter further urged Sussex County officials to demand that the hearings be held in Dover rather than Newark in order to make it more convenient for residents of Sussex, Warren and Morris Counties to attend.

Taber charged in his letter that the week time limit between the two scheduled public hearings was unfair to the objectors because it did not give them sufficient time to analyze the data presented at the first hearing by the railroad.