New York Central & PRR in New York City Area

[pajrr]

Hi, Where were the main freight facilities for the Pennsy and the Central in the New York City area?  Thanks for any info you can provide me. 

[daveklepper]

New York Central:  Main freight yard  was 60-72nd Street on near the banks of the Hudson, with a mostly elevated freight line extending south to the St.Johns Park frieght terminal south of Christopher Street.   The Post Office was served with a small yard around 30th off this line, and several industires boarded the line with sidings.   Near the Bronx High Bridge Metro North station is the present small Metro North Hih Bridge yard, but it was much larger in NYC days, with the Major Degan expressway wiping out most of it; and freight activity occured there, as well as limited amount at the mainly passenger Mott Haven Yard where the Hudson and Harlem lines join north of 138th St., in the Bronx.  The engine change point and yard at Harmon was as important for freight as for passenger operaton.   And across the Hudson River from 42nd Street at Weehawken, large freight and passenger yards were located.   No freight was handled south from Mott Haven into Grand Central erminal except in very unusual situations   Some tugboat and barge carfloat activity from Weehawken to 60th St, yard and to delivery to certan piers and other railroads.  CSX still has a large freight presence in Wehawken.

PRR:   Miniscule presence in Manhattan, just a small freight house and yard located at Courtland Street on the Hudson, reached by car float from Greenville, NJ, where CSX still has a yard and carfloat operation today.   Greenville, NJ was the PRR's main NY City area yard, and otherwise its freight was handle by the LIRR at the same yards used by  Cross Harbor and New York and Atlantic today.   The main car float operaton was between Greenville and Bay Ridge, with PRR tugs and barges handling freight interchanged with the LIRR and NYNH&H tugs and barges handling freight interchanged witih them at the LIRR Bay Ridge yard.   Some PRR business was handled at the New Haven's Oak Point yard in the Bronx.    Some freight was also handled at the Exchange Place Jersey City yard.   Father west from the Hudson, Waverly, south east of the Newark Station, was the main classification yard, again in New Jersey.

[rcdrye]

Both NYC and PRR had extensive carfloat operations along the Hudson River using station floats (carfloats with a center platform for unloading) that were place aside ocean-going ships at their piers.  These operations included railroad-owned tugboats.  NYC(West Shore) had passenger ferries to Weehawken from 42nd St.  PRR's passenger ferry operations ended some time after the opening of Penn Station.

An alternative to a station float was putting an empty flat car on an ordinary carfloat to use as a place to land cargo slings.

[daveklepper]

PRR's passenger ferries continued until after WWII, if my memory is correct.  Some commuters to lower Manhattan still prefered them than using the H&M from either Excchange Place or Newark.  Remembeer that until the cutbacks in LD passenger trains, most PRR rush hour commuter trains, steam as well as MU electric, ran to Exchange Place Jersey City.

[efftenxrfe]

A TRAINS map of the month showed routes of railroad marine operations in the NY-NJ metropolitan area during their peak years....welldrawn....comprehensive....having railfanned there as a teenager, I could not find any errors.....highly recommend it....a chorus of "those were the days."

LIRR to Penn Station. subway to Whitehall St, round trip on the Staten Island Ferry, subway to Cortland St, get a release to take pics on CNJ. Jersey City, by ferry and back, Hudson Tubes to where: Newark, PRR,  Hoboken DL&W and LV, walk to the Erie station, or Exchange Place to catch the K4s's on the "Banker's," ferry to 42nd St, NYC ferry to Weehawken and back...and then

BEDT 0-6-0's, Harmon to watch the engine changes, those were the days; of course there have been lot more since then. 

I don't remember which issue, but you knew that.....about the map.

                one more ride  way out there

 

[MidlandMike]

daveklepper

New York Central:  Main freight yard  was 60-72nd Street on near the banks of the Hudson, with a mostly elevated freight line extending south to the St.Johns Park frieght terminal south of Christopher Street.   The Post Office was served with a small yard around 30th off this line, and several industires boarded the line with sidings...

I'm guessing the PO yard around 30th St you refer to was on the West Side Elevated Frt llne.  There was also a larger yard at ground level called the 30th st yard that had a lot of paired team tracks.  I believe that this is now the location of LIRR's passenger car storage yard just west of Penn Station.  NYC also had the Port Morris yard near NH's Oak Point yard.

[DSchmitt]

PRR W 37th Street, Pier 77 & 78, Manhattan

http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/prr37.html

 

PRR N 4th Street Station

http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/prrn4.html

 

Wallabout Union Freight Terminal - PRR, NYC, and others

 

http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/wu.html

 

Books

New York Harbor Railroads in color vol 1 and vol 2 by Thomas L Flagg   - Vol 2 has a map from 1953 of the NYC 60th Street Yard.

 

[narig01]

I do not know if this was happenstance or someone trying to reply.
Someone who worked there posted some comments on another thread.

http://cs.trains.com/mobile/forums/thread.aspx?ThreadID=221491
My apologies for not getting the link. If you go out to the forum you should see it.

rcdyre. I remember the station floats. I always wondered what they were for. Now I know.

Also a comment. Swift had a meat facility at 125th St on the west side line under Riverside Dr. I remember on many occasions when I was a boy seeing a refer car parked at the unloading dock. At the time I used to live across from Grant's Tomb on Riverside Dr. The dock is still there on the now Amtrak Empire connection. It is fenced off. I think the meat house is now a grocery store. If you want to see a picture of what is there you can go on Google Maps street view on the West Side Hwy about 125th St and it is visible across the tracks.

Thx IGN