Third Avenue Lightweight Streetcars

[daveklepper]

I have edited this post because my email access at the Yeshiva is reasonably decent now.  3 Nov 2020

Still appreciate your interest.

[Miningman]

Here are the missing 2 pictures on Third Ave. from David. Glad to help out Dave.

[daveklepper]

i did some electronic darkroom work on this photo for better balance and wish you to benefit from it.

[daveklepper]

Third Avenue in the final month, March 1947, of the "T" Third and Amsterdam Avenues, line.  (125th St. was the link between the two Avenues.)  Note that its track was maintained until after 29 June 1947 for the K, ("Kingsbridge") 125th, Amst., St. Nich,m and B'way line, and south of 125th to 65th and 3rd for put-ins and pull-out that would carry passengers.  Park Row. Bowery and 6th, and 125th and 3rd photos:

 

 

Problems.   Added photos when problems fixed.

 

 

 

 

[daveklepper]

Believe the problem is solved:

 

[daveklepper]

1

This photo was taken before I received the first camera I owned, a black Leica D.  It was the first railfan photo I took. either with my parents' folding camera, or with a friend's Rollaflex. The streetcar design (Aluminum) is my very favorite, the Broadway - 42nd Street line the one I rode most often as a kid, and the location where my favorite restaurants are located.  72nd and Amsterdam and Broadway.  Look closely and you can see the 10th Avenue line going off to the left, with car 600 barely past the junction.

[Flintlock76]

It never fails to amaze me what was, and now isn't.  

[daveklepper]

Two ex-Manhattan, conduit, Third and Amsterdam Avenue cars, now with poles for operation in The Bronx, at the 161st  street Bronx Concourse underpass in late 1947:

[daveklepper]

Most of the 1936-1937, first mostly-new-material and regenrative-braling, home-built Third Avenue lightweights in the 301-400 series were assigned to Yonkers and Subway - New Rochelle service.  Exceptions were 397-400, equipped for conduit and assisting 101-200 on Manhattan routes, 101-200 similar, but built by splicing two single-truck cars together.  Also five others, including 374 pictures, were assigned to The Bronx's Ogdan Avenue Line because of its steep grade.  When Ogden Avenue went bus, they were to replace 229th St. - Mt. Vernon convertable cars, but apparently 384 was kept in The Bronx and used on the 161st Crosstown X, which used Jerome Avenue for a short distance between the ramp to the McCoombs Dam Bridge (to 155th St. and the Polo Grounds) and 161st where it is shown.  It got to Yonkers and Westchester soon after, however.

[daveklepper]

My grievous error!   The north end of Jerome Avenue, not the south end.  A "4" and not an "X" at the front.  On the right is the entrance to the Woodlawn IRT elevated terminal for the subwayi line now labeled 4 (but not in 1948).  And the 384 probably was always a Yonkers ciar, and the 4 Yonkers route is the McLean Avenue line from Foot of Main Street (by the NYCentral Station), through Getty's Sqiare, to Jerome Avenue and Woodlawn Rd.  Here's an upgrade of the picture:

 

[daveklepper]

Error upon error. Jack May, my The Bronx expert, had told me the concrete structure is not what I thought it was, this confirmed by a resident Transit Authoritiy expert, and that the location is Bascobal Place on Ogden Avenue, a short distance south of the east end of Washington Bridge, and thus 384 is on the "O" Ogden Avenue, the route that crossed the Harlem River twice, running from 155th Street and Amsterdam Avenue to 181st Street and Broadway via Ogden Avenue in The Bronx..

But here is ex-Manhattan 141 on 138th Street in The Bronx:

[daveklepper]

Showing the transformation of some of the newest Third Avenue cars from conduit Manhattan cars to pole The Bronx cars, 640 is an example:

[daveklepper]

More at the east end of the Washington Bridge:

 

 

 

 

[daveklepper]

194 near the 125th Street Fort Lee Ferry and then after the last day od Bronx Streetcars (now with trolley pole) in the Bronx West Farms carhouse.  It lasted a few more years in Yonkers:

 

 

[daveklepper]

Park Row - City Hall. March 1947:

Third and Amsterdam Avenue Line, but before December 1935 tracks at this location shared with 4th and Madisob line, the successor to the World's original street railwaטץ

 

 

 

[daveklepper]

  8/31/85    125th & 8th to 186th and Amsterdam
12/01/86    125th St from river to river
12/05/93    3rd Ave from 130th to 6th
  2/11/94    3rd Ave line from 6th to Park Row

Note that at 125th and Third, the north-south cables were located below the original east-west ones.

End of cable operation (the following day electric operation began):

  9/10/99    125th Street from river to river and Amsterdam
10/22/99    3rd Ave from 130th to 65th
11/18/99    3rd Ave line from 65th to Park Row (65th to 6th electric and 6th to Park Row horse starting 11/19, 6th to Park Row electric from 11/24

[daveklepper]

Jack May corrected me in that The Bowery and Park Row had four tracks.

The line that came closest to being an interurban in the Third Avenue system  was the New Rochelle (at the NYNH&H Sta.) - Subway (E. 241st St. and White Pl. Rd-Av.) line which connected The Bronx, Mt. Vernon, Pelham, and New Rochelle.  But this was all paved in-street track.   The Yonkers "5" line, Neperhan Avenue, was wholey within Yonkers, but, after TARS' two East River bridge lines quit, had the only revenue track of the system not in pavement.

[daveklepper]

The northern terminal:

[daveklepper]

And returning to Manhattan, we saw 180 at Park Row City Hall in an earlier posting von this thread.  Here it is adjacent to the main shop and carhouse at 65th Street, with the Elevated's 67th Street Station in the background:

[daveklepper]

Changing ends at the Foot of Main Street, fan-trip or regular "7" car to Mt. Vernon, while a long-distance New York Central train speeds through the Yonkers Station without stopping. 

The following photo was sent me as taken as a screenshot.  Does anyone know who was the photographer?  Just possibly may have been myself, and a previous posting has another identical "K" car at the same location, 125th St. and 3d Av.

There is something very unusual about this photo.  125th & 3rd is the south end of the "K," as it is for the replacement M100 bus today.  Usually, a "K" would turn the corner, change ends, use the spring-loaded trailing crossover, and return to 125th Street for the  run to Marble Hill, Broadway and W. 225th Street.  So why is somebody boarding the car?  Does he plan to ride north although boarding at a southbound car-stop?  Or is about to be told by the operator not to board?  Or is the car a pull-out, headed for the 3rd Avenue & 65th Street Carhouse?  

[MidlandMike]

[

daveklepper

 

There is something very unusual about this photo.  125th & 3rd is the south end of the "K," as it is for the replacement M100 bus today.  Usually, a "K" would turn the corner, change ends, use the spring-loaded trailing crossover, and return to 125th Street for the  run to Marble Hill, Broadway and W. 225th Street.  So why is somebody boarding the car?  Does he plan to ride north although boarding at a southbound car-stop?  Or is about to be told by the operator not to board?  Or is the car a pull-out, headed for the 3rd Avenue & 65th Street Carhouse?  

 

Are there 2 levels of elevated track in the photo?

[daveklepper]

Yes, the two local track are n the first level, and the bi-directtional, signalled, south in AM, north in PM, express track above.

Its platforms are directly over the local tracks.

This was typical of Manhattan elevated express stations, often called "hump stations."

125th St., 3rd Ave., was an exception, in that north of the station, the express track continued on an upper level to the upper level of the 4-track double-level bridge over the Harlem River.

See the thread on Remembering the Third Avenue Elevated.

[daveklepper]

Also, on this thread, one of my previously posted photos shows 199 turning the corner possibly just moments after the screen-shot photo, so unless other information is available, I'll assume a missing photo  has been returned to me.

[daveklepper]

AT Third Avenue and 65th Street: