A Siding in New Jersey

[Eddie Sand]

It's fairly common knowledge that connubial life in FDR's White House didn't read like something out of The Brady Bunch; the physical relationship between Franklin and Eleanor ended in the early Twenties -- Franklin took up with a series of mistresses, while Eleanor turned to other women -- a subject regarded as taboo until fairly recently.

I bring this subject up because a thriller I read a very long time ago (late 1970's -- so long ago that I've forgotten the name) makes mention of a Pesidential train stopping "at a siding in New Jersey" for a rendezvous with Lucy Mercer (Rutherfurd) -- probably the best-known of FDR's mistresses;  I dismissed the story as just an embellishment at the time.

But 2016 brought the publication of Eleanor and Hick, a scholarly (footnotes and all) chronicle of a 30-year laiason between the First Lady and Lorena Hickok -- reporter, author, and advisor to the Democratic Party on women's issues -- by Susan Quinn -- and this work also makes mention of the rendezvous (Chapter 22, Page 297).

Admittedly, it was a long time ago, but I'm wondering if anyone who lives in the area or is familiar with the PRR's New York Division can back up (or disprove) this story.

[samfp1943]

To: Eddie Sand;

    The 'Story of Track 61'  would answer a couple of questions re: FDR and Ellinor.

FDR was diagnosed with paraplegia in 1921 due to polio.  I would bet that was a major impediment to the Roosevelt's relationship(?) 

In the middle of the 20th Century private ralcar travel was the way the elite's traveled.  Most of us are familiar with the way the 'media', back then tended to ignore FDR's 'condition'; they were allowed and controled, as to what and how they photographed FDR on his public appearances. Taking great care not to show him being carried by his Secret Service body guard detail, and only showing him standing or seated.

Point being, he traveled much of the time with his armor plated Pierce-Arrow, transported in an armor plated private car ( kind of resembled a baggage car?) and his private carriage. When he stayed in NYC his residence wasw always at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.  He's arrive via tracks in Grand Central Station; his cars were placed on Track 61, and he coulkd be moved via elevatord into the basement of the Hotel and then taken by elevator to the Presidential suite. 

Here are a couple of links for anyone interested: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2934388/Secret-Grand-Central-railway-siding-Waldorf-Astoria-used-FDR-hide-paralysis-kept-primed-President Roosevelt

@https://www.6sqft.com/theres-a-secret-train-track-hidden-in-the-depths-of-grand-central-terminal/

 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

No footnote to a source for the account of stopping at the siding?

Did Lucy Rutherfurd live in NJ?  How close to the PRR?  

A mere stop to pick someone up is believable.  Sidetracking a POTUS train - with all its attendant security and disruption to normal railroad operations - for a period of time is less credible, IMHO.

- PDN. 

[Deggesty]

As to FDR's personal relationships, Theodore Roosevelt's daughter, Alice, said that she did not blame Franklin; he had Eleanor.

[Overmod]

I very, very dimly remember discussing this with a couple of Columbia history professors.

Seems to me the train was routed from Washington DC to Hyde Park, sometime in 1944, and the stop was in Allamuchy (a spot highly remote from the New York Division) so he could go to the Rutherfurd estate ... I believe this was after Winthrop had died ... to spend the afternoon.  This was probably routed via the BelDel and then L&HR - the same route taken by the S1 half a decade earlier.  (It would then have continued via Maybrook and the Poughkeepsie Bridge to get to the east side of the Hudson, a considerably more direct routing than going up the New York Division and then around via Hell Gate would have been...)

Someone better equipped than me can find the likely route, get track charts of the area, etc. and figure out how the trick was done.  I can't think this stop would be a difficult matter to arrange security-wise (or ODT routing-wise) in wartime; passenger service on L&HR would have ended over a decade earlier so no 'prying commuter eyes'.

EDIT:  Oh look, here it is: September 1st.

https://njmonthly.com/articles/historic-jersey/rutherfurd-hall-revisited/

(Author shows what I think is ignorance concerning the likely move of a train from PRR at Trenton to go securely to Hyde Park.)

Apparently there is a book called 'The President Travels By Train' (author Bob Withers) that has pictures of the stop.

 

[Flintlock76]

A discussion of FDR routes from the "Classic Trains" Forum.

http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/s/t/209066.aspx  

And from a New Haven fansite.

http://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thenhrhtanewhavenrailroadforum/fdr-and-how-he-got-to-hyde-park-via-rail-t9689.html    Read "Stakowski" post.

[54light15]

I took the Metro North into GCT when the interior lights were out on the train due to an electrical fault. You could see the sheer size and number of the tracks going in which you couldn't when the trains interior lights were on. I know the place was big, I never realised just how big it is. So, that presidential car is still down there? Fascinating, as Mr. Spock would say. 

[Flintlock76]

I saw that presidential car, actually the car the Pierce-Arrow and other baggage was carried in, on a Travel Channel show a few years ago, one of those "Secrets Underground" type of shows.  As I recall it had Metro-North reporting marks on it and was being used for storage.  It's no secret to MTA employees, they all know it's there.  

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Wow, Overmod, that's quite the find.  Thanks for sharing. 

Lucy Rutherfurd's relationship with FDR was described in some detail in the book "FDR's Funeral Train (or similar).

- PDN. 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Flintlock76

A discussion of FDR routes from the "Classic Trains" Forum.

http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/s/t/209066.aspx  

And from a New Haven fansite.

http://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thenhrhtanewhavenrailroadforum/fdr-and-how-he-got-to-hyde-park-via-rail-t9689.html    Read "Stakowski" post.

And then read the April 04, 2019 post by "newhaven45" / Al Jones at the bottom, particularly the part about the video.  Haven't watched it, though.

Thanks to you too for sharing that page.

- PDN. 

[Flintlock76]

Paul_D_North_Jr

 

 

Flintlock76

A discussion of FDR routes from the "Classic Trains" Forum.

http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/s/t/209066.aspx  

And from a New Haven fansite.

http://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thenhrhtanewhavenrailroadforum/fdr-and-how-he-got-to-hyde-park-via-rail-t9689.html    Read "Stakowski" post.

 

 

And then read the April 04, 2019 post by "newhaven45" / Al Jones at the bottom, particularly the part about the video.  Haven't watched it, though.

 

Thanks to you too for sharing that page.

- PDN. 

 

You're welcome Paul!

The video mentioned in the New Haven Forum is part of Chuck Walsh's series on the Lackawanna Cutoff in New Jersey, Episode 9 to be exact.  

Chuck discusses FDR's stop at Allamuchy starting at about 11:35 into the video if you want to skip ahead.  Here's the link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_B50fst20Q&t  

[54light15]

Here's a little 3rd hand bragging. My ex-wfe's father was the retired fire chief of the town of Poughkeepsie, New York. Clayton Laffin was his name. He was a paid man from the late 1930s until he retired as chief in 1981. He actually knew the Rooselvelts as Franklin lived in Hyde Park, just North of Poughkeepsie and Franklin was an honorary member or fire chief of every fire company in Duchess county, if not the state if what you see in the museum is anything to go by. My FIL was a lifelong Republican and liked Franklin and Eleanor personally as he told me but never voted for him. He did like his "Fala" speech and it made him laugh when he told me about it. 

[Flintlock76]

The "Fala Speech."   Classic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cdz-Zbsw2g    

My father told me what a let-down it was when FDR died and everyone heard Harry Truman's voice on the radio for the first time.  Truman's speaking voice was nothing compared to the magnificent speaking voice Roosevelt had, but as Dad said, "Truman did all right, after all."

[Overmod]

Flintlock76

Chuck discusses FDR's stop at Allamuchy starting at about 11:35 into the video if you want to skip ahead.  Here's the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_B50fst20Q&t

Another one who's clueless about the right way to actually get to Hyde Park from Washington in the days of wartime security ... and wartime traffic.

He also ignores the fact that FDR wasn't 'handed' off the train -- he drove his car over.  Note the picture of the PRR 'baggage car' that has a suggestive name, with a suggestive door toward one end.  (I suspect that's so much for the speculation about the 'armored baggage car' in the depths of the GCT complex...)

He further chooses not to mention what was 'special' about the L&NE, and its abandonment.  The circumstances of this were interesting, as L&NE was specifically built by a coal company to transport its production, and I am not sure how the act in 1906 that forbade railroads from owning coal companies applied to an operation that 'went the other way'.

In 1961, seeing the handwriting on the wall for anthracite fuel profitability, the board of directors responsible for the railroad elected to shut it down completely, still in good running order, still nominally profitable.  Some continued service was provided via CNJ/Central of Pennsylvania for a couple more years in the early 1960s (I clearly remember a blue RS3 a few miles on the Jersey side, visible through the woods from Rt. 46) but the big bridges were taken down in orderly fashion and within a few years it would be almost impossible (as with the part of the BelDel above the Hurricane Diane 'severance') to trace where much of the line had been.  

This was essentially the antithesis of the NYO&W, and Chuck does his watchers a great disservice by showing the Delaware bridge in process of demolition as though it had been 'abandoned and fell down by itself'.

[Flintlock76]

Well Chuck's stuff is interesting, although sometimes more than I ever wanted to know about the Lackawanna Cut-Off, but look at it this way, even Babe Ruth didn't hit a home run every time at bat.   I'd cut him a little slack on this one.

[Overmod]

It's really OK as all that stuff is not Lackawanna.  Whereas all that '60s stuff about various methods of routing EL freight is pure gold.

Not as if I don't make worse boners, some not too long ago.

[Flintlock76]

I'll tell you, it really speaks volumes about ol' Chuck that someone cares enough about the Lackawanna Cut-Off to tell the story with as much enthusiasm as he does.

While certainly famous in it's time, I'd bet if you mentioned "Lackawanna Cut-Off" to most people in New Jersey nowadays you'd get nothing but a blank stare in return.  Chuck's really performing a service.