This operation is still in business, but about its only customer is its owner, the New York City Transit Authority of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It does the final delivary of new subway cars and possibly other material from a connection with the Cross Harbor Railway, the remaining car float operation in the New York Harbor. It has some diesel road-switchers, meeting subway clearances, including the A division that has no freight service, and these can be used for utility purposes on the subway system. The Cross Harbor delivers to the TA's 39th Street yard, on tracks that used to have trolley wire, then the South Brooklyn pulls the delivery to Coney Island Shops via the West End Line (now the D, earlier the B, and before that 3, but usually not displayed), mostly on elevated structure, and there the delivery is turned over to the Transit Authority. During WWII, it owned about seven steeple-cab electric locomotives, B - B, all with both trolley poles and third rail shoes. There were freight sidings for small industries all over Brooklyn, business was booming for them because many were defense related, and trucking would have used precious oil. So possibly six or seven trolley lines had trolley freight service. In addition there were two freight sidings on the north side of the Sea Beach Line. This line runs in an impressive cut, much adjacent to the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch, which had 11000V AC overhead for New Haven frieghts. There used to be four tracks, but I believe it now three, plus the one of the two on the freight railroad, which also connects with Cross Harbor near the Bay Ridge dock. The Sea Beach line was trolley wire up to about 1915, then replaced with third rail, and the sidings only had trolley wire. As mentioned on another thread, when short of power, the South Brooklyn would borrow anything from BMT divison of the TA that they could to move the freight cars, including 900 and 1000-series wood Bruooklynn United open-gate elevated cars that had been converted to work motors, crane cars, snow sweepers (not plows, correction), possibly garbage collection cars (never saw this), etc. When train-pipe braking was available, the freight-car brakes were used, but otherwise straight-air on themotive power would be expected to control several freight cars without brakes. Remember that during WWII, auto traffic was just a fraction of what it is today on these streets. As a teen-age railfan I was occasionally given a ride on these freight trains on the street. Rapid-transit and streetcar tracks were connected in many places in Brooklyn during WWII, several locations in the Coney Island shop complex, Fresh Pond Yard, 39th Street Yard, up to 1942 at the Stillwell ASvenue (Coney Island) Station to the Nortons Point Line, possibly others. Within the area of the Coney Island shops, there were also some private industries that had trolley wire sidings, mostly off the West End Line. The last street trackage that had overhead wire and then became the last street trackage for freight service in general was on McDonald Avenue under the Culver elevated structure (has been the F Line for many years) with a freight PRW, ealier under the Culver Shuttle to 39th St. Yard. This is the line that had the interchange track with the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch with the signes: "DC Motors Stop Here" "11000Volt Motors Stop Here" I saw lots of R10, R12, and R14 subway cars delivered over that track, then down the street tracks to Coney Island Yard. Passenger service on that same track, under the subway trains above, was with PCC cars at the time. I also rode a restored "D-Type" Triplex restored subway train (forget whether a diesel or a steeplecab pulled us) over that track from 39th down to the Yard on a fan trip. I didn't cut school that often! Just made a beeline there after school was out. Still managed to get the homework done.
I thought I'd add to this because of personal questions regarding freight on streetcar tracks, particularly in NY. First a correction. When I said McDonald Avenue had the last street track I meant for the South Brooklyn. NY & Atlantic, Cross Harbor, and NY Dock all still have street trackage, some of which was also used at one time by South Brooklyn. Manhattan conduit lines had freight service at one time. Two or more department stores had their own street-freightcars, open platform cars with nearly flat arch roofs and one large boxcar like door on each side, used for deliveray around 1910. I believe they were owned either by New York Railways or the overall operator that at one time leased or owned nearly all Manhattan streetcars lines, Metropolitan Street Railways. Just before WWI, the department stores switched to battery-powered solid-tire trucks, which I remember still running as a youngster in the 30's. The freight cars were then used for utillity purposes by New York Railways, which ran its last streetcar on the 86 St. Crosstown Line in 1936, having been bought by GM in 1926 (except that the 86 St. Line and the 4th and Madison line were actually bought from the New York and Harlem, an NYCentral subsidiary, in 1934.).
QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper This operation is still in business, but about its only customer is its owner, the New York City Transit Authority of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It does the final delivary of new subway cars and possibly other material from a connection with the Cross Harbor Railway, the remaining car float operation in the New York Harbor. It has some diesel road-switchers, meeting subway clearances, including the A division that has no freight service, and these can be used for utility purposes on the subway system. The Cross Harbor delivers to the TA's 39th Street yard, on tracks that used to have trolley wire, then the South Brooklyn pulls the delivery to Coney Island Shops via the West End Line (now the D, earlier the B, and before that 3, but usually not displayed), mostly on elevated structure, and there the delivery is turned over to the Transit Authority. During WWII, it owned about seven steeple-cab electric locomotives, B - B, all with both trolley poles and third rail shoes. There were freight sidings for small industries all over Brooklyn, business was booming for them because many were defense related, and trucking would have used precious oil. So possibly six or seven trolley lines had trolley freight service. In addition there were two freight sidings on the north side of the Sea Beach Line. This line runs in an impressive cut, much adjacent to the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch, which had 11000V AC overhead for New Haven frieghts. There used to be four tracks, but I believe it now three, plus the one of the two on the freight railroad, which also connects with Cross Harbor near the Bay Ridge dock. The Sea Beach line was trolley wire up to about 1914, then replaced with third rail, and the sidings only had trolley wire. As mentioned on another thread, when short of power, the South Brooklyn would borrow anything from BMT divison of the TA that they could to move the freight cars, including 900 and 1000-series wood Bruooklynn United open-gate elevated cars that had been converted to work motors, crane cars, snow sweepers (not plows, correction), possibly grabage collection cars (never saw this), etc. When train-pipe braking was available, the freight car brakes were used, but otherwise a straight air motive power would be expected to control several freight cars without brakes. Remember that during WWII, auto traffic was just a fraction of what it is today on these streets. As a teen-age railfan I was occasionally given a ride on these freight trains on the street. Rapid transit and streetcar tracks were connected in many places in Brooklyn during WWII, several locations in the Coney Island shop complex, Fresh Pond Yard, 39th Street Yard, up to 1942 at the Stillwell ASvenue (Coney Island) Station to the Nortons Point Line, possibly others. Within the area of the Coney Island shops, there were also some private industries that had trolley wire sidings, mostly off the West End Line. The last street trackage that had overhead wire and then became the last street trackage for freight service in general was on MacDonald Avenue under the Culver elevated structure (has been the F Line for many years) with a freight PRW, ealier under the Culver Shuttle to 39th St. Yard. This is the line that had the interchange track with the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch with the signes: "DC Motors Stop Here" "11000Volt Motors Stop Here" I saw lots of R10, R12, and R14 subway cars delivered over that track, then down the street tracks to Coney Island Yard. Passenger service on that same track, under the subway trains above, was with PCC cars at the time. I also rode a restored "D-Type" Triplex restored subway train (forget whether a diesel or a steeplecab pulled us) over that track from 39th down to the Yard on a fan trip. I didn't cut school that often! Just made a beeline there after school was out. Still managed to get the homework done.
Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub
Recently, the Transit Authority did some shuffling, and the B now runs on the Brighton and the D on the West End and skips DeKalb during rush hours like the B did with the B stopping at DeKalb. The Q still provides supplementary service on the Brighton. (Which one is express and which is local during weekdays is a question I'll look into. Answer, the weekday-only B is local above 59th Street Manhattan, exoress below and on the Brighton in Brooklyn. The Q is local in Brooklyn full time and exoress on Broadway in Manhattan. The F is stlill running on the Culver. I remember all the tracks you are talking about. When the D first started running to Coney Island on the Culver, the IND taking over the line from the BMT, the BMT still provided full Culver service as far as Ditmas Avenue, even with Nassau Loop expresses during rush hour. But then this was reduced to just a Ditmas - Ninth Avenue shuttle, finally limited to one short train (a three-car BMT steel "B-Type" unit or ex-Staten Island carsm an d even for a short period IRT Loe-Vs, then a four-car R-9 and later types) finally on just one track used in both directions. During this period the inbound local (north) track on the lower level (Culver) of the 9th Avenue station was connected to the at-grade South Brooklyn tracks so the South Brooklyn track that bypassed 9th Avenue station going to the yard on the north side could be removed and not maintained. Of course the shuttle used the middle track for access to West End trains in both directions upstairs. I don't remember which track the shuttle used on the el structure, but I think it was the south track (eastbound). I wonder how the TA managed to abandon the shuttle complete, but the surface South Brooklyn tracks outlasted the 1916-era later elevated structure! I presume the right of way has been sold now. It was opened, as you doubtless know, in the middle of the 19th Century for steam Culver trains running from the 39th Street docks to Coney Island. And early in the 20th Century the tracks south of the Avenue H connection with the LIRR were used by streetcars from downtown Brooklyn, elevated trains from Manhattan, at steam LIRR excursion trains jointly using the tracks before the el structure was built! I rode the then freifgt-only surface tracks west of Ditmas Avenue Junction ("Kensington Junction) once on a fan trip in an 8100-series double-end Peter Witt streetcar, which ran as far as we could before the third rail began. The trolley wire and the third rail overlapped considerably under the el structure east of 9th Avenue station. I presume when you were a youngster you remember how open-platform elevated cars were still used in shuttle service on the Culver elevated over McDonald Avenue with the subway trains only going to Kings Highway during rush hours because of (1) saving operating costs and (2) shortage of steel cars. You may not have known that the West End Line had a similar situation with steel trains only running to Bay Parkway and el car shuttles running Bay Parkway - Coney Island. During rush hour during WWII and many years after the busy 8-track Coney Island terminal looked like half an elevated train terminal and half a subway terminal, even though the actual elevated train service to Manhattan stopped in June 1940! Are you old enough to remember when the Culver elevated trains used the 5th Avenue elevated and the Brooklyn Bridge to reach Manhattan (before June 1940)?
Located and had scanned these 1948 photos. As l already noted, S. B. trainmen were friendly, even allowing me to ride on occasion. But they were specific that I must not enter LIRR property. See the H8 2-8-0 pix at Classic Trains Sunnyside Yard thread for a glimps of what shoved these R10 subway cars up the Avenue H interchange track.
1
CTA's freight operation was a bit different from the South Brooklyn. South Brooklyn was/is a common carrier in its own right while CRT/CTA was a contractor that handled freight for MILW to customers along the North Side L, which was originally a MILW branch.
imagine the thrill felt by a 16-year-old railfan at seeing an Illinois Terminal Boxcar in a South Brooklyn freight train
Another view of what might be the same train, here from the overpass at the 9th Av. Station. In retrospect, with ITC being a St. Louis Car C. customer, with their building the post=WWII ITC streamlined interurban trains, StLCC may have used an ITC boxcar to ship maintenance and overhaul parts to NYCTA for overhaul of the original PCC fleet and the Bluebird. Logically, the car would be unloaded at the 39th Street Yard, up the ramps in the photo, and the parts brought on work-motors that are also used as motive-power, to the 9th Avenue Barn, the home of the PCC fleet (which did not go to Coney Island for maintenance and overhaul, nor to DeKalb Avenue shops). This was just before the massive repainting of the PCC fleet from Pachyderm Grey and Scarlet to green and silver
End-view of the ITC boxcar:
Does RC or anyone else know which RR served St. Louis Car Co.?
The same freight train after dropping off the ITC boxcar. Note the third-rail shoe on the rear truck. A doublr-throw knife switch was used to switch between third rail and overhead power, so the shoe was not energized when operating on streets:
Anther view of the Work motor used that day as freight power:
Pretty sure 9980, from its number as well as design was owned by the B&QT, the surface streetcar division, but South Brooklyn used it anyway. Here at the 2nd Avenue Yaed:
First, the reverse case of the previous photo: South Brooklyn's own No. 5 used with a MoW flat for new tie distribution, probably at 39th Street yard, and below near Avenue H and McDonald (LIRR interchange) with a short S. Brooklyn freight, just a reefer and a hopper car.
2-car freight photo replaced with a better one and caption corrected..
Two photos sent me by Russ Jackson, the first near 2nd Avenue and 39th Street, pre-WWII, source unknown, and the second his pholto, Box-Cab loco 4, at McDonald Avenue and Avenue I. See the Peter Witt thread on Classic trains for a streetcar photo (also preWWII and sent by Russ Jackson) at the same location ss the first photoi.
I'm bumping this up, so I won't have to search for it, when my internet access allows me to use Imgur, and I'll be able to post more photos in the limited time available. Meanwhile, from the Classic Trains Trolley and Interurban Work Equipment thread:
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