Miningman https://mobile.twitter.com/barrybernstein/status/765567880087891968/photo/1
https://mobile.twitter.com/barrybernstein/status/765567880087891968/photo/1
daveklepper My new question: The New York City rapid transit system now has two large shops capable of major overhaul and rebuilding, one at Coney Island, north of Stillwell Avenue – Coney Island Station, with access to three lines directly and the Brighton (Q, B currently) via the station tracks; and the 207th Street Shops, north of that station. During WWII and for several years after, there were also two older shops. The older of the two outlasted the somewhat younger as was devoted to only one general car type on one major line (with a number of different services). In the middle of WWII, the equipment of two lines that had been overhauled at one of the two shops now shut down was transferred, for major maintenance and overhaul, to one of the existing shops. Name the two shops not now in existence. What caused the mid-WWII transfer and which lines and from where to where? Hint: One of the two lines does not exist today as a route, although all stations still see passenger service, and the situation with regard to overhaul and major maintenance remains the same of the line that still exists as essentially the same rout with the same services. Going to and from shopping and major maintenance, these trains use a crossover in each direction never in use, never was in use, by revenue trains.
Miningman Didn't light up..sorry..it's a nice overhead view.
Didn't light up..sorry..it's a nice overhead view.
Johnny
Reminder, the two large shop complexes in use today are 1. Theformer BMT's at Coney Island, and 2, the former IND at 207th Street, Inwood/Washington Heights. The 3rd should be a no-brainer. The 4th was opened much earlier, was not originally built by any of the three, IRT, BMT, or IND, and after construciton was divided in half by a new street, which then resulted in a streetcar-shop connection-track grade crossing.
The third one should be Lenox Avenue (IRT) closed in 1958.
OK Correct, ecept my understanding that is that is closed for overhaul earlier than 1958, about ten years earlier. Possibly it remained open only for routine maintenance as long as the small yard there continued to function. Try for the 4th, much older than any of the three, and closed only in 1953. Divided in half and the track connecting the two halves had a grade crossing with the street that divided the halves, and the street had a horsecar line that then became a conduit streetcar line. The grade crossing was not of course in passengers service like the only other crossing on the rapid transit system.
And equipment had to coast across, since there was no third rail on the street. Of course, when the shop was built, there was no third rail anywhere.
Get that right, and then, why in the middle of WWII was it necessary to remove the maintenance of two major IRT lines from that Lenox and 149th shop and transfer it elsewhere? Hint, to keep it at Lenox, a car float operation would have been needed or a very roundabout rail operation that would have included the Hell Gate Bridge, the South Brooklyn street trackage, LIRR, NYConnecting, and NYNH&H.
I haven't located the fourth shop - I'm not that familiar with New York - but was the closing due to expansion of the Navy Yard? I know that took out several small carfloat areas.
Correction, the horsecar line and later conduit streetcar line was not owned by a major railroad, and by Dislexia had me confusing it with the parallel line two blocks over. Both were, however, operated as part of the same system. When the conduit streetcar line went bus, the parallel remaining streetcar line, not the one onoce owned by the railroad, put on homemade more modern and faster streetcars and reported increased ridershop. Of course it also went bus, and now one authority of course runs all the bus lines. And there has been some combining since all these avenues are now one-way streets.
But in the days when the conduit streetcar ran, just before WWI and for a short time after, the streetcar line was owned by the same company that owned the 4th and earliest shop, and owned the subway under the streetcar line and under the grade crossing. But none of the all-steel subway cars ever visited the 4th shop.
The 4th shop was assigned one old steeple-cab third-rail switcher, and it was possible to photograph it from a passing rapid transit train, since it was often on one of the approach tracks. On a John Kneiling fan-trip, a fan-trip that made the front page of the New York Times, fans road this locomotive as it coasted across the grade crossing separating the two halves of the shop. By then the conduit streetcar line had been gone a long time, but there were plenty of subway triains underneath.
Don't have to go very far for the reasearch on the remainder of thequestion, just to the Trains Magzine Transit Fprum.
How about the 98th street shops on the Third Avenue El?
correct. between 98th and 99th Street, just south of the 99th Street local station. Handled wood car repair only. Did it for the entire IRT Manhattan Division (9th, 6th ,2nd, and 3rd, and Bronx elevateds) and closed when the Manhattan portion of the 3rd Avenue elevated stopped running. But it did last longer than the newer IRT subway car home at the north end of Lenox Avenue.
The photo of a John Kneiling fantrip on the front page of the New York Times was of five gate cars pushing a flatcar with railings and seats on the center track of the elevated, between 42nd and 98th Street. The shops were visited. Fans got to ride the steeplecab across Lexington Avenue, with several trips. We changed to steel equipment at 180th Street Bronx Paark station, having used the 149th Street connection to the current 2-5 line tracks, leaving 180th Bronx Park with the flatcar on the rear of the steel train, and also visited the Lenox Avenue complex.
Look forward to your question, rc.
While the Lehigh Valley Transit Company was well-known for its merchandise trains of box motors and trailers, there was another, lesser-known standard gauge Pennsylvania interurban system that used box motors and trailers, joining other members of CERA (Central Electric Railway Assoc., namesake of the Central Electric Railfans Assn.) in purchasing standard box trailers that could be found, for a few years at least, as far away as Louisville and Detroit. The system also interchanged via transload to a broad gauge network centered around a large city. Any of the names the system operated under is acceptable, but the CERA box trailers were active under only one of them.
Was this the line at one time known as Pittsburgh, Harmony, and Newcastle? Or the line connecting it from Butler to Erie, Pennsylvania? Probably the latter, with the first broad "Pennsylvania" gauge. Bandwidth limitations at the moment keep me from Googling Erie, PA, to determine this interurban line's names. But at Butler in connected with the Harmony line, which connected with Pitsburgh Railways, which connected with the two separate West Penn divisions, and at Erie with the standard gauge network going far west to the Chicago network and that in Indiana.
If I have time today to reach another server, I'll do the homework, otherwise, Erie, PA, is a hint for someone to provide the whole answer.
The Pittsburgh Harmony and New Castle was broad gauge (5' 2 1/2"). But you're getting close. Erie was not involved - though all Erie lines were standard gauge.
It would have been possible for a car to go from the line I'm looking for to Erie on its own wheels but it would require traversing somewhere around seven different companies' track to do so with a long detour through Ohio. Of course, once in Erie it's on to Buffalo and the Beebe Syndicate lines all the way to Syracuse and connections to Utica!
Penn-Ohio?
RME has correctly identified the Mahoning & Shenango Railway and Lighting/Penn-Ohio system. Running from the Warren OH area southeast of Cleveland to the New Castle PA area northwest of Pittsburgh it also had a serice area northeast of Youngstown OH to Sharpsville PA. A relatively successful operation, it combined local and interurban railway services with electric power. Most of the lines were closed in the 1930s, but a couple of local lines hung on until 1941.
Penn-Ohio was connected to the rest of the midwest interurban systems via the Stark Electric Railway and the Northern Ohio Traction and Light Company. Penn-Ohio's interurban operations ended about the same time its connections via NOT&L were abandoned in 1932.
One of the earliest intermodal 'systems' (originating before the turn of the 20th Century) was particularly well-suited to interurban freight efforts, but despite what appeared to be great technical success never 'quite' caught on in time to save interurban operations. It was tried with apparently great success as late as the immediate pre-1929 crash period -- to the extent that in the depths of the Depression a special freight subsidiary operating a large number in interchange service over five interurban systems was proposed. Had this in fact been undertaken even months quicker, much of the history of interurban abandonment in the early '30s might have been different.
What was the name and special details of this somewhat Kangorou-like intermodal system? (Extra points for the person proposing the freight subsidiary, and the systems involved...)
I do not know about the proposal, but at the time, the North Shore was handling trailers on flatcars between Chicago and Milwaukee if I am not mistaken. Perhaps they proposed going interline with their operation, and they may have done to some extent with Milwaukee Northern and TMR&E.
The "Bonner railferry" system involved narrow flatcars and truck trailers that had special axle setups so that the flatcars could be slid under them - rather than using the "circus loading" method employed by CNS&M and other railroads at the time. My bet would be on Dr. Thomas Conway, since the system was associated with the Cincinatti and Lake Erie, which he controlled at the time. Abandonment of connecting lines left many of the runs too short to pay.
A different system where containers slid into closed cars was developed on The Milwaukee Electric lines, but I don't think it ever got into interchange.
'Bonner railwagons' were indeed the technology -- Mike, you might want to provide some of the period references from magazines that show the details of the system, as some of them (the 'auto hoss', for example) have a certain amount of color often absent from modern intermodal systems.
But that's not the fellow who proposed the grand 61-wagon subsidiary for interline operation. C&LE was certainly associated with the scheme, but it was the owner of another one who was responsible.
Comes from making my guess at work without hitting the books.
Fred W. Coen, president and later receiver of the Lake Shore Electric (which connected with C&LE in Toledo) was the biggest booster, developing practical equipment based on Col. Bonner's then 30 year old idea. The first revenue use was Sept 1, 1930. The proposed interline consortium consisted of the LSE, C&LE, Northern Ohio Traction and Light, Penn-Ohio and Eastern Michigan-Toledo. Abandonments of these lines began almost as soon as the first Rail Wagons were operating, and the plan never got anywhere. LSE and NOT&L established loading points on either side of Cleveland and "rubbered" the trailers to the East 9th Street Electric Railway Freight terminal.
That's the ticket!
https://ia601407.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/12/items/electricrailwayj57mcgrrich/electricrailwayj57mcgrrich_jp2.zip&file=electricrailwayj57mcgrrich_jp2/electricrailwayj57mcgrrich_0559.jp2&scale=2&rotate=0
https://ia601407.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/12/items/electricrailwayj57mcgrrich/electricrailwayj57mcgrrich_jp2.zip&file=electricrailwayj57mcgrrich_jp2/electricrailwayj57mcgrrich_0560.jp2&scale=2&rotate=0
Keep going, Mike -- I've laid in a supply of candy bars to assist the enjoyable reading. Pity we can't archive this stuff more directly.
Fabulous stuff Wanswheel!
Some smoothside PRR Pullmans assigned to this service were painted silver with a red window band.
rc: I don't remember PRR equipment, red window bands on painted silver. Are you sure they were not red letterboards above the windows on painted silver? Can you check photos on this?
Incidentally, and this may have been answered before, did the PRR low-slung Budd Keystone equipment survive and where? Rode it the NEC once.
The cars were painted silver with a red window band, not letterboard. PRR cars assigned to a related service had shadowlining applied to the silver area as well.
The Keystones were stored by PC, bought by Amtrak, later resold to SEMTA (Southeast Michigan). Resold with out use to a private buyer who moved them to Iowa. The power car and a couple of coaches returned to Michigan for Dinner Train service until the operation folded in 2009. Two cars may still be in Canada, all others scrapped.
The thing is the smooth sides, otherwise Frisco Meteor would jump out. I can't help but think I've seen this discussion in a previous question in one or the other of these quiz threads.
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