One was I would think Rock Island. I can rememeber seeing many pictures of an RDC in the middle of a train(the Twin Cities Rocket?).
The other New York Central. The connections from Messina, NY to Buffalo?
Strange non-RDC trailer. I'll give this quotation : "The LIRR voided their warranty with the Budd Company as a result of the practice of coupling a “ping-pong” car to the RDC."
From here: http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/lirr_rdc.htm
Rgds IGN
I found this last nite and was in the process of posting my response when I fell asleep this morning(which I posted when I got back online).Sorry for the delay. I think it explains much:
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/caption.pl?/img/maps/calcagno-1920-elevated.gif
This map shows much more clearly the South Ferry connection. The Seaman's Bank map as you said is not quite as clear. This track map also shows a bunch of other things like the 34th st ferry shuttle and the 42nd St elevated shuttle to Grand Central.
Thx IGN
daveklepper Question: I was 7+1/2 years old when attending the 1939 New York Worlds Fair. Usually, we went home via the INS subway's special WF temporary branch, connecting through Forest Hills yard to the Queens main line at Continental Ave Station. Going meant taking the CC south from 86th St. to 42nd., walking through the underpass to the northbound platform, then the E to Continental Avenue, and then the GG, which was extended to the Fair during the Fair's open hours. Going home about 10:30pm, the trip was simplified by a through S for Special that ran from the Fair to Hudson Terminal, making all E train stops from Continental Avenue on. But one evening at my insistence we used the Willets Point Station at the main entrance used at the time by both BMT and IRT trains. Going to the southbound platform, a train came in to a stop, and the conductor shouted "Connections to the North Only" several times. What was that train? What kind of equipment did it have? Was it there the next summer, 1940, witht he Fair open? Was it there for the Fair some 22 years later? If I had boarded that train, what would I have had to do to get to my destination on the west side of Manhattan at 86th Street? (Several alternatives, the fastest involving an additional fare) What train did I board and how did I travel to West 86th Street on one fare?
Question: I was 7+1/2 years old when attending the 1939 New York Worlds Fair. Usually, we went home via the INS subway's special WF temporary branch, connecting through Forest Hills yard to the Queens main line at Continental Ave Station. Going meant taking the CC south from 86th St. to 42nd., walking through the underpass to the northbound platform, then the E to Continental Avenue, and then the GG, which was extended to the Fair during the Fair's open hours. Going home about 10:30pm, the trip was simplified by a through S for Special that ran from the Fair to Hudson Terminal, making all E train stops from Continental Avenue on.
But one evening at my insistence we used the Willets Point Station at the main entrance used at the time by both BMT and IRT trains. Going to the southbound platform, a train came in to a stop, and the conductor shouted "Connections to the North Only" several times.
What was that train? What kind of equipment did it have? Was it there the next summer, 1940, witht he Fair open? Was it there for the Fair some 22 years later?
If I had boarded that train, what would I have had to do to get to my destination on the west side of Manhattan at 86th Street? (Several alternatives, the fastest involving an additional fare)
What train did I board and how did I travel to West 86th Street on one fare?
The Budd Company's ideas for RDCs included using them in locomotive-hauled trains so they could be cut out and run as part of accompanying services. Only two railroads ordered their RDCs with the steam lines required to do this. Which companies were these, and where did they do it? One of the two companies also hauled a strange non-RDC trailer on a different route.
Q-cars were allowed into the underground Flushing station, and so were the cars they replaced, the 1300 series composite steel and wood convertables. 2nd Avenue elevated cars ran only to Willets Point Blvd. This was true if they ran through to a southern destination (South Ferry via 2nd Avenue local during non-rush hours and to City Hall, express in the rush hour direction, during rush hours, or were only a connection, Sundays and evenings after rush hours. Saturday late afternoons/) (Astoria trains ran local on 2nd Avenue at all times and went to City Hall when Corona trains went to South Ferry and went to South Ferry when Corona trains went to City Hall.) As far as I can tell, only gate cars were used on 2nd Avenue Queens service, the MUDoorControl IRT remodelled el cars were only used on Manhattan-Bronx routes.
Third Rail's map fails to show that 2nd Avenue locals ran to South Ferry as well as City Hall. All expresses (Freeman St., Bronx Park-local in the Bronx, Corona-Willets Pt. Blv-local in Queens) ran to and from City Hall.
This is one of the articles I found on the 2nd Av El:
http://thethirdrail.net/0107/cohen1.html
However, it is a fact that Queens-bound 2nd Avenue trains, local or rush hours express, did all make one local stop before going across the bridge to Queens.
rcdye, you have the answer so go and state it. I said the train I saw in 1939 would not have been there a year later in 1940, although there would have been service earlier in the evening, but with a different destination sign and no statement about connections whatsoever..
One other hint/ Note that 129th Street was a destination, a terminal point, for both 3rd Avenue and 2nd Avenue local trains. But all rush hour expresses skipped the stop, and it was considered a local station.
So it is possible for a terminal to still be a local station. All that is necessary are the crossovers to permit reversal of direction.
Also weren't the Q's and QX's not allowed in the subway because they were wood body cars?
Again just throwing something out there.
Were they using Blue Birds? Or the Aluminum Green Hornets? I am kind of mystified and am just kind of stabbing in the dark.
Based on the map I'm going to say Bronx Park or E. 241st. If I remember correctly 1939 was the last year for the 2nd ave El, so the connection would not have worked in 1940.
As i recall, both in Chicago and New York City, gate car trains, as NYers usually called them and one less conductor than the number of cars, except for a one car train having both a motorman and conductor. On a 1-car train, only the rear platform and gates were used, and the conductor was stationed there to operate the gates. On a two-car train, he was located between the two cars operating the gates on both cars, with the rear and front platforms of the train locked off and not used for boarding or exiting. Three cars would have two conductors, again with the extreme front and rear platforms not used. Seven car trains, the maximum run with gate cars on the IRT, would have six conductors. I rode such trains in both New York and Chicago, the latter in the summer of 1952 including the Stock Yards line, and did not see any difference in the operation between the two cities. Why would you need a conductor inside the car when the system was a prepayment system? Obviouisly, in both NY and Chicago, a conductor would be inside the car when not at a station, but his duty was primarioly operaton of the gates, and that required him to be on one of the other platform. Note the handles for operating the gates, and you can check this at IRM, allow a conductor on one platform to operate both gates, and if he uses both arms and hands, both at the same time.
I though this was general knowledge, Aploogies. Now can someone answer the question(s)?
I can't figure what the Chicago link would be. Chicago open platform cars had a motorman and conductor for each car pair, plus an additional collector for each additional pair (or single car, if an odd number). The 4000 series had remote door controls that worked unless wooden cars were part of the train. The BMT had multi-unit PCC equipment that prefigured the 1946-1947 5000 series, but other than in an artists rendition of the State St. Subway, those never ran in Chicago. I suppose a two car set of then would require an extra conductor.
Should not anyone at all familiar with the history of rapid transit (elevateds and subways) be able to determine the type of equipment used in a three-car train that requires two and not one conductors (trainmen) plus one motorman (engineer)?
If you see a connection to the 2nd ASvenue elevated, where is that connection and where is the destination for a train that connects to the north only?
And if there are no southbound trains for the train from Willets Point Blvd (World's Fair in 1939) what would be the reason?
Some Chicago fan should be able to answer if no one from the NY area does.
You are part way there. So what would the destination sign of the train read? And why is the connection northbound only? And with just a three car train requiring three, not two, crew-members, a motorman (engineer on a railroad but motorman in the subway and on the elevated) and two conductors, not one, what would the equipment be?
The 6th Avenue elevated had all-night service, until it was forced to quite in 1938. So did the 9th until it quit at Unification, and even after that the Polo Grounds shuttle had all-nigh service. So did the 3rd Avenue elevated, but not the city hall or bronx park branches. The 2nd Avenue elevated was a block away from the Third.
I'm looking at several maps of various vintages and can only come up with a connection to the Second Ave El so the northbound connections were to the Bronx...youmay have had to change at 138Th St then to the Lexington Ave line, then at 125th St to 149th the Bornx athen th Lenox Ave line to 86th St,. Manhatten . Second El could also go south to I believe 14th St, maybe Canal St.
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Again, examine the map closely, especially the Manhattan end of the Quennsboro Bridge
You need to look more carefully at your map. The line is shown but not obviously, The BMT was NOT on the 59th Street Queensboro Bridge. It was in the 60th Street tunnel. There has never been a rapid transit connection to LaGuardia. There was a streetcar line. Also one to the NYWF 1939-1940. And the two had joint track in a part of Queens and a part of Brooklyn. But we are talking about third rail rapid transit. And we are talking about a second IRT service sharing the line with one other IRT service and the BMT service.
daveklepper The map shows the line on the bridge, but because of the style of the map, you could mistake it for simply the bottom of the presentation of the 60th Street BMT tunnel. If you study the map carefully and then go an read the original quesiton, you should have the answer/ Remember, we are talking about one of the three services on the Flushing line, one being BMT Queensboro Plaza Flushing (both local and express) connecting BMT subway trains at Queensboro Plaza, the second being the IRT that is now the 7 line, and the question refers to the third, also an IRT service, but one running to Willets Point Blvd, one stop short of Flushing, and where late everning services from Willets Point Blv. have the conductor call "Connections to the North Only."
The map shows the line on the bridge, but because of the style of the map, you could mistake it for simply the bottom of the presentation of the 60th Street BMT tunnel. If you study the map carefully and then go an read the original quesiton, you should have the answer/
Remember, we are talking about one of the three services on the Flushing line, one being BMT Queensboro Plaza Flushing (both local and express) connecting BMT subway trains at Queensboro Plaza, the second being the IRT that is now the 7 line, and the question refers to the third, also an IRT service, but one running to Willets Point Blvd, one stop short of Flushing, and where late everning services from Willets Point Blv. have the conductor call "Connections to the North Only."
But the map is wrong in showing the service continuing to Flushing Main St.
How about this map:
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/caption.pl?/img/maps/system_1939.jpg
Don't any of you have a 1930's map of the IRT or the subway and elevated system in general?
Not enough clues? I thought I gave the answer away. Should I now give the answer and ask another question? I am specifically asking about the train departing at about 10:15p, with one of the two conductors shouting "Connetions to the North Only." Up to about 10pm the specific service would connections both north and south, and before about 7:30 pm on a weekday the service would not need conections south, running through.
Narig, you are partly on the right track but not completely. Yes, at one time there were rapid transit tracks on the Queensboro bridge, and it should not take too much effort to figure out to which Manhattan rapid transit line they connected.
From 1942 until until 1949 there were two different services on the Flushing line and ditto to Astoria, with both services on the Flushing Line offering express as well as local services. The standard metal signs on the IRT low-V and Worlds Fair cars had local in one direction and express in the other on one sign, and local alone on another, and depending on which side was on the exterior and which on the interior, the direction of the express service, with local return, was established. The express and local pattern was the same as it is for the 7 service today, but the service was less frequent, and there was also IRT service from Times Square to Astoria. Only "Steinway" Lo-V's and World Fair IRT cars were used on this service. The BMT services from 1938 to 1949 was provided by the Q-cars, two motors bracketing a trailer, all heavily rebuilt from wood gate elevated cars, now with sliding doors, lighted express local signs, and lighted Astoria or Flushing cars. Qeensboro Plaza Station was and 8-track station, with the four track two-level two-island platfom station the part of the earlier station used only by IRT trains . The present IRT tracks were the tracks to and from Times Square through the Steinway Tunnel. The prsesent BMT tracks were used by the IRT services to both Astoria and Willets Point Blvd Station in Corona, that finally quit in 1942. and these tracks were used only for special moves until 1949, when they were brought back into used for the new direct BMT steel car services to Astoria and just before that for shuttle trains required as the Astoria line platforms were cut back to accommoidate the wider BMT cars. On The BMT side, steel trains from Brooklyn and Manhattan, usually the 4th Avenue and Brighton locals, arrived on the upper level, northenmost track, and left directlly below, reversing in a pocket track, and possibly you can still see some steelwork for this track removed, beyond the point were the Astoria line swings north. "Q" cars with the narrower width typical of all elevated cars, used the lower level in and out for Willets Point Blvd. service and the upper level for Astoria service, if my memory is correct. Before 1938 these were gate-car elevated trains, using 1300-series composite steel and wood elevated cars, which were not rebuilt into the Q's but ended gate car service in NYC before being replaced by the Q's, which had migrated in 1949 from Queens to the 3rd Avenue Elelvated and then to Myrtle Avenue. The BMT elevated cars in the Queens service did run into Flushing. The third service, the second of the IRT services, that stopped altogether in 1942, ran just to Willets Point BLvd and never bezond that point, and never did provide the express service in Manhattan. But this service did use a _ Avenue Express sign during rush hours, as far back as 1932. But it was not an express during rush hours in Queens.
What was the service? No midnight - 5AM service, ever.
Wasn't there a subway line over the Queensboro Bridge to 2nd Av?
What I just read said that the BMT had service til 1939. 3 man crews for a short train because they were gate cars?
This is just a guess. I'll try to poke around a bit.
That was one bridge that did have rapid transit tracks, seven Brooklyn elevated lines used it at one time, but none ran to Corona and the Words Fare.
The only service there now is, of course, the No.7 Flushing line. But there were two other services before 1949. One was a BMT service, with their steel wide subway cars running to the then eight-track elevated Queensboro Plaza Station and connecting to modernized rebuilt elevated cars compatible with IRT platform running to Flushing and Astoria. The Astoria line was converted to BMT standards and the present arrangement instituted in 1949. But in 1939 and up to 1942 there were three services, two of which were IRT.
Brooklyn Bridge?
The had a crew of two, engineer (motorman) and conductor. CTA and CRT did run three-car trains with three crew members essential, and similar equipment operated in New York with the same number of crew members. This equipment was also used in both Chicago and New York for four-car trains with four crew members, five-car trains with five crew members, up to seven-car trains with seven crew members.
And another hint: At the time of the 1939 Worlds Fair, 2 out of three trains would be IRT on two different services on both the Astoria Line and on the Flushing Line as far as Willets-Point Avenue-Wolrds Fair, but only one out of the two IRT services continued beyond that pont to Main St. Flushing. Exception, in the direction of heavy traffic during rush hours, express service was operated on the Flushing Line, but the IRT service to Willets Point never used the express track for passenger service. Yet, during the rush hour, in the direction of heavy traffic, the IRT service to Wiilets Point on the Flushing LIne, running local on the Flushing Line was signed
" " " " EXPRESS.
And during non-rush hours, when it was signed " " " " LOCAL, it had a different Manhattan Terminal then it had during rush hours, and still a third terminal on Weekends and late in the evening during 1939 but not after Unification in 1940 to the end of service in 1942, when the service was replaced by a paper transfer. No service was provided just before midnight - 5AN.
Final hint: At one time ALL East River Bridges (except the Triboro) had rapid transit (or in the case of Hell Gate) tracks with regular service.
The only thing I can make sense of for Chicago fans would be the BMT's three-unit articulated cars that were pictured in drawings for Chicago's subways, which opened in 1943 with CRT steel equipment.
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