Before giving answers and posing a new question, I again urge YOU to do some research and come up with it yourself. Because you will find some interesting and relatively unknown facts about a major railroad that for many years was considered a Class One.
As unusual, for example, as New Haven steam trains running into the 3rd-and-2nd Avenue 129th Street elevated station and the New York Central's Putnam Division trains running into the 155th Street 8th Avenue 9th Avenue Elevated Station.
I am going to simplify the Franklin Avenue Shuttle question to try to obtain an answer:
What was the original route ot passenger service on the Shuttle line, and what purchase of what railroad by another railroad ended this service and forced the owners of route used by the shuttle to find another route involveing a short extension of the shuttle rout that still exists.
Again, let me know if a replacement question is needed.
Is a replacemen question needed?
If the complete answer to the Franklin Avenue Shuttle line is too difficult, I'll accept a worthwhile partical answer.
You can still enjoy a piece of old elevated structure from about the same time on the "J" east of Broadway Junction - East New York - Eastern Parkway.
I have better than a photo, I have a video link showing the operation. But that will have to wait until I get to a computer.
I’ll leave a full answer to your question to someone with more specific knowledge. But that service started with steam traction in 1878; here is some detail
http://forgotten-ny.com/1998/10/franklin-avenue-shuttle-the-city-has-closed-this-line-for-reconstruction-but-while-it-was-open-it-was-probably-the-most-decrepit-route-in-the-city-here-are-some-pictures-from-just-before-the-renov/
Unless I am mistaken your ‘unfortunate event’ is a tremendous understatement: is it not the Malbone St. disaster, the thing that ultimately (and, I think justly) bankrupted the BMT? If I had my ‘druthers I would never have designed the tunnel that way, let alone put a scab in charge of running loaded trains through there...
Perhaps interestingly, the way I remember the story was not with a dispatcher running the train, but an 18-year-old apparently hired because he had a pulse and showed up. What were the stories about this at the time?
I thought when I first read about this that it was a pity not to retain the original overhead wire as many fewer people would likely have been electrocuted as the third rail energization was repeatly cycled to clear the ‘fault’...
It was amazing how decrepit this line got before rebuilding in the 1990s. I do think it was a shame to lose that piece of the old El, though.
At least one fun thing that ran here was the ‘million dollar train’ R11s, with Otto Kuhler design and Precipitron ‘imitation’ of air conditioning.
If you have a photo, please post it!
Staying with New York Transit: Please give the historical and recent history of the Franklin Avnue Shuttle, "S" Prospeci Park - Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street. What was the original service, what was the original electric service, what changes were made and what unfortunate event occured. What was/were the service/services during the classic BMT period, 1922 - Unification-1940. Any changes then? What about patronage after Unifiation? and everything up to date.
Optional extra: special or orphan equipmen that had a home there.
Bingo!
Of course, coal in hopper or gondola cars for the remaining coal stoves in the stations.
And the gate cars were the horses until steel cars were available.
There is something very important the Elevated could want that needed to come in by rail. At certain times of the year. Not those generally associated with weed spraying.
I have pictures of the operation but that would give it away...
The train's equipment did the spraying, and I presume the tanks were filled at Coney Island before it ventured forth whether its destination was the Nortons Point trolley line, the Sea Beach Line, the Brighton Line, or the ex-NYW&B Dyer Avenue line.
Subway service was pretty basic. No dining cars or fresh water or johns. What supplies could the IRT want that could come in by rail? Nothing on the cars themselves. Possibly new ballast, ties, rail? Logically delivered by freight cars. And the old NYW&B station and its tracks was transitioned to maintenance-of-way purposes. And the station building still exists in good condition. But you mentioned gate cars. Well, until surplus steel cars were available, they could have been used as motors in maintenance of way trains until sufficient retired steel cars were available. As were the two BMT gate cars on the weed-spray train.
Do you have a photo of the IRT maintenance-of-way train of the period?
Mr. Klepper, was it normal to weed-spray the passengers in the ‘50s? perhaps to quietly reduce the number of people using the service to facilitate abandonment? That would be clever, but it’s something more directly passenger-service related, and that depends materially on that Class 1 connection to provide, that I was looking for. (I do not think the herbicide or whatever used by the spray train came in by rail ... did it?)
Weed control on the Dyar Avenue line, the portion of the ex-NYW&B taken over by the TA, operated first with gate-car elevated trains equipped with subway shoes, then steel Low-V's, then, with a flyover consructed, through-routed with the Lexington Avenue subay line.
I assume that until a new weed-control train was constructed for the IRT from older subway cars, the same weed-control train that was used on Brighton, Sea Beach, and Nortons Point was transferred to the IRT and returned, and the old NYW&B connection was probably the only way possible at the time.
For the same reason the track connection between the lower level Culver tracks and the Nortons Point streetcar line was kept for many years, with transfer passengers walking across the two tracks on wood board pavement not giving the rails a second thought. (The Stillwell Avenue Terminal of the Nortons Point line was elevated. The line was completely PRoW and should never have been abandoned. It was operated during my lifetime with double-end Peter Witts in the 8001 series. The other track connection to the rest of the system was via the abandoned Sea Gate line on Coney Island's Surf Avenue where some rail clearly lasted from horsecar days, tracks connecting to the two PCC lines to Coney Island, Coney Island Avenue and Macdonald Avenue.) A photo of the weed-control train in Coney Island Yard:
It has something important (and seasonal) to do with passengers, but not with moving them.
Hint: it was more than a little surprising in 1955.
Well, there certainly were no paying passengers aboard the Qs when they were shifted. I do know that the Third Avenue elevated shop at 99th Street and Third Avenue became the real wood car specialty repair place as long as the elevated existed south of 149th Street, But then the Willis Avenue connection was also in. And the only thing that was seasonal in car modification work was changing the BMT Myrtle Avenue 1300-series convertable cars from summer to winter configuration and back, but that could have been accomoplished right at Fresh Pond yards near Myrtle and Metropolitan Avenues. No overhead cranes or wheel laths or shop equipment was required. I don't see why those cars would have to be transferred. And then they were replaced by the Qs.
Possibly there was a greater demand for number of cars on the 7 in summer with ball games etc., and a greater demand for number of cars on the Broadway-7th Avenue and Lexington lines in winter, and after the Third Avenue elevated cutback to north of 149th, the route I described for the Qs was the only way these cars could have been transferred at the time?
Yes, but what I’m looking for is much more regular, and more important at certain times of the year. And while it could certainly involve gate cars there were no paying passengers aboard them at the time...
The reason could have been that the connection between the IRT and the B Divison combined IND and BMT had essentially been broken when the 2nd Avenue elevated line across the Queensboro Bridge was abandoned in 1942. The ex-NYW&B track was the only IRT connection to the national railroad system after the Third Avenue Elevated was abandoned south of 149th Street, including the Willis Avenue old shuttle connection. (Consider the 7 Flushing line as part of the B Divison physically, even though its clearances permit only IRT equipment, beause track connections with other lines are only at Queens Plaza, and then only with the B Division.)
To replace the last of the gate cars on Myrtle Avenue, it was necessary to transfer the Q-Types to the B Division from the Third Avenue Elevated, which had been abandoned south of 149th Street. So the cars were picked up at the old NYW&B connection, having been moved there by a TA Diesel, then handled by the New Haven over the Hell Gate to Fresh Pond Junction, then by the LIRR to Bay Ridge, the New York Dock to its connection with the South Brooklyn, and finally via the Culver or West End elevated structure or the tracks on MacDonald Avenue to Coney Island shops. They then had their roofs lowered so they could run via the Nassau Cut to the Williamsburg Bridge and then to Fresh Pond Yard.
The Qs on the remaining 149th Street - Gun Hill Road elevated operation, now also gone, were replaced by Stienway and Worlds Fair steel subway cars that twice had been replaced by post-WWII cars, first off Flushing and then off the Seventh Avenue and Broadway-Seventh Avenue locals where they had replaced Gibbs and deck-roof steel cars. The Q's had earlier been bumped from Queens to replace the composits on the Third Avenue Elevated when all-IRT operation was instituted to Flusing and all through BMT operaton to Astoria.
Today there is connection between the IND Concourse Yard and the Jerome Avenue Structure. And there still is a connection between Bush Terminal and the 9th Avenue station and 39th Street yard of the subway system.
Dave mentioned on another thread
"As late as 1953, a single track remained of the connection linking the IRT at E. 180th with the New Haven."
If I recall correctly, it was retained longer than that, through 1955. There was a very important reason for this, concerning operation of the elevated system ... what was it, and how was it accomplished?
You are correct. That is the electrificaion. It was cut back to a suburban service, I think Glassboro, and the line does not exist any more all the way to A. C. The trunkated electrification lasted through WWII. The part that remained was, I believe mostly or completetly trolley wire.
Isn't that the first true mainline electrification in the United States, the PRR's West Jersey and Seashore line (600V mostly but not completely third rail, via Woodbury/Millville and Newfield). This service lasted an astoundingly long time for an 'orphan' electrification, and it is interesting to see what specific issues accounted for its termination.
Might have been fun to ask why it wasn't all third rail, or ... well, I have the follow-on question to this one if right.
The present New Jersey Transit Philadelphia - Atlantic Citiy line was never electrified, even in its fastest Camden - Atlantic Citiy days, PRSL or earlier. But at one time, there was Camden - Atlantnic City electric train service. Explain, please.
The Met was pretty healthy, at least as Chicago elevated railway companies go. Since you guessed Lake Street (Chicago and Oak Park Railway) you get the win, as it was very broke at the time. Its principal asset from the point of view of the CERCT was the Lake Street leg of the loop.
In other words, one of the four was in receivership. Which one? Just a guess, but I would suspect the Metropolitan, the three lines entering the downtown area via the structure on Congress St.
Actually, the 1913 cars fit just fine on Lake Street, and in later years did run in multiple with the later "plushies" even on the restricted clearance surface (the 5000 and 6000 series didn't clear the Lake Street ground-level station "houses"). It was something that a judge would have had to sign off on, and didn't.
rcdryeLake Street (Chicago & Oak Park Railway) didn't get cars, but it wasn't because of trolley poles.
If I remember from when this question was asked in one of these quiz threads before, it was because of inadequate clearances.
Lake Street (Chicago & Oak Park Railway) didn't get cars, but it wasn't because of trolley poles.
Yes, but one of the two had only one operation, and it needed trolley poles. I don't have the names of the four companies, but the Lake Street line needed trolley poles and was that company's only operation, so I assume Lake Street did not get the steel cars.
Northwest had lines that needed trolley poles and one line that did not.
Southside did not need trolley poles and got steel cars.
Metropolitan did not need trolley poles. The extension over CA&E was not a problem because CA&E was third rail except for far west areas not touched by CRT.
daveklepper Did the first ones lack trolley poles?
Did the first ones lack trolley poles?
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