1948 Visit to Sunnyside Yard within a fan-trip organized by John Kneiling

[daveklepper]

Edted with corrections and additional information from Henry Raudenbush

Began with MP54 ride from Penn Station.   MP54 and Trailblazer coaches at SunnysideL

Visited LIRR freight yard, as well as PRR passenger yard

Steam and electric, not one diesel!

 

 Men working on a GG-1 pan.  Note the ground stick on the catenary

 

 

 

LIRR Yard A, beside Sunnyside, crew switching hoppers, and an LIRR 0-6-0 switcher, not a PRR-design, note absense of a Belpait firebox, probably Alco.

 

 

 

 

[Overmod]

Been a long, long time since I'd thought about Louis Sherry ... and you know what?  They're still in business!

[timz]

Anyone figure out that signal in the fifth pic? Why so tall?

[Flintlock76]

Holy smoke, were those DD1's I saw?  (Photo six.)

And were they still in use?

What a day that must have been!

[timz]

DD1s pulled rush-hour LIRR trains NY Penn to Jamaica until 1950, or more likely 1951. Guess they were probably lettered for LIRR, tho.

[daveklepper]

One of the DD1s was lettered Pennsylvania

and was the wire-train (tunnels) power.  PC replaced it with an ex-Central T1.

In the early Amtrak era a 4-car set of LIRR mus was borrowed for this purpose.

Today?   Anyone know?

In addition to freight, LIRR DD1s also handled Montauk an Greenpoint passenger trains Penn Station - Juamaica.

LIRR used some PRR steam.  K4s and the H8 Consol. pictured.

[rrlineman]

a Catcar built by Plasser

[daveklepper]

More LIRR steam:  a K4 borrowed from the PRR, and Consolidations, an LIRR

H6 and an H9, allfrom PRR:

[mvlandsw]

timz

Anyone figure out that signal in the fifth pic? Why so tall?

 

Signals are sometimes made extra tall so they can be seen above equipment on an adjacent curved track that may block the view of a normal height signal. Picture #2 seems to show such a location.

[daveklepper]

[daveklepper]

The buider's plate on the side of the smokebox of the H6, photo above:

[daveklepper]

Morris Park:  Yard tracks around back of car shops; flangers converted from B-40 baggage; also shown, coaches

The fjatcar was added at Harold Tower.

Fantrip consist – MP-70 #1294 at Rockaway Park yard.  

         note kerosene markers, although car has PRR-style pinpoint electric markers

En-route Far Rockaway to Morris Park

MP-54s at Rockaway Park

 

[daveklepper]

[MidlandMike]

daveklepper

A gondola car was added at Sunnyside, and we left to exolore an electrified branch wthot normsl ;assenger sevice.

Was that the "Montauk Branch" between Long Island City and Jamaca?

[timz]

The Montauk west of Jamaica never had third rail.

[daveklepper]

The only part of the Montauk Branch that had third rail, and probably still has it, is the part from the junction just east of Hunterspoint Avenue Station (directly adjacent to the No. 7 Subway Station of the same name) for the tracks that join the mainline near Sunnyside to permit mainline trains to terminate at L. I. City, to L. I. City.  Actually that section was  "original Main Line."

One track we did use was the base of Hammels Wye, going from Rockaway Beach to Far Rochaway.

I'm corrected that Gibbs-LIRR-car couplers were originally Van Dorns, but replaced with Tomlinsons, and the photo shows a Tomlinson.

And those cars never had train-line door control or electric brake control.  (from Russ Jackson)

THe pictures are at Rockaway Park.  Henry notes that one car has original headlights, and the other PRR-style replacemenrs.

[daveklepper]

From 

Jeffrey Erlitz	3:53 PM (1 hour ago)
photo

10/31/1948
William J (Bill) Rugen

At "THe Raunt" on the line to the Rockaways across Jamaica Bay, now a branch of Line "A" of the Subway System:

 

[daveklepper]

Henry Raudenbush wrote:

I was on the LIRR trip that included one double-decker, one MP-54 and a gondola car.  It included a visit to the LIRR shops and roundhouse at Morris park, but I don’t thinl it went to Sunnyside.  That must have been a diferent trip.  Note that the Rockaway and Morris Park trip[ was on a bright sunny day, but most of the Sunnyside pictures look like a ‘cloudy-bright” day.  

 

As I remember it, the LIRR trip started from Penn station with only the two MU cars.  The gondola was picked up at HAROLD.  The trip then proceed by the Main Line to WIN then down  the Rockaway Branch (which split off on parallel tracks at that point}, past Brooklyn Manor, Woodhaven, Ozone Park and the Jamaica Bay trestle, with the photo stop at The Raunt.  I took the same picture as Bill Rugen, (but low quality bacl & white).  The trip then went to Rockaway Park, where there was a photo stop in the yard there.  Then the trip proceeded, now with the gondola on the head end, via the wye at Hammels, past Far Rockaway and Valley Stream, to Jamaica and into the yard at Morris Park, where there was time for photos around the shops and engine terminal.  Leaving there the trip went to Jamaica, reversed and proceeded west on the Main Line to Woodside, still with the gondola on the head end.  At Woodside it was getting late, and a friend and I decided that we had had the best part of the trip, and got off.  Before the trip returned to Penn Station, I have a recollection that there might have been a run out and back over a part of the Port Washington Branch, but I’m not sure of that.  I’m pretty positive that it did not go into Sunnyside.

 

I have to agree with Henry.  This thread has photos of two John Kneiling-organized LIRR fan-trips.

 

[daveklepper]

Some more steam at or near Sunnyside and  the adjacent LIRR freight yard:

[daveklepper]

Back to the fasntrip itself.  Anyone recogno+ize which station is at the rifht of the first photo?

[mvlandsw]

How was the rotary snowplow powered?

[timz]

How about it's a temporary station on a shoofly during track elevation?

[daveklepper]

I think the shoofly answer is correct.  Possibly during the grade-crossing elimination between Jamaica and Valley Stream.  In 1948 the snow=plow could have still been steam, but was probably diesel-electric.

Here's the special at Rockaway Park:

[rcdrye]

If the LIRR snowplow is # 193 (not certain from the photo, but it certainly could be) it still exists at Steamtown USA in Scranton PA.  #193 served the LIRR from 1898 to 1967, steam powered its whole life.  Every other photo I have seen of an LIRR rotary is of 193 so I'm thinking it might be the only one LIRR had.  According to Steamtown's web site it was built by Cooke (Paterson NJ) in 1898, got an ex-PRR tender in 1940, and was sold to private owners in 1968 after it was retired.

[Overmod]

Nobody has commented that the MP70 is either brand new or nearly so.  

Here is the trainsarefun page on these cars:

http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/doubledecker.htm

When we moved to Englewood in the mid-Sixties, the library had a book that depicted "a typical day around New York in 1949" which included these.  Little did I realize they were still running, and I could have seen them with only a little detouring...

 

[daveklepper]

A typical LIRR regular MU train.  Between age three and age thirty-five, must have experienced these MP54s about a thousand times.  Henry Raudenbush explains:

TheEMU’s are at DUNTON interlocking (tower at left).  The train is eastbound on the Atlantic Branch.  Coaling tower of Morris Park engine facility is out of picture to left.   The folks wandering around between tracks suggest this is from the 1948 Knieling trip.   (It is,  One trip that included the visit to Sunnyside, not two trips)

Note that there is the typical LIRR mix of monitor and arch roof MP-54’s.  The arch roof is an economy design, first introduced about 1915 for summer-only trailer cars.  In the 1920’s this became the standard for the growing LIRR MU fleet

 

 

  

 

[daveklepper]

Also at Sunnyside:

[daveklepper]

One at the Morris Park Shop's coach yard and a crane and hopper car at Sunnyside:

[nyc#25]

Dave,

I just loved this great series.  I'm an exLong Islander and it both fascinating and nostalgi.

 

[daveklepper]

A GG-1 photo for drama, rasther than detail: