New Rochelle to Sunnyside and NYP, double track passenger line, some 3 and 4 tracks for Long Island freight service. How could they find the capacity?
Amtrak runs 34 Passenger Trains each day over that line, is there room for Local Trains making stops in front of them? Would MTA have to rebuild or add tracks for Local Passenger Service? With four tracks from New Rochelle to Bridgeport and 3 tracks from Bridgeport (Stratford) to New Haven, service east of New Rochelle to New Haven at rush hour, (what with Metro North, Amtrak, and Shore Line East (ConnDOT)), is already at its full safe saturated use.
Don U. TCA 73-5735
I assure you, local service on the "East Bronx" line was never provided by anything except a shuttle during the electrified era. During steam days, I do not know. Also, my memory was not completely correct. Although much of the time, the shuttle ran with a combine open platform and coach open platform, the New Haven did at one time have some closed vestibule cars about three or four, that did not have third rail shoes and were intended for the shuttle. I think one was a combine. But eventually they got third rail shoes and any otherwise lacking dc equipment. Whether this was before or after the New Haven's own shuttle to Willis Avenue stopped running, leaving the field to the NYW&B, I do not know. The beautiful and elegant Pelham Manor Station predated electrification.
The Willis Avenue Station and the tracks to the elevated lasted well after the NYW&B quit. The trakc connection was used to deliver the 1938-1939 IRT subway cars intened for 1939-1940 Worlds Fare Service, then and afterward used on both Flushing and Astoria trains from Times Square and capable of mu-ing with the earlier "Steinway" cars. When the postwar (WWII) R-12, R-14, and R-15 cars arrived, these were gradually shifted to the Lexington Avenue Subway Expresses (now 4 and 5) and then to The Bronx Third Avenue Elevated remenant. (149th - Gun Hill Road), where they wer finally sent to scrap by relocated R-12 and R-14 cars. The connecting track had only third rail at the platform, with the track on the other side only equipped with catenary. A 1952 Electric Railroaders Association fantrip was the last passenger train to visit the Willis Avenue Station, and it used the composite cars that were formerly subway cars transferred to the elevated (both 2nd and 3rd Avenues) for rush hour express service only. After running west from the station, the track climbed to a single-track elevated structure over NYNH&H property, then became double track where it was joined by the lead from a short approximately eight track elevated yard about 250 feet long, that had been built to store the retired Forney 0-4-4T's upon elevated electrification in 1901-1904. The last was sold only in 1942, to a Cuban plantation! The connection was abandoned before or around the time of the abandonment of the Manhattan 3rd Av. El in 1953. The little yard continued to exist up to that time, also. The double track then joined the lower level of the double-level four-track approach to the 2nd Avenue Harlem River swinging bridge, coming up between the two lower level tracks. (Upper tracks used only by rush hour expresses, and a few returning against-the-rush equipment moves and locals. After the 2nd Avenue El was abandoned and only the 3rd remained, the west upper level track was used southbound in the morning and the east northbound in the evening, with the other track innactive.)
But most NYW&B passengers (that did not use the connection to the Lexington Avenue Subway at E. 180th Street) did not bother to use the elevated shuttle during good weather. Instead they would walk one block west to the 133rd Station to board a 2nd Avenue or Third Avenue express directly. So, around 1935 or 1936, the IRT discontinued the shuttle from Willis Avenue to 129th Street and it or the New Haven or the NYW&B built a roof over the walkway from the Willis Avenue Station to th elevated 133rd Street Station. This walkway roof was removed by the NYNH&H after the NYW&B stopped running.
At the request of a Metro North employee (Noah Caplin), I designed a flyover system for the five tracks merging to four, using the property east of the New Rochelle Station. This flyover system gives greater flexibility of operaton and solves just about all the problems without the extensive house demolition and road closings that are required for the Amtrak plan to do the job west of the station, which would not do the job quite as well. It involves use of all five New Rochelle tracks and does not require the very limited use of the area by freight trains that are not within commuter train clearance to move from use of the existing two center tracks that lack paltforms. But all five tracks are required for passenger service during rush hours when the mix of Metro North and Amtrak is pretty intense. The pocket track, which is connected at both ends, is a valuable third platform track and should certainly not be used just for freight.
Knowing AMTRAK's operating philosophy and need to run fast trains will They reguire??
1. Additional trackwork at New Rochelle to speed both AMTRAK and MN through that interlocking including flyovers to access MN tracks 2 and 3 from Hell gate route without crossing the south track.
2. Moving the freight track to the removed east track location?
3. Operating a three track electrified HSR from New Rochelle - Harold interlocking?
4. Requiring station tracks for stops from New Rochelle - Harold.?
5. Reworking Harold interlocking as necessary?
It has been 'a while' since I lived in New Rochelle (1950-'53). I do (seem to) remember a track on the east side of the eastbound platform, the "fifth track". It often contained the parked "wire train", methinks. I didn't know that the New Rochelle-Harlem River service was only a "shuttle". Some of the "thru trains" must have stopped at Pelham Manor (judging from the magnificence of the old station), as well as elsewhere on the "Hell Gate" line, but really dunno. I'm still perusing my NYW&B references, looking for a NH train....
We lived 'way out' on Palmer Avenue, right on the Larchmont line, and I mostly walked to Isaac E. Young Junior High. The trolleys still ran in the city, but not eastward. Ever' once-in-a-while, some intrepid souls would try to establish a bus service "out east", but they all failed, due to lack of customers, franchise regulations, and a NIMBY attitude in Larchmont -- none of them ever "crossed-the-line". Just Palmer Avenue and a neat swamp (a wetland that has been built upon) separated me from the NH main -- clearly visible in the winter. The NYW&B was long-gone in 1950, but remnants did remain. I kept a log of all the NH motors I saw, back then, in a huge ledger left over from our chicken business. Wish I still had it. The ledger, that is, not the egg business.
In later years, commuting to Rye and Port Chester, I always sat on the west side of the train to check out the remains of the NYW&B. Mobile archeology....
Both the New York Westchester and Boston mu trains, also 11000V 25Hz AC, and the New Haven's Harlem River Shuttle terminated at the high platform single track Willis Avenue and 133rd Street Station, with an across the platform transfer to the IRT's onw Harlem River shuttle which connected with the 2nd and 3rd Avenue local trains at the 129th Street Station. (Third Avenue Local Expressed, local in Bronx and express in Manhattan, stopped there during non-rush hours only. At the north end, the New Haven trains terminated on the southern or eastern-most track of the five-track New Rochelle station, and that track is still their and useful for shunting Amtrak trains around Metro North trains stopped in the station. The New Haven's shuttles used the open-platform steel mu cars, from their first 1903 order of mu equipmemt. One Bronx stop was located at Hunterspoint Avenue, which allowed access to the IRT's Lexington Avenue Pleham Bay Line, now the No. 6. But the service was discontinued around 1932 or 1933, while the NYW&B continued several years more. I was too late to ride either, but as a kid during WWII, my dad and I would go by subway to 241st and White Plains Road, ride the "A: streetcar north to Pelham with a transfer to the "H" bus to reach the old Pelham Manor station and enjoy the huge model railroad for wonderful afternoon. Coming home to Manhattan we would ride the H bus to the Pelham station and used the New Haven into GCT or 125th (depending on where we would meet Mom for dinner). Someitmes I got a front platform ride. The H had also been a streetcar line at one time, the inspiration for the Fontain Fox Toonerville Trolley. The only New Haven passenger trains that ever used the Hell Gate were through trains interchanged with the PRR for points south of New Jersey. These included the four main Boston - Washington trains, the Federal, Colonial, Senator, and Patriot, the Quaker to Phialelphia and Pittsburgh, the East Wind summer only train from Bangor to Washington, and the Montrealer-Washingtonian. No New Haven commuter service was ever provided into Penn Station or Long Island points. There were special trains. The Electric Railroaders Assocation organized a PRR MP-54 mu trip to New Haven from Penn Station and return, including coverage of the New Canaan branch. This was during Penn Central days. The New Canaan branch is single track. As I recall, our fan-trip MP-54 consist substituted for the regular 4400-series Washboard equpment on a regular trip Stamford-New Canaan and return, so on only one occasion PRR MP-54's were used on a regular train on the New Haven. Some of the regular passenger were rather surprised, while others had the attitude that anything was possible, and this wasn't anyh exception.
I had to go to 'Wikipedia' to confirm some thingies. The Hell Gate Bridge was opened on 30 Sep 1916, and the tracks were electrified the following year (11kV). New Haven trains could have terminated at the joint Harlem River Terminal, for a while, but my NYW&B books show no evidence. My NH books have scant reference to the East Bronx Line. NH trains could have stopped at Hunterspoint Ave. and Long Island City, in Queens, but I dunno. I do hope that someone has the history.
BTW, there is no "subway" to Port Chester -- none outside of NYC proper. Never was. Used to be able to do that on trolley cars, or the NYW&B....
Anyhoo, the Hell Gate Bridge looks great, methinks, in its new "Hell Gate Red"! AMTK, CSX, CPR, P&W, and NYA use it today.
Bill
I believe you are pretty much right, Bill. NH maybe, m a y b e, maybe had service of some kind way back into the teens and twenties. And it may even have ended at Port Morris rather than go on across the later built Hell Gate Bridge. What I think MNRR/CONDOT is proposing is to bring some CT trains into NYP with some stops in the Bronx as well. It would be faster for many than the subway from Port Chester and Pelhem Bay to Mid town. My feeling is why stop at NYP, but run regional trains from New Haven all the way to Philadelphia with limited stops (Bridgeport, S. Norwalk, Stamford, New Rochelle, Secacus Jct., Newark, Newark Airport, Metro Park, New Brunswick, Princeton Jct., Trenton) changing crews at NYP! The new service starting this Sunday to Giants and Jets games at the NJ Meadowlands from New Haven, coupled with thru ticketing from LIRR points are the right first steps.
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I read, recently, that NYC's MTA was considering restoring some commuter service over the ex-New Haven line from New Rochelle to NYP, under the aegis of M-NR.
I am only 70 y-o-a, but don't remember that service. We did go to the magnificent Pelham Manor Station, which housed a huge O-gauge model railroad. It was demolished when the ghastly New England Thruway (I-95) was built. The layout was stored in some baggage (?) cars in Mount Vernon for years. Anyhoo, I think that line had stations at Pelham Manor, Baychester, Westchester, West Farm, Westchester Avenue, Hunt's Point, and (maybe) Port Morris.
The coming of the New York, Westchester and Boston obviated the necessity of the NH service.
The idea of restoration of the service is to facilitate the movement of empleadas eastward to estates in Connecticut, a "reverse-commute" movement. Beat's taking the bus! The MTA seems to have mega-$$$ for silly environmental studies. The new New Haven-line M-8 cars will be able to handle the voltage change, too.
I'd appreciate any info on this topic. Thanks.
Bill -- wdh@mcn.net
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