And some New Yorkers and all Chicagoans used the abreviation "L" and not "El."
And some steam rapid transit trains did run in tunnels, notably in London. Also on Atlantic Avenue (LIRR) service in Brooklyn (much shorter than the existing subway of course, but with "L" type equpment including Chicago Forneys displaced by electrificaiton) and Park Avenue Manhattan.
New Yorkers who use L for elevated train might find themselves confusing people who believe they refer to the L train.
I know DL&W steam locomotives ran through the Bergen HIll tunnel. But I can't believe steam engines ran through long tunnels.
The first St. Clair Tunnel between Port Huron and Sarnia was operated with steam locomotives when it first opened. Several asphyxiation incidents forced the change to electric operation.
The Moffat Tunnel in Colorado was operated with steam locomotives. I don't think that Rio Grande ever considered electrifying the tunnel operation.
CSSHEGEWISCHThe first St. Clair Tunnel between Port Huron and Sarnia was operated with steam locomotives when it first opened. Several asphyxiation incidents forced the change to electric operation.
In some ways the good ol' days were pretty bad.
The Bergen Hill Tunnels were well ventilated and short enough that steam was not a problem. Diesel fumes, however are and there are rules and guidelines. Steam in tunnels came to be a major problem in and out of GCT forcing electrification on the NYC. Some tunnels had giant fans to push steam out, others had doors and shafts, some were electrified until dieselization came about.
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As you point out, Henry, the Bergen Hill tunnels have ventilation shafts and they are not too long. I've gone through them on diesel trains many times with no problem for anyone.
As I understand it the City of New York passed an ordinance forbidding steam locomotives in the city. The NYC then started using electric locomotives. That was early in the last century.
PS. I don't think the New York Central & Hudson River RR had a lot to do with the Manhattan Transfer.
John WR PS. I don't think the New York Central & Hudson River RR had a lot to do with the Manhattan Transfer.
Yes and no. NYC and PRR were at each other's neck to get the Gotham traffic...and Manhattan Transfer was the result....especially once NYC started laying the 3rd rail, PRR couldn't move fast enough to do the same.
The B&O was granted access to Penn Station to enhance the movement of passenger traffic between New York and Washington by the War Board during WW I and continuing until 1924 (I think).
Did the RDG-CNJ portion of the New York routing bring these trains to Manhattan Transfer so they could also get Electric power, or was Electric power added to these trains at some other location? I have never seen a B&O public timetable from this era.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
henry6Yes and no. NYC and PRR were at each other's neck to get the Gotham traffic...and Manhattan Transfer was the result.
Yes, but these wise men of Gotham left us with a special curse: Their stations were built with no direct connection and to this day we live without it. To have gotten from GCT to the Manhattan Transfer a train would have had to gone north far enough to go back on the Hell Gate Bridge. With luck the bridge would be closed. Did any train ever do that?
They were competitors, why would they have wanted to work with each other. PRR had the NYNH&H via the Hell Gate Bridge and NYC had them as tenants from the virtual beginning. There was basically no reason to cooperate when you were competing as NYC and PRR were. It was a different time with different dynamics at work.
henry6It was a different time with different dynamics at work.
Yes, it was a different time with different dynamics at work.
Not only in New York City but also all over the country railroads would deliberately build their terminals unconnected to other railroads. For a long time some railroads would even refuse to haul cars from other railroads. The Central Pacific refused to accept cars from the Union Pacific at Ogden Utah. Passengers had to get off one train with their luggage and board another train. And as Robert L. Young famously pointed out a pig can travel coast to coast without changing trains but we human beings still cannot.
Such is the legacy of private railroad companies.
I've always thought that the PATH ROW has now fully been disconnected from Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. However I believe that there are still some switched that allow PATH to merge into Amtrak's main line on PATH's southbound track. The switches are clearly visible in this map: http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/Maps/Itlk/dock.gif It was rebuilt in May 22,1937 when Manhattan Transfer was removed and the last revision of the DOCK interlock was of April 29,1967 unless there has been another revision recently.
Part of the H&M/PATH line to Newark was owned by PRR which is why it is occasionally referred to as the "Joint Operation" and why PRR owned some of the cars in that service. Position light signals were in operation on the line and there may have been some freight customers on the line that were served by PRR.
H&M never had freight on its lines. Journal Sq. to Newark had (has) two reverse signaled tracks for PATH. At one time there was PRR traffic on those tracks perhaps in the Meadows but only as running tracks not to service any place. Keeping H&M/PATH trains separate from any PRR/PC/CR/CSX/CSAO traffic is of highest priority and is how it is operated today.
This discussion reminds me of the guys back in the 70's or 80's who tried to hijack an PATH train on its way to Newark and demanded it take them to Florida!
LOL! WOHAA HA HA HA!!! A PATH train to Florida!? Yeah OK!!! HAA HAA HAA!!! I bet you those folks can't tell the difference between diesel and electric. It's like hijacking a NYC subway train and demanding it to take them to California.
I just realized how could the H&M had operated with PRR trains on the same track! The H&M was a rapid transit, and they operate on a frequent time slot. So how could they have coordinated schedules and signaling? It's like having PATH trains operating on the Morris & Essex county line trains to Hoboken and Northeast corridor to NYC Penn station with PATH traffic too! How was the H&M and PRR joint operation ever possible?
How many Newark stations were really there? I've known the history of the PRR for 14 years not but never recalled any articles on Park place or South street. I recently obtained the PR Triumph V New York To Phila. I know know that the first Station on Newark was on ground level with two tracks circa 1870. Then the second was circa 1913 4 tracks elevated, and the third one was built in 1935 to today with 6 tracks and one PATH track in the middle of six, and one upstairs. Funny I'm 28 years old and have been riding this line since 1988 and never knew that Newark had track H upstairs until about 2004.
One interesting point: to this very day, the PATH equipment is FRA compliant, including the buff-draft regulations appropriate to 'main-line' railroads, as a consequence of the joint PRR operation.
See here, for example, for some idea of what the "Joint Service Electric Railroad" operations involved.
Naturally, 'regular' PRR trains did not operate through the actual Tubes, but there is no more 'difficulty' running a PRR train to Jersey City between two scheduled H&M trains than there would be, say, in operating a diesel-powered work train between two subway trains. Meanwhile, PRR did own a percentage of the Tube-spec cars. Brian Cudahy (in 'Rails Under the Mighty Hudson, 1975) had a good discussion of the practicalities of the joint operation,including these details (taken from a railfan.net posting years ago):
".......only PRR-owned cars were ever equipped with cab signals during the 'joint service' days; the MP-38's and the 'K' cars were all so equipped, and only PRR cars could be positioned at the front and rear of trains; H&M equipment could only be placed in mid-train positions......" ".......during the old 'joint service' days, the H&M actually and literally shared trackage with the PRR beyond Journal Square, and motormen were required to pass a PRR book-of-rules examination. Since the line could be traveled by either a rapid transit or railroad train, smash-boards were installed at key points to prevent Pennsy engines from taking incorrectly set signals, and venturing onto tight trackage reserved for the shorter (and narrower) H&M/PATH equipment......."
I think this addresses the concerns you mentioned... but I strongly recommend that book as interesting further reading if you are interested in what is now the PATH service. (See Inchesco's post of Dec 9 in this thread for the Amazon URL)
RME
Incorrectly set signals is a mistake one can't afford!
Yes, Cudahy's book...long time since I read it and so forgot! Important study of the Tubes and PRR....
henry6They were competitors, why would they have wanted to work with each other. PRR had the NYNH&H via the Hell Gate Bridge and NYC had them as tenants from the virtual beginning. There was basically no reason to cooperate when you were competing as NYC and PRR were. It was a different time with different dynamics at work.
As you can see, Henry, when you posted this last December 28 you started me thinking about it. The difference, of course, was that private railroads had no sense of public responsibility. Or am I being too harsh? I would like to see a better reason for these kinds of decisions but that is the best one I can come up with.
John
John WR henry6They were competitors, why would they have wanted to work with each other. PRR had the NYNH&H via the Hell Gate Bridge and NYC had them as tenants from the virtual beginning. There was basically no reason to cooperate when you were competing as NYC and PRR were. It was a different time with different dynamics at work. As you can see, Henry, when you posted this last December 28 you started me thinking about it. The difference, of course, was that private railroads had no sense of public responsibility. Or am I being too harsh? I would like to see a better reason for these kinds of decisions but that is the best one I can come up with. John
I suspect it has something more to do with the New Haven being Mr. Morgan's railroad, and his wanting to have a piece of both the NYC and PRR terminals. Remember the story about the meeting on the Corsair? What gave Mr. Morgan the authority to compel Roberts and Depew (and by extension the Vanderbilts) to stop the (destructive) competition?
[As an aside: it appears the reason the meeting was held on the Corsair is similar to the reason the 'advanced degrees' in Scientology are held on ocean cruises...]
Edited to improve semantics, 4/11.
I'm old, Overmod, but not quite old enough to remember the Corsair meeting. However, I have read about it in history books.
I think J. P. Morgan saw the competition between the New York Central and Pennsylvania as destructive to both and wanted to put a stop to it.
1. Before the building of Penn Sta Newark, Manhattan Transfer was the only transfer point between PRR trains and the PRR-H&M joint service between Hudson Terminal and the special Park St. Elevated Sta. in Newark.
2. PRR and H&M-PRR joint service trains at one brief time did use the same platforms at Harrison. There is not room for any other platforms at Harrison. PRR trains stopped stopping at Harrison before WWII. However, frieght was on occasion loaded or unloaded on those platforms during WWII. At one time there was caternary as well as third rail. Nosing on the platforms was added after WWII restricting track access only to the PRR-H&M joint service cars, half owned by each.
3. Officially, the line west of Journal Sq. was PRR, not H&M. Now, 100% PATH
aegrotatioDon't forget the long-forgotten Susquehanna Transfer station, too!!
Susquehanna Transfer station was a circa WWII development by NYSW to allow passengers to transfer to buses going to NYC and later to the Port Authority bus terminal and had nothing to do with PRR/H&M or JC.
Dave, on a recent ride into Newark Penn I noted cat over the PATH track into Harrison station from Secaucus Jct...not sure where it started and not sure it is used...
Interesting story.
I had always wondered why the Q (in bankruptcy and still technically under Erie control) built the station where it was, instead of running through the Palisades Tunnel and then across to a transfer station near the Lincoln Tunnel portals. Aside from the obvious ... the 3.6% grade in the tunnel may have had something to do with it.,,
Isn't this transfer station more or less exactly where the "7 line extension" first stop in New Jersey, and big park 'n ride lot expansion, would be? ...
The B&O bus transfer, as happens, has a rather more interesting history than I'd thought. At one point the buses were ferried across (via CNJ ferry) before they started using the Holland Tunnel after it was finished [presumably this was after they were 'kicked out' of Penn Station in 1926.
Something I had not realized was what the buses did on the Manhattan side for a 'terminus' -- at least some of the buses didn't have one! They ran a loop to New York points including a number of hotels, Columbus Circle and Union Square, and ticket-office points... perhaps making lemonade out of the lack of a fixed station point. I can easily see convenience in being picked up right at my hotel, complete with checked baggage...
Presumably there were stops on the Jersey side, too, but I don't know precisely where they were.
Doubt the B&O bus could find Jersey stops between the Holland Tunnel and the terminal...train schedules didn't show them except to and from the Terminal and one or two addresses downtown NY. What I think was even more unique about the B&O bus was that it actually was trackside on the platform and not out in the parking lot!
The Susquehanna's Susquehanna Transfer was actually in the middle of a park and ride where mostly Public Service but also other buses ferried to the Port Authority BT . Suzie's ticketing arrangement was through the PS bus.
I rode the B&O in 1945. The bus used the CNJ Ferry, not the Holland Tunnel. As far as I know, the B&O buses never used the Holland Tunnel except when ferry operations were curtailed by fog or ice. I used, with my Columbia Grammer School 8th-grade classmates, the Columbus Circle B&O bus station.
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