Public Service of New Jersey

[Flintlock76]

"Weird New Jersey" had an article about them too, calling it "The 100 Steps of Doom!"  

There were two deaths on those stairs around the turn of the 20th Century, one was a man who shot himself and rolled all the way down, and a poor woman who (I think) slipped and fell down as well.

[Flintlock76]

Mike strikes again!

Hw found the whole "Weehawk" poem, and here it is:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t5v69n73v&view=1up&seq=79

I don't know how he does it.  I'm glad he's one of the good guys!

[daveklepper]

Overmod:  The Weehawken line of PSNJ did not need an elevator, hero8ic or otherwise, to connect to the NYCentral/West Shore (NYO&W a tenant) Weehawken Terminal.  The line ramped down to the terminal with a loop in a paved area just south of and nrxt to the terminal.  The operation was somewhat like a mineature version of the Denver & Salt Lake RR's "Giants Ladder" before opening of the Moffat Tunnel, but with very sharp-radius curves instead of switchbacks. There may have also been an elevator, but was not needed to connect between the streetcar and the trains or between the streetcar and the ferry boats,

Regarding the Ninth Avenue Elevated at 110th Street, Columbus to Central Park West - 8th Avenue: 

From the pictures, there was no 110th Street Station during steam-operaton years. I rode the line a nomber of times with my parents, up to the end-of-service, June 1940, age 8.  I recall using the 110th Street local station twice.  The station was located on straight track on 110th Street between the two avenues and was accessed by an elevator in a building on the north side of 110th Street, I think connected to a mezzanine ubder the three tracks and two side platforms, with stairways betwwen the mezzanine and the platforms.

 

[daveklepper]

Deleted as redundant

[Overmod]

In 1892 there was apparently a woman who slipped at the top of one of the stairs, I think the one with 20 flights of 20 steps, and rolled all the way to the bottom.

She revived in a few minutes, declined assistance, and went home.

I have the original of the WEEHAWK! poem too.  But I didn't post it all...

The person who quoted it did so in a now-rare typescript from 1932, the original perhaps surviving only in the poor photocopy from which I got the poor image of the Eldorado.

http://files.usgwarchives.net/nj/hudson/history/local/weehawken.txt

How many books would repeat that 'pome' in its entirety? 

[daveklepper]

Great poem.  Thanks

[daveklepper]

Regarding the woman who slipped, for the large-scale parallel, for a good local evaluation of the widely reported Meron tragedy, go to:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-tragedy-multiple-reports-of-political-pressures-not-to-limit-meron-event/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2021-05-01&utm_medium=email

 Upon my 80th Birthday, nine years ago, I decided I would no longer have an automobile drivers liscense, and would no longer be the audience or general participant in a large rally or protest or religious event, even rarely visiting the Western Wall and then only with class group from my Yeshiva.  Even before that, a description of the Maron event, with packing of people in spaces really too small, had me turn down all invitations to accompany others to that event.  Our Yeshiva had its own mini-celebration with lecture, entirely sufficient for me.  At 89, I don't move around much any more in any case.

[daveklepper]

Still working on repair of this photo, but I;ve prgressed enough to give an idea of the Hoboken Elevagted's Terminal, just north and connected by pedestrian walkways to the DL&W Terminal.

 

[daveklepper]

Hoboken - Summit car aboout to enter Journal Square Station, Jersey City

 

[Flintlock76]

Wow, those things were battleships, weren't they?

[daveklepper]

1.  Public Service of New Jersey kept building their own heavywight wood-and-steel cars long after most systems that bought new cars bought only lightweight cars.  There answer was lower car maintencance and that they  were using thier own power.  But what about track maintenance?

2.  More repair work on the previous photo. 

 

[Flintlock76]

From the histories I've got on Public Service, and there aren't many, track maintanance wasn't much of an issue, any more than it was for anyone else.  

Towards the end paying real estate taxes on the private rights-of-way was more of a thorn in their side than anything else was.

[daveklepper]

We can be certain that track used by heavywights requires more work than that used by lighweights.   Particularly switch-points and frogs.

[Flintlock76]

daveklepper

We can be certain that track used by heavywights requires more work than that used by lighweights.   Particularly switch-points and frogs.

 

No doubt you're right, but obviously Public Service found it acceptable.

[daveklepper]

And who is complaing?

[Flintlock76]

daveklepper

And who is complaing?

 

Not me!  

By the way, several years ago crumbling pavement in a North Jersey town (I forget which one) revealed some old Public Service trolley tracks, the sharp end of one tore up one of the tires of a NJ Transit bus.

Revenge of the trolley system!

I don't know if they've got any left, but ten years ago the Behnke Museum in Paramus NJ was selling 4" sections of Public Service trolley tracks from the Hudson River Line that surfaced during redevelopment work along the Paramus/Rochelle Park border.  Needless to say I grabbed one!  

[daveklepper]

Looking north on the Weehawken Ramp.  I imagine by now the road has been widened with lanes on what was the PSNJ right-of-way.

 

On the Oakland Line, with the Elevated in the background:

 

 

[daveklepper]

Comments from Jack May:  Two great pictures.  The one along Pershing Rd. ("the ramp") is the lesser of the two because the track sand traps are obscured as is much of the car.  The other of an inbound Oakland car is filled with detail.  This is taken along Hoboken Ave. in Upper Jersey City, The concrete fencing marks the alignment of the Holland Tunnel approach road in a trench below.  The car is using only one of the two tracks.  Both tracks were once also used by the Pavonia cars before they branched off to the left and crossed the Bergen Arches, not seen behind and to the left of the photographer.  In the far distance, the elevated structure is the PSCT elevated used by Jackson cars. Oddly, the Oakland line, a single track loop that used the elevated from Palisade Ave. to the Hoboken  Hudson Place trolley terminal, lasted till the end of fhe elevated line as a rush hour service linking the tenements in Hoboken with the industrial establishments on the "Heights." The car is a former southern Division wide-gauge car built under the auspices of the WW-1  War Production Board.  

 

[MidlandMike]

daveklepper

...the track sand traps are obscured...

What are track sand traps?

[Overmod]

MidlandMike

What are track sand traps?

Pretty sure these are the castings that control release of sand (for adhesion) from the car sandboxes down to the track.  A typical approach was to use gravity to feed the sand into a pocket or 'trap', then blow it out (and sometimes upward) to go into the sanding line; that way, no valve or other part could stick open to let all the sand dribble out, and the air valve or line could not become plugged or frozen.

[daveklepper]

Above not correct in this particular case:

From Henry Raudenbush:

 

 

Some time during the years when PSNJ had many lines operated with “All Service” (dual mode) buses, trolley bus wire was installed on the uphill lane only of the parallel Pershing Road.  All-service buses could go downhill OK on internal combustion, but went up this steep hill much better on electric traction.   Perhaps a unique case of a stretch of trolleybus line with wire only in one direction.

 

The trolley car line had a safety spur on the downhill track – a gantlet track with the rails buried in sand.  A short distance ahead, the 2806 will stop, and the operator will step out and throw a switch to avoid the sand track,  As the car has passed the switch, a detector bar, depressed by wheel flanges, will throw the switch back to the sand track.

 

And we will a  photo at the outbound descending for the Oakland  Line, where a rotary converter was located in an olsd streetcar body as part of a substation:

 

Photondoes need a bit miore work when I have time:

 

[daveklepper]

Not perfect, but possibly better?

[daveklepper]

Important correction:  The rotary converter was located in the building, and the "old car body" was an operating peiece of rolling-stock with pole on the wire. specifivally, the PSNJ Hudson Division Line-Car, recognizable by its insulated roof platform to facilitate repair work.  I feel humble to have made such an error, since I spent many hours on the roof of Branford's (Shore-Line Trolley) ex  Ottawa Electric's single-truck line-car heping Dick Wanson.

Some more views of the ramp, substation, and line car:

[Overmod]

BUT why is the line car's pole on the wire as 'backed in'?  Wouldn't the pole be swung for quick access from the 'pocket' if left on wire to keep air up (?) -- the visible end has the three tall windows blanked, right?

[daveklepper]

I do not t5hink the three front windows awe bkanked.  They would be more uniform if they were blanked.

[rcdrye]

Many line cars have a single pole.  Swinging it around would foul on the overhead platform.  Cars with a single pole were usually equipped with a wheel so the line car could be "back-poled" without much risk.

[Goodtiming]

 How do I post a photo that I have on my computer collection? Maybe someone has a copy already.....trolley on trestle turning from Booraem Ave, JC, on to Central Ave southbound.

[daveklepper]

I go to www.imgur.com; post a picture on their website, wait a minute or two (important) then use "Copy" and then use "{Control"-"V") to have it show up on the posting.

Kalmbach is not storing our photos on its website.  The posted picture is simply a link to whatever website where the picture is actually stored.

Two more PSNJ Jackson line pictures, inside Journal Square Station and in its vacinity:

 

[daveklepper]

Two 1947 fan-trips organized by Branford Electric Railway Association, operators of the Shore Line Trolley Museum.  I was 15 when I took thse photogrphs with a Leica D and F3.5 50mm Elmar lens:

At the Newark Division Orange car-house:

 

 

 

At the Hudsn Division Oakland carhouse:

On the main Jersey City - Newark Highay on the restored portion of the JC - Newark line for wae-worker service to the South Kearny Western Electric and Westinghouse factories:

 

 

At the Western Electric factory, tracks ex-Jersey Central, used to where there had been a grade-crossing with the highway and trolley-line:

 

Hudson Division snow-sweeper:

 

[Flintlock76]

Nice shots David!  For a fifteen year old you had a good eye for the camera!