Bay Ridge Service

When I was a kid living in Brooklyn, I used to walk the tracks of this line. I remember going to the Brooklyn Terminal Markets and seeing strings of reefers. Does the NY&A service the Market any more? If not is the siding still there? Thanks.


Mike

I also remember when I was 6 or so, my grandparents lived a block away from the branch on Ocean Avenue at Avenue I, and my father walked me to the tracks as there was an access stairway there. More noticabilly in the 90's, I heard the freights going through there by hearing the screetching noise, and even hearing the K5 horns. Not much action there in the 80's. My father even told me at that time that the line was abandoned to which I never believed him.

Yes, Brooklyn Terminal Market is still serviced. They still receive reefers.

Jay

Thanks Jay! That's good to hear. I'm going back to the mid '60s and back then it was a busy place.

Mike

Neil, your father was right - the line had fallen into disuse during the 1980s, and become a linear garbage dump. It was cleaned up for use starting in the late 1980s I believe, when Conrail sold it to the LIRR (MTA).

Also at the market when NYAR first started was a siding for Key Food. They used to take ketchup by the boxcar load. It was inside the building directly opposite from where the reefers are unloaded.

Since I haven't worked that branch regularly since I was a rookie, I don't know when the last carload was for them.

Jay

Jay, I don't know who in particular gets service at Brooklyn Terminal market, but there are a couple of boxcars sitting on the siding there (street level) also every week. One of them is a reefer as I hear the compressor unit going.

I'm not sure of the customer's name there (there may be actually more than one), but I think they usually get potatoes.

Jay