New York Pennsylvania (Penn) Station - History, Remnants, etc.

The other day I read that NYC Penn Station was built in 1910.

Does that refer to the station building, or the rail connection itself?

Surely PRR had service to NYC before 1910, right???

Thanks much.

Penn Station and the connection to NJ were indeed finished in 1910. Before then, all PRR service to New York was via ferry.

Before 1910, ALL, service from the south terminated in New Jersey. PRR constructed, and electrified the Hudson and East River Tunnels and built Penn Station as a part of that project. Motive power was switched from steam to electric at a station in New Jersey called Manhattan Transfer. This lasted until electrification of the entire Phila- New York route eliminated the need to change engines to run into Manhattan.

The B&O, on the other hand, never acquired this kind of access into Manhattan and terminated its New York service at Jersey City, right up to the 1950's abandonment of passenger service between DC and NY.

To elaborate, until 1910 the only railroad that went to Manhattan without needing a boat was the New York Central. The New Haven had long-standing trackage rights on the New York Central to Grand Central. Every other railroad needed ferries and car floats. (I don't know if the New Haven had trackage rights for freight or only for passengers.) In 1900 the PRR bought the Long Island Rail Road because the LIRR had the right to dig a tunnel to Manhattan. Then the PRR built the Hudson tunnels, Penn Station, the 4 East River tunnels and Sunnyside Yard. Next, they built Hell Gate Bridge and the New York Connecting Railroad, operated jointly with the New Haven, to allow through passenger service from the south and west to New England. Hell Gate also carried freight between Long Island and New England.

All New York bound PRR passenger trains terminated in Jersey City prior to the opening of New York Penn. Station. All passengers then ferried across the river to Manhatten.
The location of the Jersey City station was at the foot of Montgomery St. on the Hudson River waterfront. This is the location of one of the earliest railroad stations in the United States. The New Jersey Railroad built from here to New Brunswick in the 1830s. They were later brought out by the PRR. Sadly there is no historical marker, anything, commemorateing the location.

lnterestingly contractors are now having one hell of a time digging out concrete station foundations for a new entrance to the PATH station.

Thanks very much everyone!

walt wrote:The B&O, on the other hand, never acquired this kind of access into Manhattan and terminated its New York service at Jersey City, right up to the 1950's abandonment of passenger service between DC and NY.

The B&O also had the route to Staten Island; did any passenger service to Manhattan use this, or just freight?

walt wrote:The B&O, on the other hand, never acquired this kind of access into Manhattan and terminated its New York service at Jersey City, right up to the 1950's abandonment of passenger service between DC and NY.

During World War I, the United States Railroad Administration ordered the Pennsy to grant B&O trains access to Penn Station. However, this arrangement ended in the mid-1920s.

The Staten Island connection asked about was essentially a freight connection, and not an overly major one at that. The B&O owned or controlled the Staten Island Rapid Transit; the B&O also owned or controlled the Reading, which, in turn, owned or controlled the Jersey Central (being unknowledgeable on such, I'm not even going to venture a guess on percentage of stock ownership anywhere in the mess). The Reading had trackage rights over the CNJ from Bound Brook Junction to Jersey City; the B&O had trackage rights over the Reading, and, I guess, piggybacked onto the Reading's trackage rights over the CNJ.

The major "New York" terminal for the B&O, Reading, and Jersey Central was Jersey City, New Jersey, with ferry connections to New York City and carfloat connections to all connecting railroads within the four boroughs of New York City (Staten Island excepted). The SIRT on Staten Island also had carfloat connections with the other various railroads, but was not part of any through routing - any cars being floated to Staten Island were for Staten Island.

The Baltimore & Ohio had a passenger station on 42nd St. opposite Grand Central Terminal until it terminated the Royal Blue Line service. You boarded a White Motor Co. bus decked out in B&O passenger Diesel colors for thew ride to the CNJ Jersey City terminal, The bus actually went out on the station platofrm and dropped off each passenger by his or her car. There was a bus turntable!? at the end of the platform. Rode the B&O from New York to Detroit in 1955, weish I had photographed to arrangement,

I vaguely remember a report about a trip the current queen of England & her husband took, from Washington to NY, via the B&O, Cranford Jct., and East; supposedly in the 50's (1956?). Anybody else heard of this? Sam

"The very last SIRT special was for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of England on October 21, 1957. They traveled by rail from a state meeting with President Eisenhower in Washington DC to New York and a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. Their trains (press and royal) left Washington the evening of October 20 for Camp Kilmer New Jersey, traveling over the B&O and Reading Company. The movement was similar to a POTUS (President of the US) with extremely high security and secrecy.

Both trains reached the Camp via Reading’s Port Reading Branch. At the Camp, the trains were reconfigured by dropping the two leading diesel units of each, leaving one unit each for the next part of the trip to Staten Island. This was done for passing over the Arthur Kill swing bridge which had a limited load capacity. The two lead diesel sets were then taken to Cranford Junction via the Reading and Jersey Central to await return of the equipment from Staten Island.

On Monday, October 21 at 6 AM, the 10 car press train left Camp Kilmer over the Lehigh Valley to Staten Island Junction and the SIRT. Exactly one hour later, the 11 car heavy-weight Pullman-equipped royal train followed. Both specials rolled directly and non-stop into a freight yard at Stapleton. It was specially cleaned up for the occasion as was the motorcade’s route along Bay Street to St. George Ferry Terminal. As soon as the Queen’s motorcade left the yard, an SIRT switcher took each train back to Cranford Junction, hauling them in reverse. From Cranford, the equipment of both trains dead-headed to Baltimore early that afternoon."

Source: http://jcrhs.org/B&O.html

Was NYP designed to replace Exchange Place or merely to supplement it? For a flagship station it is awfully small. Only 21 tracks and it is fed by a double track branch line. What was the PRR thinking when they designed Penn? Midtown had already been created by GCT and you could easily tell that it was going to becom the heart of the city. Why did the PRR underestimate NYP's use and overestime Exchange Place's use?

New York Pennsylvania Station was designed to replace the Exchange Place Terminal for Intercity long distance trains only. During the planing stages the PRR did discuss joint facilities with the other railroads terminating in New Jersey but they opted not to join the project a short sighted mistake.

I think the issue with the suburban traffic and I will have to do more research on this has to do with the destination of most of Pennsy's Commuters on the Long Branch and the Trenton Line. They were mostly bound for lower Manhattan. Penn Station was in mid-town. Later the Pennsy began to run commuter trains into Penn but they only built two tunnels on the Hudson side they had four on the East River Side so I would think they didn't plan to run Jersey suburban traffic thru Penn when they designed the station. The station was designed to handle suburban traffic from the LIRR. I am sure that passenger destinations at the time of design influenced their thinking.

I have encountered an interesting thing in looking at suburban traffic where it seems some of the New York Suburbs catered to different professions and that certain parts of New York City had different job classes. Manufacturing Employees lived in certain suburbs and went to certain parts of the city. Bankers chose other suburbs and were destined to certain parts of the City etc. I am not far enough along with this to give specifics.

Picture a double track, long distance main from the west into the station, continue it east to the service yard and to a lesser New England long distance service. Then add an additional double track system to the east for the LIRR. That is what I think the vision was. Although the main west of Newark was 4 tracks, tunnel costs would prohibit continuing them under the Hudson and for the short distance it wouldn’t matter. Also part of the 4 track main to the west was for the freight running west from Lane tower. As far as the station size goes, 21 tracks was what would fit into eight expensively excavated city blocks and fitted the calculated needs.

In The 1910 ASCE paper, George Gibbs gives the main project objective as replacing a ferry serviced Jersey City terminal with a central New York station. It was to incidentally include other improvements to:
-shift the LIRR’s main terminal from LI City to New York
-offer Manhattanites access to LI residential areas and New Jersey access to LI resort beaches. Newark had a population of 347,000.
-give Queens and Brooklyn direct rail access to the west and south
-create a future all rail access from New England to the west and south.
-secure a downtown passenger terminal by connecting with the H&M (implying that Exchange Place was to stay for local and long distance customers to downtown)

The paper gives the station size calculation as being based on the following movements per hour:
-26 trains per tunnel, 156 total per hour, 2.25 min headway at 50-60mph

PRR...5 tracks 14 trains
...“...................15 empties to Sunnyside
...“...................10 station turn-around (ie run the loco around and reload?)
...“...................31 drafts to Sunnyside
....(is a draft a part consist such as mail cars to be loaded being brought over ahead of the coaches????)
LIRR..5 tracks 19 trains (loco hauled?)
...“..................16 empties to Sunnyside
...“.....4 tracks 54 suburban trains
...“..................24 head switching (loco hauled? run it around and reload?)
..................=183 trains

It also indicated that using MU’s for New Jersey would increase these numbers.

Bill