passenger cars abandoned in Boston 1970s?

I do not know where else on the site to ask this question, figured this may be the best place. Maybe 30+ years ago on Northern Ave. as you crossed over the drawbridge heading towards Anthony's Pier 4 and the No Name restraurant there was a large lot of empty land just on the left. At one point of time there was maybe 6 to 10 old passenger cars sitting way back on the property almost next to the water. I was just a teenager than, but was wondering if anyone may know, where they came from and what happened to them. To the best of my memory I saw no markings on them, and I think they were mostly blueish in color. This may have been asked before but can not find any reference to it. Just puzzled how and why they were there.

Are good point tom, Boston, Massachusetts.

what town? what state? hahaha

I remember them too. I believe they were mostly former Pennsylvania RR P70 coaches and baggage cars, and were privately owned. I assume they were scrapped when the former New Haven RR yard was reclaimed for development, but I can't add anything beyond that.

I used to work on Sleeper St., and our loading dock was opposite those coaches. They were stored there, to be used as a restaurant...which never materialized. I want to say they came from Steamtown in VT. This is a good question to ask over on the RyPN "Interchange" discussion forum... http://www.rypn.org

Stephen

That yard just before the old Northern Avenue Bridge was owned by Anthony Athenas of Anthony Pier 4 fame, but prior to that it was the New Haven Railroad's "Grape Yard", so called because freight cars loaded with grapes would be staged there. Italians from the North End would come over and buy grapes from the railroad men which they would then make their home-made wine with. (Better than anything you'll buy at Blanchard's - not that I've ever tasted any.) That was primarily my sector as a young Boston Patrolman in the C411A car at the time. I have been inside them and can tell you that they were rusted out hulks, but they had their trucks and couplers. No seats though. They sat in sort of a gulley as when Athenas made the parking lot there, he filled around the tracks but left the cars sitting on theirs. I made some interesting arrests in that lot and found a body underneath one of those cars around 1987. I believe that had the Federal Courthouse not been constructed on the lot that the cars would have been removed as a hazard anyway, as homeless persons were using them, complete with impromptu toilet facilities and bon-fires inside. It's isolated location made it a meeting spot for all sorts of clandestine meet and greets in the wee hours of the morning, both coming in from the harbor as well as going into the harbor, if you know what I mean. Similiarly off-topic, but I'll tell you now that it's gone, the whole lot was under constant observation by the U.S. Coast Guard with high-power night and day scopes. We had a pursuit in there one night and they called us, not only telling us where exactly our suspects were, but what they were wearing as well ! I was surprised to see someone identifying the cars as Pennsy. I always thought that they might be old New Haven pre-McGinnis heavyweight coaches which were in retirement in the NH Grape Yard. If you're an old (tacky) movie fan, check out "Second Sight" with John Larroquette, which was released around 1989. There is a scene where there is a vehicle chase that goes right through a fishing tackle shack towards the end. (The flick was made in Boston). That shack was constructed and filmed in the Grape Lot. I had the director walk up to me and yell at me that I should be "in place" thinking that I was a "policeman extra". You should have seen his face when I gave him my answer ! Hahaha!!!

I'm pretty sure they were old CNJ coaches, part of Steamtown's stuff. The Vermont Steamtown, that is. The cars may have been on lease to Anthony's Pier 4 for restaurant use (or they may have been sold outright). I heard about a lot of this stuff back in the day, and should have kept a logbook....

If the cars were clerestory-roof, 4-axle 70 footers, they were probably CNJs from Steamtown. I could tell from one semi-decent photo. I doubt they were left-over NH cars, as Penn Central cleaned all the old NH junk locos and cars out of Southampton St. yards in 1970-71.

3rd rail, it sounds like they were the "on-dry-land urban equivalent" of a bunch of sunken-off-the-coast subway cars, made into an artifical reef to attract marine life and creatures..... they attracted some interesting urban life forms !!!

Having had my memory jogged by a couple postings that followed what I wrote this morning, the Steamtown/CNJ connection does seem right to me too. I know that there was at least one ex-PRR baggage car in the group, but I agree that the coaches were the CNJ type, not PRR P70s. I never shot any photos that I could check now because the line of decrepit cars wasn't particularly photogenic!

This first pic is all that I could come up with from the net. It's a photo of one of the CNJ coaches up at Steamtown, Vt. Whether it's one of the cars on Fan Pier, I don't know.

As regards the NH map, those cars were at 10:00 to the large smoking steamer in the Harbor (pronounced HA-buh for all you foreigners) at the bottom left in the picture.

My hazy memory says the coaches were blue, some with wide faded yellow paint running the length of the cars, from top to bottom of the windows...

steveh wrote:My hazy memory says the coaches were blue, some with wide faded yellow paint running the length of the cars, from top to bottom of the windows...

Blue with a yellow stripe sounds like VIA Rail, no?

The paint color looks right, but I can remember they may have had a few different colors. That is all I can remember, I knew the yards were there, but by that time the track was taken up I believe, that is why I could not figure how they got there. Thanks for the replies and response in detail about the site. Were they scrapped?

Ridgefielder wrote: Blue with a yellow stripe sounds like VIA Rail, no?

That's the VIA color scheme, but they were definitely not VIA cars. Aside from the fact that VIA didn't exist until 1978 and was acquiring equipment rather than disposing of it in the early years, they had no non-air-conditioned heavyweight coaches on their roster. Plus the blue in this case wasn't VIA blue.

I do wish now that I had taken some pictures.

I do also, Tom. They were there for so long that they sort of "hid in plain sight". I went through my photo files last night to see if I could find one, but alas to no avail. I believe that there were a few newspaper photo-articles which highlighted the area prior to it's conversion and actually remember reading one which brought up the fact that it seemed as if Athanas had been holding this key piece of property. It likely had photos of the cars as they represented the lots prior use as well as it's decline. Anybody have access to an archived photo room ?

steveh wrote:My hazy memory says the coaches were blue, some with wide faded yellow paint running the length of the cars, from top to bottom of the windows...

Yes, that was the NJDOT paint job that some of these CNJ cars got into the 1970s.

Here's an ex-CNJ coach on the Catskill Mountain Railroad:

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/cnj1198.jpg

-otto-

Otto Vondrak wrote:Here's an ex-CNJ coach on the Catskill Mountain Railroad:

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/cnj1198.jpg

-otto-

Is that a new cost cutting answer to a bridge - using the rails as the bridge ? (PCRR "high-speed" ROW.)