West Shore/New York State Railways Junction at Mohawk

Hi All:

Can anybody direct me to a map that would help me find the exact location of the junction between the West Shore & where the New York State Railways third rail line split off at Mohawk?

I'm planning a trip to trace the former West Shore up that way and I am particularly interested in seeing the various points where the New York State Railways line joined/left,
as well as the various connections between the West Shore and the NYC mainline (Harbor connection, etc).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Frank

I suspect the exact location is obliterated, although most of the West Shore can readily be followed in this area; I certainly have driven through here dozens of times and never picked it out enough to know what it was.

Google got me one old postcard showing the junction and no close maps; a topo from the mid-20s or so is needed and none are available online that I've run into. There is a 1943 topo available, but the U&MV ROW isn't shown between the eastern limits of Mohawk and it's connection with the West Shore.

From looking it seems likely the connection was somewhere between E. Main Street and where Route 28 turns south - Route 5S occupies the West Shore ROW in this area. Possibly at the eastern end of the storage facility along the south side of the highway. Possibly further west, as there's still an abandoned bridge from a line which split south and went via the streets through Mohawk. The postcard view shows only a tower and no real discernable details to match it up.

Try here, they have 1920s and 30s topo of that area. The maps split in this area so when you move int he Herkimer/Mohawk area it has to refresh and you need to pick a new year.

http://www.historicaerials.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Search on Utica, NY (and move east) as Herkimer and Mohawk searches take you well north and you have to scroll a lot. 1932 has the electric railroad labeled north of the NYC in Herkimer and the UMV coming in the from south west of the city.

Charles

Also here.

Charles

Excellent - thanks for the assist, guys. I was thinking the junction would be buried under route 5S. Must have been a very interesting place back in the day!

A lot has changed since then - even the Mohawk! (scroll down to see current map)

Two more shots of the junction - you can use the two highlighted streets as reference points.

Yes, that map I clipped was from 1909. The Barge Canal changed the Mohawk.

Charles

That's the old Erie Canal, then, south of the West Shore. The bend in the West Shore is still there - it's just now Route 5S.

I was close, at least, wrong end of the storage unit place.

This is a tangled mess of transportation history that has, indeed, been obliterated by progress. A lot was happening 100 years ago; and a lot has changed in the 100 years since, most of it in the last 25 years! In addition to the junction discussed above, there was, or course, a corresponding junction on the west end. The western junction was located northeast of where Main St. crossed the Erie Canal at the border between the Village of Frankfort and the Town of German Flatts, about where the westbound Exit from NYS Rte 5s for Frankfort leaves 5s today. It was here that the double-track NYS Railways used the WSRR RoW to bypass Ilion and Frankfort (whose city fathers were not amenable to two tracks with high-speed trolleys going down their main street through the center of town) on its way to Herkimer, though a single-track street-line was available for local service. Location: 43.023N x -75.05W. Most of this connection was obliterated by construction of the NYS Rte 5s Frankfort to Utica by-pass. The roadbed portion of the connection north of Main St. remained and was visible as late as 1982. This, too, has been obliterated by the continuation of the 5s by-pass around Ilion and Mohawk.

The double-track West Shore was one of the first attempts by the NYC&HR and its successors and subsidiaries, including NYS Railways, to mix electric and steam on the same RoW, a precursor to the Utica to Syracuse West Shore electrification. The West Shore electric used a modified catenary rather than the 3rd rail used later from Utica to Syracuse. From The Railway Times, Dec 30, 1905, pg. 711:

ELECTRIC TRACTION ON AN AMERICAN RAILWAY

"A double-track section of the West Shore Railroad, 3.17 miles long, between Frankfort and Herkimer, New York, has just been electrically equipped, and is now being jointly operated by the steam trains of the West Shore Railroad and the electric cars of the Utica and West Shore Valley Railway.... It may be said that advantage has been taken to make certain experiments in electrifying this section and the lessons here learned will be applied in the work of electrifying the West Shore Railroad from Utica to Syracuse, on which section work has already commenced."

Thus the joint operation was only over a 3.17 mile section of the WS. The U & MV continued west to Utica on its own dedicated RoW.

2nd Section to follow in another post...

-WestShore4Ever

2nd Section.

The following annotated present-day aerial photo shows the relative locations of the lines of transportation. As shown in the earlier 1906 map of the eastern connection of the U&MV and the WS, after leaving that connection the U&MV crossed the Mohawk River. Note that the street-running local trackage of the U&MV crossed the Mohawk River on its own bridge and RoW east (downstream) of the highway bridge(s), which were themselves east of the double-track U&MV by-pass bridge. As part of the design and construction of the Barge Canal in the first two decades of the 20th century, it was deemed that the U & MV by-pass bridge over the Mohawk River was incompatible and would need to be removed. This was legally contested and went as far as the State Attorney General in Albany. The U & MV lost the fight and was required to us a new set of bridges, roughly on the alignment of the U & MV local line parallel with Mohawk St. The new railway bridge was built (after more legal contests) as part of the new single concrete project involving the Mohawk St bridge, guard-gate, waste weir and dam to be located at the point where the Barge Canal would enter a land cut going east, separate from the Mohawk River.

However, at this time there was no connection between the grade-separated WS and the U & MV street line. This arrangement left the double-track by-pass terminated on the Mohawk side of the Mohawk River, with the only connection to the Herkimer-to-Little Falls section being the single-track street line through Ilion and Mohawk. Unable to convince the village boards to allow rerouting of the “big cars” down their main streets, or financially unwilling to build yet another, higher bridge across the Mohawk, the U & MV turned to the Oneonta & Mohawk Valley, predecessor to the Southern New York Power and Railway(1916)/Southern New York Railroad(1924), which had reached an agreement with the West Shore to install a freight connection in Mohawk. From the Utica Observer, Friday, January 14, 1910:

"DREAM OF BIG CARS HAS FADED. Interurban Electrics Will Still Use the Cut-Off. Clever Arrangement Has Been Made by the Company at Mohawk to Use(sic) When Barge Canal Breaks in on the Line...proposed route of the Barge Canal would compel the railroad company to discontinue using the cut-off below Mohawk...they would have to run the big cars through Ilion...evidently the railroad company does not intend to use the old [Mains St.] route if it can be avoided, and here is the way it is done: ...the Oneonta & Mohawk Valley RR, which currently uses the tracks of the U. & M. V. through Mohawk to Herkimer ...made arrangements whereby a siding connecting the tracks of the U. & M. V. with the West Shore at the point where the latter road passes under the West Shore tracks was to be put in. This was to be done for the purpose of handling freight. The West Shore station at this point was moved and the new siding placed in position. Now comes the news that the U. & M. V. will not run the large cars through Ilion and Mohawk, as expected, but will run them over the West Shore to the Mohawk Station, and then by means of the new siding connect with their own tracks at this point and so over to Herkimer."

The following photo, taken from the hillside south of the WS Mohawk passenger station, shown the resulting complex of bridge structures. The bridges in the above photo are as follows:
1. WSRR bridge over E. Main St. (Mohawk)/Mohawk St.(Herkimer), original street-route of single-track U&MV local traffic, similarity to (4) suggests it may be new construction.
2. New WSRR bridge over rerouted U&MV, beginning of new U&MV double-track
3. Older Whipple truss bridge of Mohawk St. over original Erie Canal
4. New double-track U&MV bridge over original Erie Canal
5. New Mohawk St. bridge over Barge Canal
6. New Guard Gates for Barge Canal, allow draining for maintenance and protection during flooding of Mohawk River
7. New double-track, double-span U&MV bridge over Barge Canal
8. Original U&MY by-pass double-track bridge over Mohawk River
9. Older Mohawk St. bridge over Mohawk River
10. Original single-track U&MV bridge over Mohawk River, may have been structurally joined to side of (9)
11. New waste weir in Mohawk River for maintaining pool elevation for combined Barge Canal/Mohawk River upstream (left) of here
12. New double-track U&MV bridge over Mohawk River, an early, primitive Poire’e dam was constructed just east (right) of here, later replaced by current movable dam
13. Location of prior concrete culvert U&MY approach to original by-pass Mohawk River bridge, partially removed for new Barge Canal channel
14. Probable connection from WSRR to U&MV, required relocation of WSRR passenger station from south side to north side of mainline

This would place the effective connection with the West Shore somewhere opposite the freight house. (Location 43.014N x -74.99W) Supporting this assertion is a section of curving track visible in the foreground of the 1914 Bird’s Eye View image above that leads to no known industry. In addition, Sanborn Maps from 1902 (before the Barge Canal) and 1910 (after construction began) show the passenger station relocated as per the newspaper article. These maps show the station was literally moved across the tracks, not turned, and that the ticket office was now facing the river instead of the railroad – not that they were selling all that many tickets by then. This would have created what amounted to a short double switchback to move a trolley car from Ilion to Herkimer.

3rd Section to follow in separate post

- WestShore4Ever

Here's the west end connection, as best I can align it: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/245014619" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And the east end: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/245014621" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;