KGT's Fantasy Map

[hi55us]

1 seat ride from raritan to hicksville, I can't complain. Your map finally brings service to St. John's University in Queens (where I go to school) and it gets well needed extra service for Jamaica and LGA.

[Otto Vondrak]

If you want to talk about "fantasy" then buy the book I co-authored and check out the chapter on the New York & Portchester. It was supposed to be a four-track, third-rail electric railroad from the Bronx to Port Chester, via the Sound Shore. Chartered in 1901, the New Haven took notice, squashed it, acquired the NYW&B, merged the two, and built the NYW&B instead. Imagine a true-rapid transit line from the Bronx into Westchester?

The Yonkers/Getty Square Branch was built like the typical steam powered El's of the 1880s... and very easily could have been tied into the IRT after they took over the Put's Harlem River Swingbridge in 1916... In fact, the line was operated with tank engines and el coaches until electrified by NYC in 1926.

When the NYW&B was abandoned and awaiting its fate, there was a proposal to run express service from White Plains to 180th Street on the center tracks, while Subway service operated on the outside tracks to the Bronx/County line. Of course, Westchester couldn't get its act together, so all we have left is a stub of the NYWB/No. 5.

Buy the book. It's good readin'.

-otto-

[#5 - Dyre Ave]

So here I am bumping a 14-month old thread. Might it have also been a good idea to tie the Getty Square branch into the Concourse IND? I just read a thread on Subchat where one poster recently walked along much of the old Getty Square branch's right-of-way. He stated that quite a lot of it is still identifiable. Perhaps one day, that could be considered, especially if much of the ROW is still there.

[Paul1705]

Since we're talking (fantasizing?) about the Getty Square branch, it might be better to use a northward extension of the "A" train. The Regional Plan Association once proposed such a project along the Putnam ROW to Van Cortlandt Park South. (The idea was to demolish the elevated line on Broadway.)

Anyway, an apartment building now encroaches on the ROW at 238th Street. I suppose you could say the ROW through the park is "intact" in the sense that it has gone back to being part of the park, and only trees are in the way. (The bridge across the Henry Hudson Parkway is still there and used for a pedestrian crossing.) I don't know how well the nearby communities would receive a rail line in the park. (The neighborhoods to the east opposed the water filtration plant but they lost.)

It looks like most of the line through Yonkers itself would have to underground.

Well, there is one place where such projects happen:

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010 ... n-mobility

[keyboardkat]

Back in the late '50s, one Col. Sidney H. Bingham, who had "put the Philadelphia subway back on its feet" (I dont' think it stayed on its feet very long) was brought to NY to try to save New York area rail commuter service. To quote a Trains magazine article of the time, "Col. Sidney H. Bingham retreats from the problem into pure fantasy." He proposed trains of all lines (including the subway) running everywhere on each others' lines, running from where people lived to wherever there were jobs, crossing from one railroad to another. Your map is somewhat remeniscent of that.

Bingham left unanswered the problems of incompatibility of signaling systems, differing electrification systems (and in some cases lack of electrification), differing clearance standards and car-length standards, differing safety devices, etc. And he also left unanswered the question of who would pay for all the infrastructure changes that would be needed, and what to do about differing union jurisdictions, and whether the system could pay for itself out of the fare box (not likely) and if not, how all the different states and municipalities would resolve how much each should contribute to the operation.