Harlem River Lift Bridge

IIRC, from what I heard long ago, it was a major battle to get permission to "fix" the movabale bridges at Annsville Creek (Peekskill) and Wappengers Creek (New Hamburg).

After the mainline was straight-railed across the Wappingers bridge, MN required 48' advance notice for any boat traffic that wanted passage. This would have required cutting the rail in order to open the bridge. AFAIK, this never happened. However, when I was on the NE Region and having an arguement with MN, I would threaten to rent a boat and give MN the required notice to go up Wappengers on a Saturday AM and return on a Sunday PM. The only sharp person with MN back then was Vinnie Marlowe who would answer "No problem; we'll rent a couple of cranes use a sling, and lift the boat over the rr!"

New York Central actually had to do that -- remove rails from the Annsville Creek bridge near Roa Hook above Peekskill -- back about 1940 in order to accommodate a single recreational boater. A building superintendent from the Bronx and his family who wanted to go for rides on summer Sundays. At first Central offered to "pay his expenses" if he would take his family somewhere else but he was adamant. His boat was located on Annsville Creek and he was bored with just going up and down the creek. He wanted to ride up to West Point and back!

Central had to have a MOW crew come out, lift the rails (it was stick rail) and then winch up the bridge. The crew would then standby waiting for the boater to return. They had to do it several times.

Central complained to the War Department (they were in charge of navigable waterways back then) that it was an unfair burden on the railroad and eventually got permission to permanently close the bridge. The War Department ruled that since there was no longer any commercial traffic on Annsville Creek, requiring the railroad maintain a movable bridge for a few recreational boaters was not fair.

Geez, I know I'm getting old. I haven't stopped thinking of the Harlem River lift bridge as "the new bridge" (1955). I remember some odd stuff about my early childhood, one of which is crossing the "old" bridge (1897, I think) in the early 1950's!

When I was in there a few months back there was log books from the 1970's with hundreds of openings listed for the year. The lift bridge control console had listed for the four tracks directionally " this way to GCT, this way to Buffalo."

Here's a video I shot the other night of the Track 2 & 4 side being tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU7lOy1YV1w" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What are those unusual overhead signals on the approach to the Harlem River Bridge? So far as I can tell the aspects are either a white "up arrow" or an "X." Never seen anything like it anywhere else.

route indicators, telling engineer if his route lined up Harlem or Hudson line.
same are used at woodlawn for Harlem or New Haven.

They aren't that unusual they're used in two places on Metro-North and even on some other railroads.

Harold on LIRR,for Mainline or Port Washington branch routing.

At both ends of the Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel in Baltimore, when the PRR installed a gauntlet track for freight trains; also, later, at New Carrollton, to indicate whether the route is lined for the through track or the gauntlet (platform) track. (Maybe they're both gone now.) A characteristic of speed signaling--when two or more routes are good for the same speed you need some further indication to let the engineer know whether his train is properly routed. At Harold, I assume they'll also need that for westbounds to distinguish between NYP and ESA. Back in H&M days there was a smash board protecting the facing switch for westbound moves straight ahead for PRR and diverging into Harrison for H&M. The smash board was placed just above roof height of H&M trains, and the letters H-M were illuminated when the switch was lined for the platform at Harrison.

Captain can you get us back on course ??? its a MN forum.

there is one at Mill River just north of the Division post in new haven

Interesting point that this type of "arrow" signal might be useful where both routes are the same speed so conventional signal aspects won't convey which route you're lined for. But in Metro-North's case they need it because their new style signal aspects convey so little info. They are strictly stop vs. proceed signals. They convey nothing about route or speed.

Backshophoss, where in Harold Interlocking are these arrow/route signals? And is there anyplace they can be seen from public accessible locations? I've never seen them, but then again they could be there and we never know it since we can't see out the front of the current fleet of trains.......

Actually, the directional arrows were installed long before the updating of the signal system. They were installed because of the increased number of misroutes at MO and Woodlawn.

A Hudson train up the Harlem or a harlem up the NH in rush really would screw things up.

correct the route indicators have been at same location for at least 50 or so years, only one new is track 4 at Woodlawn as bronx between MO and Woodlawn use to be ABS and not CTC.