Harlem Transfer Co. - How was the yard operated?

Tommy Meehan wrote:

JoeRailRoad wrote:

sandyriverman wrote:......I have read quite a bit re the Harlem Terminal about some cars having to be unloaded from one side. HT had no way to turn cars so that would have been a major issue for them. Loading the car and taking it to be turned would have cost money. Could the crews working the switching at the loading yards have also arranged those one-sided cars also?

The short answer is no. If nothing could be done at HT then the car would have to be returned to Jersey for turning.

The trainweb website to which the links were posted is really awesome. Having spent some time browsing the site I hope my comments seem more like observation than speculation!

At any rate, the yard maps indicate that there were no private sidings. Just team tracks. Paired tracks with wide roadways in between. Served first by horse-drawn teams and later by trucks.

Obviously a consignee could access either side of a car depending on what track the car was placed on. There would be no need to return the car to Jersey to have it turned. Having attended several of Tom Flagg's presentations I'm sure that did happen occasionally at some terminals though I can't say which ones offhand.

That's a very good suggestion.

If a car couldn't be spotted at the warehouse the easiest thing to do was spot it on a team track to unload it from the other side.

Now why didn't I think of that.
Joe

JoeRailRoad wrote:That's a very good suggestion.

Thanks Joe, coming from someone like yourself, that's appreciated!

Btw, the site says the coal storage towers on the west side of the yard came down around 1969. After they did you could see the yard from the east side windows of passing Penn Central suburban trains as they came off the ex-NYC Harlem River bridge. I frequently saw the HT 53 in there, but sadly I don't think I ever caught it working, it was always laid up. I had the idea the crew had a pretty short 'day.'

Here's a diagram of the freight yard, taken from a 1898 issue of Railroad Gazette.