High Line - New York City

Currently the Highline is "dead ended" because the buildings it once passed through have sinced closed there portions of the ROW to be used for non rail porpose. LIRR can use that as there "down town" line or as the beginning of a "down town" connection, that can end when NYC had that big freight transload facility, withc i dont know if it is still stnading(?) some positives of this would include LIRR to downtown and more yard room for LIRR.

Also if not feisable for LIRR to use maby the 7 train can be extended to that.

at this time i say make it into a rail trail and restore the structure, if need for trains to run surfaces then let it happen. some 40' box cars in pacemaket scheme would look hot up there

atleast as a trail the structure gets restored and can be done up nice, and maby some NYC groups can get involved with the city to repaint NYC logos and lettering on the structure where it crosses the road. it at intersections.

Long Island 7285 wrote:Currently the Highline is "dead ended" because the buildings it once passed through have sinced closed there portions of the ROW to be used for non rail porpose

Yes, this is true - as I stated in my post above, I wonder what will happen to these buildings with this new trail.

that can end when NYC had that big freight transload facility, withc i dont know if it is still stnading(?)

That would be St. John's [Park] Terminal, which I don't think is standing (I don't remember seeing it when I was down in that area years ago, but then it could have escaped my notice - this was pre-internet days, and images like this http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/imfile/906.jpg (hopefully hot linking works) were hard to find...

The footnote on Page 4 references "intermodal." I wonder if the thinking is to transfer solid waste, rather than have it trucked out? Much of the labor involved would be unskilled and potentially offer employment to many.

A 1/2 mile portion of the former High Line rail spur, located in Manhattan, officially opened for public trail use on Tuesday, June, 9.

I read about this opening in the NY Times. As succinctly put as I can, I think that it is a foolishness, because in a city that has other parks and excessive traffic congestion, we would do well to reduce the presence of heavy trucking in favour of restoring the line to use for freight trains. Even though there is no longer much manufacturing in Manhattan, trains could well serve the Javits Centre, The Post Office, and local merchandisers that include some of the remaining meat packers.

Even with this project as it is, the northern part of the line can be shared by Amtrack and trains that haul garbage out of state.

Someone posted an album of the park. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archiv ... x?id=45409

I put this here rather than in the NYC forum as it doesn't really pertain to the operations of the former High Line, but the current usage of the former ROW.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124571055656438803.html

Wall St Journal 6/23/09

The High Line, an elevated railroad track running up the West Side of Manhattan, was built in the 1930s and abandoned by 1980. It thrived for years as a figment of people's romantic imagination -- a wild meadow threaded with rusty rails 30 feet above the street -- that was visited primarily by adventuresome truants and graffiti artists. On June 9, the High Line, redesigned to look like a wild meadow threaded with a concrete path and some carefully relocated rusty rails, finally opened as a park -- and it does not disappoint.

Very nice article, with some historical background.

Another nice article (with lots of pics) from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/tra ... le1179830/

They replaced the ties? and rebuilt some of the track? Then why dont we have a elvated trolley line up there

Littleredcaboose wrote:They replaced the ties? and rebuilt some of the track? Then why dont we have a elvated trolley line up there

There's two problems with what you propose. First, the ties that are there now are too light to support actual rail traffic - the track restoration is cosmetic only. Second, the decisions being made lately about the line are being made by short sighted fools who would rather have a quirky park than to expedite some kind of rail service to alleviate congestion in the nearby street traffic.

railfan365 wrote:I read about this opening in the NY Times. As succinctly put as I can, I think that it is a foolishness, because in a city that has other parks and excessive traffic congestion, we would do well to reduce the presence of heavy trucking in favour of restoring the line to use for freight trains. Even though there is no longer much manufacturing in Manhattan, trains could well serve the Javits Centre, The Post Office, and local merchandisers that include some of the remaining meat packers.

Even with this project as it is, the northern part of the line can be shared by Amtrack and trains that haul garbage out of state.

None of the old businesses that used to be served by the line still have infrastructure there to take in freight by rail car if the line reopened. Nearly all the buildings on the line physically have been converted into completely different purposes - hotels, offices, and apartments don't need freight, or at least not in a way that a railroad can serve them. Javits Centre is not connectible to the above-street portion of the park, and the non-above street portions are in use by Amtrak already, in fact, the Empire Connection there was built back in 1991! Connection of the former High Line's rails with the railroad system at large was permanently severed by the LIRR's yards constructed in 1986. Here's what the top end of the line is looking like now:



So you can see: it ends in a truck parking lot! And if you did want to reconnect to the railroad system, you'd need to spend millions and millions and dig up a path through the 1986 rail yards for the LIRR, under some streets, and then rebuild the tunnels that connected the High Line to the West Side Line, and figure out some way to do all this without disrupting Amtrak service on the Empire Connection, as well as various commuter services.

Potentially you could have reopened the line in between shutdown in 1980 and that yard's construction in 1985-1986, but realistically there was no way to do it. Personally, I can't wait until they finish development all the way up to 34th street. It will be a great way for people coming into Penn Station to walk most of the way downtown without having to worry about lights, cars, or any of that.

railfan365 wrote:I read about this opening in the NY Times. As succinctly put as I can, I think that it is a foolishness, because in a city that has other parks and excessive traffic congestion, we would do well to reduce the presence of heavy trucking in favour of restoring the line to use for freight trains. Even though there is no longer much manufacturing in Manhattan, trains could well serve the Javits Centre, The Post Office, and local merchandisers that include some of the remaining meat packers.

Even with this project as it is, the northern part of the line can be shared by Amtrack and trains that haul garbage out of state.

This line was never going to be suited for passenger service, at least not after 1986. Where would stops be? What use would it be to have a line that deadends at Gansevoort Street and Washington Street? The High Line goes about 23 blocks north and 2 west, I mean it's only a 1.5 mile line! Not to mention you'd have to build extensions to the sides of the structure to give you space to put platforms for boarding, unless you're just going to single-track it and make it into a service with a single trainset shuttling back and forth.

Littleredcaboose wrote:They replaced the ties? and rebuilt some of the track? Then why dont we have a elvated trolley line up there

Don't interpret those words literally. When they rebuilt, they tore out the track, and put the rails in storage. Water lines were installed for irrigation, and the ballast was replaced with "three quarter inch" blue stone, which is smaller than regular ballast. There was concrete under the track, in the deck of the overhead structure, which may have been replaced.
When the rails were put back, it was purely for decorative effect. For example, some rails and a frog were embedded in the concrete near 14th street, but the frog was like backwards, as if the people who installed failed Model Railroading 101.
Furthermore, the new ties are "environmentally friendly", which means no creosote. I can't blame them for that, you know the smell of creosote on a hot day?
And the rails were installed without tie-plates;
And the ties are spaced three feet apart;
And it looks like the rails are "Out of Gauge" , i.e. no one measured the distance between the rails to make sure it's four foot eight and a half.

Yes, good old fashioned RR spikes were used, but as I said, without tie-plates.
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The concrete planks used in the walkway should deter anyone who tries to ride a bicycle on it. You'll get your tires caught between the planks. But it is off-limits to cycling, it is walking only.

Now that therwe's been another recent post here, I'd like to post a belated reply to fishmech.

First, by way of correction: The high Line does NOT end in the truck lot - it disappears into an underground tunnel, which I know because I've been there and seen it. Thus, there might have been, before the park conversion, the ability to tie the elvated line back into the rail network.

Second - my suggestion that trash tains share the NORTHERN part of the line with Amtrak addressed only the part of the line where Amtrak has been runnoing trains - that has nothing to do with building passenger platforms downtown.

Third, and finally, with regard to changing demographics, freight trains on the West Side of Manhattan could still be well used to haul away trash, and bring in mail, items needed by the Javits Center which while not right by the elvated part is quite near to the West Side Rail Yard, and possibly even merchandise for the meat packing district and retail cooperatives since there is a lot of retail going on the the West side.

Recently, I was going to head down to NYC for the boat show. But I couldn't crunch the numbers that I could justify the cost. I was also going to walk/ride on the high line walking path.

I was just looking through the various cam sites that Earthcam has. I saw highline as a selection but it didn't occur to me that it was THE Hight line. Unfortunately it is only a time lapse cam, not a streaming cam. But it's better than nothing.

One day I'll get there.

It was almost sunset when I looked at it.

http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/highline/

PLUS THE YARDS!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-2 ... yards.html

New York City said it plans to extend the High Line, a park built on a disused elevated rail line, to West 34th Street after CSX Transportation Inc. (CSX) donated a new section to the city.

“The High Line’s first two phases were groundbreaking and with the development of the rail yards section, the trilogy will be complete,” Adrian Benepe, the Parks and Recreation commissioner, said in a statement. Construction on the final phase is expected to begin this year.