The last two issues of the NHRHTA Shoreliner magazine dealt wth freight operations on the New Haven - New York end of the railroad including Oak Point, Harlem River and Bay Ridge plus the car floats and marine operations as well as the interchange with both the Long Island Rail Road and the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Volume 33, Issues 2 and 3 are the magazines in question here.
Following is a transfer of a file that I made up of the various comments, I hope you find them useful. To the NHRHTA BOD, I would have posted this on the NHRHTA site as well but I am having a problem getting logged in to the forum as I no longer post there very often and I wanted to make this information available. I will continue to try to post this file there as well from time to time and maybe eventually I will be able to do so.
Shoreliner Volume 33, Issues 2 and 3 comments and corrections:
compiled by Noel Weaver October 19, 2011
Issue 2
Page 12 – Mention was made that the Long Island had no way of turning engines west of Jamaica or in this case Morris Park engine terminal. In fact there was a wye at Fresh Pond, a train from Bay Ridge could go east to Jamaica and Holban Yard or west to Long Island City etc. A look at Google Earth discloses that the wye at this location is still in place today. The Long Island also had a loop linking “F” or Harold to the Montauk Branch, I rode that loop one time on a fantrip back when. I don’t think this loop is any longer in use.
Page 38 – This photo shows six tracks at Van Nest but if you notice there are no signals for tracks 1 and 2. By 1937 tracks 1 and 2 were no longer in use and in fact were disconnected at West Farms as by this time SS-8 had been closed and the New York, Westchester & Boston had use of tracks 1 and 2 between West Farms and Harlem River. By this time these tracks were actually controlled by the Westchester and in their employee timetable.
Issue 3
Page 25 – Trains HB-6 and BH-5 lasted until mid 1963 running four nights a week between Harlem River and Boston. During my firing days on the NHRR I covered this job many times and it was a very choice job, as it was only a four day job it was usually covered by spare crews.
Page 27 – The Pennsylvania Railroad retained ownership of the Bay Ridge Branch between Fremont and Bay Ridge after the Long Island Rail Road was sold to the State of New York in the mid 60’s. The Bay Ridge Branch continued to be operated by the Long Island in behalf of the Pennsylvania and New Haven Railroads through the remaining years of the New Haven and the earliest days of the Penn Central. Effective January 20, 1971 (well after the last through freight operation to Bay Ridge) the Penn Central took over full operation of the Bay Ridge Branch and as of this date all work in this territory was handled out of Oak Point and covered by Penn Central (former New Haven crews) out of Oak Point. At this time there was still a good interchange with the Long Island at Fremont and considerable local work between Fremont and Bay Ridge.
Page 27 also mentions that track 6 between Oak Point and Fremont was out of service, this was due to a washout near the Bowery Bay Substation which was at the location where the tracks to Harold swung away from the tracks to Fremont, the existing operation at that time did not require both tracks between SS-3 and Fremont and the railroad did not have the resources to correct the problem. This was never done in the timetable in the NHRR days nor the early Penn Central days either, only a bulletin was issued to cover this. This change happened sometime after the fall of 1965 as I had a regular job firing out of Bay Ridge during the fall of 1965 and track 6 was still in full use at that time.
Page 31 – The caption for the photo at the top of page 31 states “EF-4 #300 leads a reefer train out of Bay Ridge”. In fact the correct location for this photo is the bridge on the New York Connecting just east of the tower at Fremont where the railroad crosses the Long Island Rail Road Montauk Branch. While a lot of reefers traveled via Bay Ridge we did not have any solid reefer trains out of there. The photo might be GB-8 as it carried a lot of such cars.
Mention was made that trains NE-1 and NE-2 during the Penn Central for a period operated via Maybrook and the L & HR to the PRR at Philipsburg. This continued for a period because there was no good direct connection between the Pennsylvania and the New York Central (River Line) in New Jersey. Once the bridge connecting the two railroad at Waldo (Jersey City) was built, a straightaway move could take place on signal indication between the two lines and these trains then ran the PRR main line to North Jersey and the River Line north to Selkirk. Actually in 1974 I worked both of these trains from time to time on the River Line and in 1974 train NE-1 was made up at Providence and ran with through power from Providence to at least the Meadows. We usually had either four or five brand new GP-38-2’s which were dedicated to that train. At this time train NE-1 did not enter Selkirk Yard but rather used the bypass that was built at CP-132 (later CP-SK) to link both the Hudson and the B & A to the River Line without any reverse moves. This connection at CP-132 plus the bridge at Waldo enabled the Penn Central to operate from the south to New England without any reverse moves enroute from the PRR to the B & A. The connection in New Jersey was an interlocked switch right from the start but the connection at CP-132 began as hand thrown switches but today it too is interlocked. I don’t know what trans on CSX use this connection today, probably the garbage train out of Oak Point for one and maybe some vans as well.
This concludes my comments on these two issues which in spite of a small number of glitches, I found very interesting reading and great photos, they bring back a lot of memories of my "Boot Camp" days in Oak Point.
Noel Weaver
Volume 33, Issues 2 and 3 are the magazines in question here.
Following is a transfer of a file that I made up of the various comments, I hope you find them useful. To the NHRHTA BOD, I would have posted this on the NHRHTA site as well but I am having a problem getting logged in to the forum as I no longer post there very often and I wanted to make this information available. I will continue to try to post this file there as well from time to time and maybe eventually I will be able to do so.
Shoreliner Volume 33, Issues 2 and 3 comments and corrections:
compiled by Noel Weaver October 19, 2011
Issue 2
Page 12 – Mention was made that the Long Island had no way of turning engines west of Jamaica or in this case Morris Park engine terminal. In fact there was a wye at Fresh Pond, a train from Bay Ridge could go east to Jamaica and Holban Yard or west to Long Island City etc. A look at Google Earth discloses that the wye at this location is still in place today. The Long Island also had a loop linking “F” or Harold to the Montauk Branch, I rode that loop one time on a fantrip back when. I don’t think this loop is any longer in use.
Page 38 – This photo shows six tracks at Van Nest but if you notice there are no signals for tracks 1 and 2. By 1937 tracks 1 and 2 were no longer in use and in fact were disconnected at West Farms as by this time SS-8 had been closed and the New York, Westchester & Boston had use of tracks 1 and 2 between West Farms and Harlem River. By this time these tracks were actually controlled by the Westchester and in their employee timetable.
Issue 3
Page 25 – Trains HB-6 and BH-5 lasted until mid 1963 running four nights a week between Harlem River and Boston. During my firing days on the NHRR I covered this job many times and it was a very choice job, as it was only a four day job it was usually covered by spare crews.
Page 27 – The Pennsylvania Railroad retained ownership of the Bay Ridge Branch between Fremont and Bay Ridge after the Long Island Rail Road was sold to the State of New York in the mid 60’s. The Bay Ridge Branch continued to be operated by the Long Island in behalf of the Pennsylvania and New Haven Railroads through the remaining years of the New Haven and the earliest days of the Penn Central. Effective January 20, 1971 (well after the last through freight operation to Bay Ridge) the Penn Central took over full operation of the Bay Ridge Branch and as of this date all work in this territory was handled out of Oak Point and covered by Penn Central (former New Haven crews) out of Oak Point. At this time there was still a good interchange with the Long Island at Fremont and considerable local work between Fremont and Bay Ridge.
Page 27 also mentions that track 6 between Oak Point and Fremont was out of service, this was due to a washout near the Bowery Bay Substation which was at the location where the tracks to Harold swung away from the tracks to Fremont, the existing operation at that time did not require both tracks between SS-3 and Fremont and the railroad did not have the resources to correct the problem. This was never done in the timetable in the NHRR days nor the early Penn Central days either, only a bulletin was issued to cover this. This change happened sometime after the fall of 1965 as I had a regular job firing out of Bay Ridge during the fall of 1965 and track 6 was still in full use at that time.
Page 31 – The caption for the photo at the top of page 31 states “EF-4 #300 leads a reefer train out of Bay Ridge”. In fact the correct location for this photo is the bridge on the New York Connecting just east of the tower at Fremont where the railroad crosses the Long Island Rail Road Montauk Branch. While a lot of reefers traveled via Bay Ridge we did not have any solid reefer trains out of there. The photo might be GB-8 as it carried a lot of such cars.
Mention was made that trains NE-1 and NE-2 during the Penn Central for a period operated via Maybrook and the L & HR to the PRR at Philipsburg. This continued for a period because there was no good direct connection between the Pennsylvania and the New York Central (River Line) in New Jersey. Once the bridge connecting the two railroad at Waldo (Jersey City) was built, a straightaway move could take place on signal indication between the two lines and these trains then ran the PRR main line to North Jersey and the River Line north to Selkirk. Actually in 1974 I worked both of these trains from time to time on the River Line and in 1974 train NE-1 was made up at Providence and ran with through power from Providence to at least the Meadows. We usually had either four or five brand new GP-38-2’s which were dedicated to that train. At this time train NE-1 did not enter Selkirk Yard but rather used the bypass that was built at CP-132 (later CP-SK) to link both the Hudson and the B & A to the River Line without any reverse moves. This connection at CP-132 plus the bridge at Waldo enabled the Penn Central to operate from the south to New England without any reverse moves enroute from the PRR to the B & A. The connection in New Jersey was an interlocked switch right from the start but the connection at CP-132 began as hand thrown switches but today it too is interlocked. I don’t know what trans on CSX use this connection today, probably the garbage train out of Oak Point for one and maybe some vans as well.
This concludes my comments on these two issues which in spite of a small number of glitches, I found very interesting reading and great photos, they bring back a lot of memories of my "Boot Camp" days in Oak Point.
Noel Weaver
