Newsday Article: West Side Yard history

This article may be of interest to some of you. It is about the history of the Hudson Yards, including Sen. Caemmerer's involvement in obtaining the yard for LIRR, which has been asked about in the past in the LIRR forum.

More Than Meets The Eye

Tom

Sen. John Caemmerer - How do you pronounce this name? I would use the name if I knew how to say it right!

Before they had the west side yard, how far would LIRR bring back the trains between russh hours, Babylon, Hempstead? Is there a yard for the metro north or any other yards in Manhattan? WHy would it be a good thing if the LIRR went into Grand Central?

thrdkilr wrote: Why would it be a good thing if the LIRR went into Grand Central?

Thats I've been saying since East Side Acess was announced! I go to Hunterpoint Ave every morning and catch the #7 upstairs; this gets me into GC within 10 minutes! Being that LIRR will both platform slower than the subways and will be located 3 levels above the Lex Line, I see no real advantage to running trains in there. The billions being thrown into this project would be better spent replacing the DE/DM's and adding the much-needed third track to the main line.

Here goes.

WEST SIDE STADIUM IN PLAIN SIGHT

stadium is to be built over the current LIRR WSY

90% of these people using this thing will be either too drunk or too dam lasy to "WALK" 2 blocks

not wanting to walk to blocks = station platforms built in the CURRENT WSY = LESS STORAGE AND HELL FOR LIRR EMPLOYEES.

no room for the mass parking garage that will be required to host such an event, u dont see MSG with a garage? they use locals wich are already bursting at the seams.

WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US 1 AND 1 CHOICE THE "MTA" "MONOPOLY" TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY.

getting the big picture...
MTA now and has had a MONOPOLY over the main forms of public transportation (monopolies are ILLEAGLE) ever since std oil co was split up. way back when. this states current MTA is a monopoly on mass transet

monopoly on trains and busses. fares to and from NYC on the GAME days will SKY ROCKET. mta may even offer over priced season ride packages.

other things to look for.

whats to become of 10,11,aves and west side hwy?

whats going to happen when 10,000 drunks start wondering manhattan after a jets game?

can the current NYP ans WSY be large enough to store trains to handle such a mass flow at once. look @ belmont its not too good?

the idea is correct. getting people onto trains n busses but its not SMART for the west side of manhatan..

thanks for listening to this speach maby some one here can foward this to people in teh "IN" and get the ball or should i say trains rolling over this one..

thrdkilr,

Some "equipment trains" would lay up at Jamaica. We had several trains return to Babylon Yard empty, to store during the day. These equipment trains, you may know, have designations such as "BYP 406". (Babylon Yard to Penn, leaving Babylon Yard at 4:06 PM)
The good news was at least those trains got a layup cleaning between rush hours. Many trains did not get cleaned all day, which was truly disgusting. Many cars had roaches; several cars were completely overrun with roaches.

Tom

thrdkilr wrote:Is there a yard for the metro north or any other yards in Manhattan?

MNCR has additional storage tracks in GCT. They will be losing some when the LIRR terminal is built. A new yard was built in the Bronx to compensate for the loss.

thrdkilr wrote: Why would it be a good thing if the LIRR went into Grand Central?

It will reduce congestion into Penn or they can add additional service into Penn, like more direct service from diesel territory.

Hey Tom,

Did you catch the article in progessive rail on the LIRR? It explains alot about East Side Access and other future capital projects. I believe it is this months. No double track planned betwwen Pinelawn and Ronkonkoma until the 2010-15 capital program, ouch! Also made mention of a yard between Ronkomkoma and Yaphank being built? The LIRR ENG 410 graces the cover.

I remember pre-WSY. You would come in to Penn, discharge the people and either lay-up in C Yard or change ends and run right back to Jamaica, Babylon and other places as equipment trains. On the westbounds, you would have equipment trains lined up outside of Harold and one by one feed into Penn. With some exceptions, you could only travel through Harold at around 15mph in those days so it was a slow process.

I always admired how the Operators in the towers, Stationmasters and LIRR Yardmaster on 21 track handled the numerous trains. It was quite a challenge.

A note to LIRR Engrs..in those days, Amtrak drill crews handled switching LIRR trains in Penn working under an LIRR Yardmaster and they even had Amtrak coach cleaners servicing LIRR trains in Penn (if they actually did anything). This is why LIRR drill crews always report to WSY and not Penn..Amtrak C&E's had until recently, first rights to any LIRR drill job starting in Penn. When they needed to run an LIRR equipment train to Jamaica or wherever, the move had to be fast due to space constraints. If there was no LIRR Engr available, they would team up an LIRR Conductor as Pilot and an Amtrak Engr to run the train back. Some of our Engineers and Conductors are under the impression that Condrs can't be Pilots on main track trains and well, they can be and were.

Freightguy,

I'll look for it. Thanx for the heads up.

Tom

Does the sale mean that the yard itself will be torn up, or it for the air rights? MTA would seem to be putting itself in a crack by getting rid of a good yard.

(If I have missed threads that have discussed this, I'd be grateful for any links.)

The stadium would be built on a concrete and steel platform above the yard.

Yes, prior to Westside the rush hour was just as hectic with all the empty equipment trains going back to eastern layup yards to await the afternoon rush hour. Tons of extra mileage on the equipment and extra usage of everything from third rail power to road crews.

Being a Yardmaster on 21 track was like being in a fish bowl ... literally. The office was on the west end of the platform and commuters would look right in as you worked the phones and radios. That was okay if everything was normal, but if trains were late ...geez, the looks you would get.

The Amtrak drill crews were all true gentlemen. Much older than the normal LIRR crews. I would not say that it was "recently" that they left, since they were phased out shortly after Westside opened.

You only could lay up a few shorter trains in "C" yard which was surrounded by the bedrock that Manhattan was built on. Most of the trains and especially those empty equipment trains were "down and back" moves such as in on 21, down on 2B, and back up on 17 track for example.

While I understand that the "air rights" over Westside are worth a lot of money, I wonder what type of air we wil be breathing with a 30 track yard plus a shop being basically underground.

All I know is that when I'm old and gray (okay, grayer) I can tell my grandkids that Grandpa helped open up that yard and was one of the first to work there. I can remember many a day sitting down to start a shift and not getting up until like six hours later.

It's like Sinatra says "If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere" that's especially true with the LIRR.