B&A Local Train Aug 1960....Newtonville? No!

I'm linking a photo below, taken on the old Boston & Albany in August 1960. The photographer, Richard Leonard, says it was taken at Newtonville station during a family vacaton. Someone else is absolutely convinced it is not Newtonville. Mr. Leonard says he was still a boy when he and his brother took the photo, there was a family connection to Newtonville and he does not recall their going anywhere else.

http://www.railarchive.net/nyccollectio ... 58_dvl.htm


I did a forum search and didn't find anything and decided to start a thread.

Is anyone familar with Newtonville back in the 1960s? Or maybe recognize what station it is, if it's not Newtonville? I've been there a few times but not that far back.

Also of interest, there's a Budd RDC tagging along behind Alco RS3 and two heavyweight suburban coaches in the photo.

That looks to me like Pittsfield Union Station. It is definitely not any of the B&A Newton stations, with that complex trackwork and the pedestrian subway.

This is not Newtonville. In 1960 passenger service between Boston and Albany consisted of the New England States and 3 westbound/2 eastbound RDC schedules; also some Boston-Springfield service. Substitutions of diesel-powered trains happened from time to time. Those do look like commuter cars because most of the heavyweight cars substituting for RDCs were usually painted in the two-tone gray paint scheme.

Thanks very much guys. I just heard back from Dr. Richard Leonard who took the photo. He said yes it probably is Pittsfield. That back in 1960 he and his brother went there several times.

Mystery solved. Thanks!

Richard has already updated the caption information on is web site. Below is a link to a second photo of the B&A train at Pittsfield.

http://www.railarchive.net/nyccollection/nyc8258.htm

Both photos are pretty awesome- thanks for sharing! Love seeing the Budd cars tucked into the rear of regular runs... seems like NYC did this often, I've seen photos of the same practice on the Hudson Division.

I agree with the others who said Pittsfield looking west. The canopy in the immediate foreground is covering up the two
tracks that the New Haven used at Pittsfield in the time before the NHRR pulled out and started using their freight house
facility across the street.
Some passenger timetables of the 50's showed more passenger trains in one direction than the other so maybe that can
explain why you see the Budd Car in tow.
Noel Weaver

Because I prize accuracy on my web sites, it is embarrassing to have to be corrected on the location of NYC Alco 8258 and its train. My family was probably in both Newtonville and Pittsfield on that 1960 trip. (It was when my parents drove me east to start my seminary education at Boston University School of Theology, and we probably drove by my grandparents’ former home in Newtonville at some point.) I thought I had photographed a train at Newtonville, but if so I don’t know where the photo is at the moment. However, clearly the photo of 8258 is at Pittsfield, as this photo of New Haven Alco RS3 546 with caboose at the Pittsfield depot (taken in August 1955) would substantiate. I am grateful for the correction. – Richard Leonard

I should add that I took the B&A Beeliner from Boston to Pittsfield and back during Christmastime in 1960, and perhaps I rode in the very RDC car that is shown in our photos from the previous August.

In the early '60s, when I was in school in Providence and my brother in Potsdam, NY, I would travel to Potsdam via Boston, Albany, Syracuse. On one occasion, on the Sunday evening return from Albany to Boston, exactly such a thing happened,
due to a large fraternal group traveling, and the Beeliner was on the rear of the diesel-hauled train.

Lee

Based on the 1960 summer date I looked up the NY Central System timetable for summer 1960, available (along with dozens of others) on Terry Link's CASO site.

Link to the timetable section directly below-

http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/ptt/timetables.htm

According to the timetable covering the summer of 1960, there were three eastbound NYC trains through Pittsfield. One was No. 28 THE NEW ENGLAND STATES, the other two were Albany-Boston locals, Nos. 400 and 404, both normally assigned RDC cars.

Since the photo(s) appear to have been taken on an overcast summer day it seems hard to know if the train shown is 400 (which arrived Pittsfield at 11:33 AM) or 404 (which arr'd at 6:33 PM). But you would think it must be one or the other. Maybe Mr. Leonard can recall the time of day he and his brother took the photos?

Btw, both trains had connections at Albany with Chicago trains. No. 400 connected from No. 2 The Pacemaker, and 404 from No. 90 The Chicagoan.

I wondered how much service the New Haven provided to PIttsfield back in 1960? Quite a bit I guess. Also, just out of curiosity, I wonder if there was much interchange of passengers there between the two roads. You would think there must have been some.

Tommy Meehan wrote:Based on the 1960 summer date I looked up the NY Central System timetable for summer 1960, available (along with dozens of others) on Terry Link's CASO site.

Link to the timetable section directly below-

http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/ptt/timetables.htm

I wondered how much service the New Haven provided to PIttsfield back in 1960? Quite a bit I guess. Also, just out of curiosity, I wonder if there was much interchange of passengers there between the two roads. You would think there must have been some.

In the summer of 1960 there were two trains between Pittsfield and New York in each direction with an additional NB on
Saturday and additional SB on Sunday.
By the summer of 1960 the weekday service was generally a Budd Car between Danbury and Pittsfield with an across the
platform transfer at Danbury.
Noel Weaver

I have always thought of this as a westbound train (which would have fit my original Newtonville hypothesis) but, studying a 1947 USGS topo map of the area (http://docs.unh.edu/MA/wspt47ne.jpg) I see that the station is depicted on the south side of the tracks, which would make this an eastbound train. Then, looking at my photo of the New Haven unit above, I see what must be South Mountain in the background which would fit a view to the south from the overhead passenger causeway, which of course puts the depot on the south side of the tracks. My memory of directions in which a photo was taken (or its location, obviously) is not always accurate, as I was not concerned with those details back then, and sometimes a little detective work is needed to establish the actual situation. As to time of day, however, I would speculate that our B&A train photos were taken in mid-day, as around 6:30 our parents would have had us eating supper at the home of Pittsfield friends where we probably stayed the night (my Dad always looking to save a dollar or two, when traveling, by this means).