Transit Web Site Pick of the Week: Third Avenue Railway

Check out the collection of black and white photos of TARS at the Seashore Trolley Museum:

http://www.trolleymuseum.org/archives/thirdave.html

-otto-

Many thanks for directing us to a photo collection that I did not realize was on the web. Allow an attempt at the identification of the eleven photos on page 1, left to right. Corrections are welcome.
1) Car 199 beginning its northward ferry-to-ferry trip at West 42nd Street. This view looks west, under the Miller Highway towards the river and the New York Central ferry. The car is signed for the northern terminus, the Fort Lee Ferry at West 125th Street. A 42nd Street crosstown car is behind it.
2) Looking east, with the same two streetcars. Please don't call 856 a trolley car; it has no poles. I would guess it operated out of the barn on Tenth Avenue (53rd Street?).
3) Summertime on Steinway Street. Note the "New York" designation on car #1, heading for the underground loop at the Queensborough Bridge. I recall #1 later in Bronx service.
4) The location is puzzling, but I recall a similar building at the southern end of the Boston Road line. I cannot explain why the Southern Blvd car is there.
5) Car 179 is probably a northbound tripper on Broadway, to turn back at 117th St.
6) Car 196 at West 42nd Street. View west.
7) Routes Z (180th St) and T-Tremont mingled at West Farms Square and at Webster Avenue. The location puzzles me. I presume this photo is pre-1940, as T had the newest cars built.
8) Is 282 here at Garden Street, signed "Mt. Vernon," as used on the B?
9) Looking west at West Farms Square. Even on the rear, car 284 carries the destination of this trip, 181 Street and Broadway. Note the Ebling's truck.
10) Car 299 in New Rochelle. I am glad to see a dispatcher. Later, Surface Transit used starters!
11) Car 319 on the Ogden Avenue route (0). Location? Looks close to the Washington Bridge, that is the 181 St bridge.
12) Car 330, maybe at the Mt Vernon yard.
13) Third Avenue car 392, marked "Post Office," instead of the newer sign "City Hall" (or was it "Park Row"?) I'm guessing that the location is far up Amsterdam Avenue.
14) Morris Park Avenue and a Boston Road car in front of a famous existing building.
15) Car 436 on V-Williamsbridge. The puzzle is why he is on the "wrong" track. The northern terminus was under el structure. The southern terminus was on busy Tremont Avenue near Third Avenue.
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Again, many thanks for posting the link.
Joe McMahon

Hi All,

I was quite young at the time, but I remember asking my Dad where the trolley pole was for the TARS trolley cars. At the time we lived on St. John's Place, Brooklyn, and trolley cars, with trolley poles riding under trolley wires were just outside our apartment building. My Dad pointed to a slot between the tracks and told me that the trolley wire was in that slot, under the ground. At the time, the Third Ave. El was above the trolley line.