Railroad Forums 

Discussion relating to the past and present operations of the NYC Subway, PATH, and Staten Island Railway (SIRT).

Moderator: GirlOnTheTrain

 #489205  by TheKornGuy
 
Surprised no one has meantioned this yet, but the NYC subway has a DIRECT connection to a freight line in Brooklyn, NY. Directly past the 9th Ave stop on the D and M trains (right before the merge with the R line) is a track that leads under the BQE and directly onto 2nd Ave. The track is not electrified past the switch where it splits off from the D and M line. The trackage leads to a waterfront MTA yard directly past 2nd Avenue where work trains and trains to be scrapped are stored. Before the trackage reaches that yard, there is a switch ON 2nd Ave (yes, there is still active street running in NYC) that connects to the Cross Harbor Railroad. This connection has not been used in some time. However, the MTA's waterfront yard directly across from the Cosco and 2nd Ave has been recently used to store out of service Red Bird trains before they are scrapped. The Cross Harbor Railroad is also still in service, floating fraight cars from their 2nd Ave yard in Brooklyn (a few blocks away from the MTA yard) to their NJ location. Hard to believe this still happens in NYC, right? You can go check out all these yards and trackage right now as they are all still in use.
To the south of the 9th Ave stop, two tracks veer off to the left. This used to be the connection to the South Brooklyn Railway which no longer exists. The connection is still in place, and the two existing South Brooklyn Railroad tracks (which now terminate a short distance from the switch) is used by the MTA to store work trains at times.

Also, the L train used to have a direct connection with the LIRR! This was at the New Lots Ave station. Currently, the L train DOES run parallel to the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch (currently operated by NYA railways, the same people who do the LIRR freight on Long Island), but the connection no longer exists.

There is a lot more interesting stuff on existing trackage which isnt used much on this website: http://images.nycsubway.org/trackmap/bigbklyn-2.png

Enjoy!

 #491966  by LIRRMEDFORD
 
Korn guy do you think you can give an exact crossing to where the yard is with the redbirds. Would like to take some pictures before they are scrapped. Also any other yards that hold old cars would be great. To many yards around nyc to remember...

 #491971  by TheKornGuy
 
The exact location of the yard is on 35th Street and 2nd Ave in Brooklyn, directly behind the Costco. Unfortunately there are no longer any red birds stored there as they have already been scrapped. But who knows what they are keeping in the yard now! As far as I know, this is the only yard easily seen from the streets that are known to hold out of service or MoW cars.