Signals are sometimes made extra tall so they can be seen above equipment on an adjacent curved track that may block the view of a normal height signal. Picture #2 seems to show such a location.
The only part of the Montauk Branch that had third rail, and probably still has it, is the part from the junction just east of Hunterspoint Avenue Station (directly adjacent to the No. 7 Subway Station of the same name) for the tracks that join the mainline near Sunnyside to permit mainline trains to terminate at L. I. City, to L. I. City. Actually that section was “original Main Line.”
One track we did use was the base of Hammels Wye, going from Rockaway Beach to Far Rochaway.
I’m corrected that Gibbs-LIRR-car couplers were originally Van Dorns, but replaced with Tomlinsons, and the photo shows a Tomlinson.
And those cars never had train-line door control or electric brake control. (from Russ Jackson)
THe pictures are at Rockaway Park. Henry notes that one car has original headlights, and the other PRR-style replacemenrs.
I was on the LIRR trip that included one double-decker, one MP-54 and a gondola car. It included a visit to the LIRR shops and roundhouse at Morris park, but I don’t thinl it went to Sunnyside. That must have been a diferent trip. Note that the Rockaway and Morris Park trip[ was on a bright sunny day, but most of the Sunnyside pictures look like a ‘cloudy-bright” day.
As I remember it, the LIRR trip started from Penn station with only the two MU cars. The gondola was picked up at HAROLD. The trip then proceed by the Main Line to WIN then down the Rockaway Branch (which split off on parallel tracks at that point}, past Brooklyn Manor, Woodhaven, Ozone Park and the Jamaica Bay trestle, with the photo stop at The Raunt. I took the same picture as Bill Rugen, (but low quality bacl & white). The trip then went to Rockaway Park, where there was a photo stop in the yard there. Then the trip proceeded, now with the gondola on the head end, via the wye at Hammels, past Far Rockaway and Valley Stream, to Jamaica and into the yard at Morris Park, where there was time for photos around the shops and engine terminal. Leaving there the trip went to Jamaica, reversed and proceeded west on the Main Line to Woodside, still with the gondola on the head end. At Woodside it was getting late, and a friend and I decided that we had had the best part of the trip, and got off. Before the trip retu