Far as we know, NH electrics never ran to NY Penn on third rail. NH passenger trains changed engines at Sunnyside until Penn got catenary.
Don’t see any advantage to turning northwest from Sunnyside and changing ends at whatever (hand-throw?) crossover existed between the passenger tracks and the freight line from Hell Gate to Bay Ridge. The DD1 can back the train Sunnyside to LIRR Long Island City, then steam takes it east on LIRR Montauk to the line to Bay Ridge.
Hell Gate to Sunnyside electrified 1918, to Bay Ridge 1927. (Middleton)
That’s right, of course; I got carried away.
One would expect it to be comparatively simple to put in the equivalent to ‘the other leg of a wye’ up in the air at Bowery Bay Junction, were any meaningful traffic demand to the Bay Ridge area to develop. I suspect, as even in 1927 the maps of the NYCR show it as the Hell Gate-to-Bay-Ridge double-track line with spur to Harold, that no Mickey Mouse hand-operated anything would be needed for a move onto the NYCR eastbound and then a reverse toward Bay Ridge (with the train then oriented correctly for departure); alternatively the New Haven motor would tie to the rear of the consist as the PRR motor was being uncoupled, shove northwest through Bowery Bay, and then proceed, crossing over between tracks as necessary, at track speed to Bay Ridge. Presumably power or tower-controlled crossovers from the passenger to freight tracks east of Bowery Bay would be simple to provide once desired, if they were not present in 1927.
I am not sure what connections existed in 1930 at Fresh Pond Junction, where the NYCR is at higher grade than the Montauk branch. Presumably there was an interchange track; I see accounts that say troop trains were routed that way, but absent a detailed track map or photographs I can’t say if that were preferable to the above. Educate me with details, please.
No interlockings between SS2 at the east of Sunnyside, and SS3 at the west end of Oak Point Yard – right? So how to get from the passenger line to the freight line, other than thru a hand-throw crossover? (Mr Klepper mentioned a crossover somewhere – I have no knowledge of it. Guess they’d need two crossovers, since they would need to run around the train.)
Yeah – I get the strong impression that the service never got to the point where PRR service to Pier 4 was a regular thing. The elapsed time that it took to go from one ‘place’ to another tells me a great deal of either circuitous routing or shoving was involved somewhere – although that might just reflect on delays due to a significant freight traffic over that part of the NYCR. Meanwhile a shove from Harold onto the main east of Bowery Bay and a simple crossover – it would be two to get from the eastbound passenger main across to the southbound NYCR main, and another two in the other direction, presuming only that the power ran around the train after arrival at Bay Ridge, which ought to have been credible – would be far more direct. (And a wye direcly onto the double-track NYCR from the double-track Harold spur still more direct!) All this would be meaningful only if there were sufficient value in the boat-train traffic to make PRR’s investment in using the passenger connection to the NYCR worthwhile.
This all might have been still more interesting had the Narrows tunnel been built, and coordination made between the B&O (which was controlled by PRR at the time) and the New Haven and LIRR for some of the transit and passenger traffic not needing to use Exchange Place ferries or Penn Station via Newark and the North River tunnels for access to lower Manhattan points. This would be only about six years after B&O lost their USRA access into Penn Station from the west.
Until 1931, at least, New Haven trains into Penn were still loosing their AC power at Harold and were taken 8into Penn by PRR DD-1s and crews.
so, I;m reasonably certain the actual route was via the Montauk and Fresh Pond Juction. THe proper connecting track at Fresh Pond was in placeif my memory of track maps in the “Dashing Dan” series of past Electriv Railroaders Associations Bulletins is correct. I believe it may exist today,
Again, Fresh Pond is where CSX, P&W, and CP (D&H) interchange NY&A today.
The PRR probably would not wish to involve the NYNH&H but keep it in the family, with the LIRR being owned by them at the time.
I was presuming that the route was exactly as you say, largely for this reason: it also appears to be nominally somewhat shorter if there are facilitated points at Sunnyside for the power exchange and at Fresh Pond for a direct diversion in both running directions between the NYCR and the Montauk line going to the west. That’s going to involve at least a pair of crossovers if the north-to-west move is to be made without reversing, as I suspect any connection at Fresh Pond that could handle normal-length passenger equipment going ‘back’ from the piers to Sunnyside would need a considerable jughandle-style access track to ‘reach’.
Where the fun comes in here is that I don’t see evidence of a way to turn steam power in the Bay Ridge area easily. One wonders if some of Steins’ interest in bidirectional steam power with truck-mounted engines might be to give reasonably quick service to trains of this kind…
Incidentally, is there a reference indicating whether any L5s worked through to Harold (with through trains) in these years?
From what I can see on topo maps, a train coming out of the East River Tunnels from NYP: they could stop in Sunnyside, and back up to LI City, and then go forward down the Montauk Branch; or they apparently could go thru the balloon track, head back thru the yard, and take a wye connection that would get them headed east on the Montauk Branch. There is/was a connection at Fresh Pond that gets them southbound onto the NY Connecting.
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=218f5c767eca46c0ada3d53783c64446
I forgot about that possibility – dunno if it was a possibility. You mean crossing this overpass southward
https://goo.gl/maps/CDCYm9rEHG12Psy8A
which I think would require running thru the Sunnyside freight yard. Looking at the west end
Pennsylvania Railroad Sunnyside Yards | Hagley Digital Archives
it’s doubtful they could get from the west end of the passenger yard to the overpass, but if they can get from the loop to the east end of the freight yard it would work.
Midland, you win the prize. I’d forgotten the wye connection. But steam would be essential on the Montauk, so use of the Sunnyside ballon isn’t likely. The DD-1 comes off one end, and the G-5 or K4 is attached at the other end.
I think this is the missing piece:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IKYy1KNnt_8
Note that they say it was ‘active’ into the 1970s but abandoned today; it should be easy to identify how this tied into the plant at Sunnyside from track maps (which I think timz has).
Far as we know, the only way to go around the loop and get onto the Montauk cutoff overpass (without a backup) was to enter the freight yard at the end of the loop, east of the 39th St overpass, and run along the north side of the freight yard. If you stayed on passenger tracks you couldn’t reach the Cutoff from the loop.
Looks like the north end of the connector and much of the remaining freight yard were sacrificed for the East Side Access to Grand Central.
Yes, this is the connector I was referring to. Does that single track connector bridge emerge between passenger tracks?
Is SS2 also known as Gate crossover on the the passenger line just south of the split between it and the freight line? On a PRR map, the split is shown as Sunnyside Junction.
Regarding engine turn-around at Bay Ridge, it must have existed at the time, because the original railroad there was steam, the LIRR ran steam on local freights there regularly until dieselization, and the New Haven steam after Hell-Gate-Bridge construction until electrififcation and occasinally afterward, when short of electric locomotives.
More photos from the 1948 Stayen Island fan trip
There has to be something, but what was it and where in the Bay Ridge ‘plant’ was it located?
I see nothing in the 1954 aerial, which is the earliest I have yet found for the area, that shows either a turntable or a location of a suitable wye with tail track long enough.
I do note that the Greenwood spur of the South Brooklyn goes straight to the edge of the 39th St. terminal, closer to Pier 4 than Bay Ridge, and that there is a connection to the ‘Bay Ridge Division’ track but only through a half-wye to grade from NB NYCR to SB/EB South Brooklyn at the interchange point mentioned, which doesn’t help turn a train of any interest. A move from Fresh Pond onto the NYCR would have to run past the connection and then reverse-move and cross over to get to the South Brooklyn, assuming it could run on that line at all, then proceed forward and switch to the Greenwood spur. But backing out only allows the consist to turn back toward Bay Ridge on the NYCR, so no help on either route there.
What we need is someone like Tim Z with a track chart from that era (perhaps post-1927) that shows the features in detail.
Somewhere in my collection of past Electric Railroaders Association Bulletins, I should have the needed Bay Ridge track map, showing Bush Terminal, LIRR (NHYNH&H) and South Brookiyn. Possibly one of Fresh Pond Junction as well. I’ll make the effort to try and find them and scan.
I’m sure the moves were pure PRR-LIRR and would not involve NYNH&H or SB\B&QT\BMT.
There was an engine house and turntable between 7th and 8th Avenues south of 61st Street, where the N 8th Avenue subway station is located. Notes on the map for Fort Hamilton Parkway to 5th Avenue indicate that the turntable was removed in 1928.
