Next week my father and I are going to be visiting New York City. While most of our time will be occupied with taking in baseball games and doing the usual “touristy” stuff, I would like to make a few attempts to see some railroad related thingd. One of the places that interests me most but that I can’t find as much information about is the Hell Gate Bridge. From what I can tell the Astoria park side of the bridge is a good area to visit, and it appears to be fairly easy to get to via subway and a fairly short walk. There is one thing I was hoping somebody could confim though; is the area between the park and the nearby subway stations safe to be in during daylight hours?
I found an article in a 2004 issue of Trains that has a few nice photos and some good information on the bridge. One photo in particular I found interesting though, a shot taken off the Triborough bridge near Wards Island Park looking back towards the park and the Hell Gate bridge. I am guessing that at least when the photo was taken there was a pedestrian walk way along the side or a portion of the TriBorough bridge. Is this still the case, and is it open to the public? If so, what’s the easiest way to get onto the walk way?
Any other tips related to good photo angles or viewing spots of the Hell Gate Bridge would also be welcome. It looks like an interesting structure, and I’d really like to see it in person.
I’m know nothing about Astoria Park, but my stepdaughter lived near the Astoria Blvd stop, until April 2007. That’s the next to the last stop, and we felt no qualms about coming home on the subway from Manhatten after midnight Memorial day 2005.
Noah, I used the Triboro Bridge as a vantage point to photograph a New Haven passenger train crossing the Hell Gate Bridge back in the late 1950’s. At that time the Triboro Bridge had a walkway on its east side overlooking the Hell Gate Bridge, however, I don’t recall how I got up there. Since the Triboro Bridge is west of the Hell Gate Bridge you want to plan to photograph trains crossing the Hell Gate Bridge in the afternoon.
The park in Astoria is perfectly safe during daylight hours. I’ve photographed all around that neighborhood and never had a problem.
There are pedestrian walkways on both sides of the Triboro Bridge from which you once could photograph. However, I do not know how kindly the authorities take to that since 9/11.
If the walkway is still open, you might be able to walk to the other side of the bridge. There is a city park on the other side as well, and you might be able to get some good views from ground level (though I haven’t tried that myself).
The closest subway stop is Astoria Blvd on the N line. You’ll have to hike West about a mile to reach the view opposite Hell Gate Bridge. Don’t forget to walk on the North side of Astoria Blvd. You may be able to grab a cab to take you closer, but it’s a busy highway route and it’s hard for me to imagine one stopping on the bridge, but I’ve seen crazier things in this city. Sorry, I haven’t checked the accessibility of the walkway, but I believe it’s still open.
The M60 bus between LGA and Manhattan travels over the Triborough Bridge, a cheap way to scout the route. Schedule.
BTW, if you get a chance take the Acela to get the real experience.
Hard for me to fathom that as a kid riding with my parents, I crossed the Triborough so many times looking at the Hell Gate Bridge not appreciating, of course, that EP5s, FL9s, and ex-Virginian electric E33s were cruising thru on their journeys back in those days of the late 1960s.
On thing that’s always puzzled me once a I became a somewhat knowledgeable railfan. I’ve wondered why the Pennsylvania wasn’t able to get a direct route into Manhattan from the Bronx (as the subway lines did) and took the very expensive, winding route of the Hell Gate Bridge. Once the tracks become elevated after leaving the Bronx, they actually curve away from Manhattan, cross over the HG Bridge, come down into queens, then curve back west towards Manhattan to the yard and on to Penn Station.
I always thought it was so little kid raifans could enjoy the view. I must have been 8 or 9, after leaving Penn Station and coming out of the East River tunnels, and going through Sunnyside, I saw this fantastic bridge out of the left side of the train and kept wishing the train would make a left turn and go over it.
Our engine was probably a GG1. On our return from New Haven I was really happy to see a cute locomotive painted with big red and white bands, much nicer than that dark, boring locomotive that pulled us from Philadelphia. But then I got disappointed when it didn’t go back over the wonderful bridge, so my dad took us back out to Astoria on the subway to keep me happy.
Yep, now that I’ve grown up I’ve also wondered why take such an indirect route. I’m assuming it was because the New Haven was already running or planning to run into Grand Central, and Manhatten real estate was more expensive than Queens. And the Pennsy was also involved with the Long Island Railroad, which might have shared some of the cost, after all Hell Gate bridge is the only freight connection to Long Island.
Two reasons: First, cost. A mile of subway construction costs ten times the cost of a mile of elevated construction. Today as well as in 1910. PRR built the East River tunnels primarily to access a coach yard that could be constructed where land was (then, not now) cheap, off Manhattan and in Long Island, and second, to provide Manhattan access for Long Island commuters and thus placate the Albany Legislature to control the then NIMBY’s since this politically unified the great Empire State tieing passenger rail on Long Island to the mainland. The through service to New England was a third reason but not anywhere as important as the first two. So once the PRR East River tunnels were constructed, it was a lot cheaper to contruct a Hell Gate Bridge and the embankment and elevated structure to tie into the existing Harlem River branch of the New Haven than to build a new north-south subway in Manhattan.
Second, the line was built for freight service as well as passenger service. The Long Island already had a car-float operation going at Bay Ridge, and the New Haven could drastically reduce its operating costs by using the LIRR facility to replace the car float from the south end of the Harlem River Branch in the South Bronx. This cut the water distance by 80%! So the New YOrk Connecting Railroad built the Hell Gate Bridge, the embankments and el structure, and connecting tracks, and was owned jointly by the PRR and NYNH&H. CSX, CP, and posibly the Providence and Worcester, still use the bridge for freight, interchanging with the New York and Atlantic, freight operator for the LIRR, at Fresh Pond Junction and yard in Queens. The other connection for the New York and Atlantic is New York Harbor, which now runs the car float from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to Greenville, NJ. where it connects with Conrail shared Assets.
Thanks so much! This question has had me puzzled, on and off, for years. I assumed that the cost of building that massive EL structure and bridge would have been astronomical back then (certainly would be today), but I forgot about the costs of subway construction, which per mile, could bankrupt a mid-sized municipality’s budget.
Thanks for all of the information guys! I did manage to get a couple hours to get a few shots of the Hell Gate Bridge with trains on it, mostly from ground level. As a couple people mentioned, we took the subway up to the second to last stop. There is a walkway on the North side of the Triborough that is easy to get to and can provide a nice view of the bridge, though it’s a decent walk up the approaches of the bridge to where one can see the Hell Gate Bridge.
We spent about two hours on a Sunday afternoon to kill some extra time and found 4 or 5 trains crossing the bridge in that time, all passenger trains. I got a number of okay photos. I also got a couple of shots a few days later from off the top Empire State Building of trains crossing the Hell Gate, but even with a 200mm lens the trains look like thin silver lines, so they aren’t great.
It was a very cool structure to see and well worth the time to go up there, though the bridge is in need of a coat of paint. As I said, I appreciate the help you guys gave me. It’ll probably take a few days to get photos processed and up on the internet, but when I do I get them done I’ll be sure and post links here.
If you have a PhotoBucket-type of account, please post your photos here anyway.
I certainly wish someone would post photos of freight and passenger trains on that bridge and el-structure route back in the 1950s-60s!
In my book “America’s Railroads the 2nd Generation” (by Don Ball) there is one photo of a pair of New Haven(ex-Virginian electrics) crossing it with a long freight. Unit #301 is leading.
Well, when you consider the immensity of the project – the 3 tunnels under water, Penn Station, Hell Gate Bridge, and the yards – makes one marvel even more when one considers that the taxpayers didn’t have to fund it.
Noah, you did very well considering that you bagged 4-5 trains on Hell Gate Bridge in two hours. When I photographed the soutbound Colonial crossing the Hell Gate Bridge in the late 1950’s it was but 4-5 passenger trains a day each way crossing the bridge. Back then most of the New Haven New York - Boston passenger trains ran out of Grand Central Terminal not Penn Station.
If I recall correctly the approach to the Hell Gate bridge in the borough of Queens is on a series of masonry arch bridges, and it crosses the terminal of the Astoria Line at the far end of its platform so it would have made for a nice photograph of an Amtrak train crossing over an approaching “el” train
Thanks for the links! I love that Conrail/subway photo.
I actually think the Hell Gate approach is one the more under-photographed mainline passenger railroads. My girlfriend lives in Sunnyside and I’ve spent some time walking the length of the line from Sunnyside Yard to Hell Gate, finding different photo angles and scenes. It’s a fascinating route with a great mix of bridge work.
I’d love to see some of your photos from your New York visit.