That old map had me tearing my hair out trying to figure out what’s what, considering the placement of Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Harlem River. There must have been some hellacious landfilling and landforming from the time that map was done and now. It’s nothing like that today!
At least I found the compass rose orientation arrow, but that didn’t help much.
Shame on you, Wayne! Read the history of Marble Hill for all the details of the great realignment (which, in part, led to the sharp transition curve in cut that facilitated the asleep-at-the-throttle MN wreck a few years ago)
A far better question, imho, is what that steam power was doing on the inside track in the first place. Has to be one of the last trains handled to/from Mott Haven or perhaps GCT itself before the full electrification was turned on (see the third rail already in place with its shieldboards?) As such it might represent the cutting edge of NYC passenger power, one of the earliest Pacifics (the cylinders seem too large to be something else) that would have been supplanting the then-first-line Atlantics… can anyone deconvolve the locomotive number?
(Here’s the steamlocomotive.com page for NYC Atlantics, including their number series, from which you can easily find the Pacifics too.)
Shame on me Mod-Man? Why would I care what goes on in the City? I’m from Jersey! As long as they don’t ruin the good stuff like the Empire State Building (A national landmark, it’s where King Kong died,) the Chrysler Building, Radio City, well you get the picture.
And who cares what that steam engine’s doing on the inside track? Just like Mount Everest, it’s there! Nothing else matters.
But I will read up on Marble Hill, just to find out “what the hell?”
Speaking of upper Manhattan, Kingsbridge and such, want to see what it looked like in the flintlock era?
http://www.battlefields.org/learn/maps/fort-washington-november-16-1776
The loco coming right at ya on Track 2 reads 3425/6 but then I’m not all that certain or good at that stuff. The loco in question on the inside seems to be 342x.
Not sure why he’s on the inside track either, but there are no people on the platform at all so maybe they closed that part off for access for a while as trains were diverted onto that track.
When those 6400’s came thundering through the Burlington of my yoots, they were always on the far outside track as the platforms had many folk waiting on ‘scheduled stop’ trains. However!..there was a small platform on that far side as well but they served only one train a day, in the am, going all the way up to Allendale, almost always a doddlebug. Folks were not permitted to cross the myriad of tracks in Burlington at that time, there was a posted sign and at train time they were escorted across along a wooden plank walkway. Did not have that nice pedestrian overhead as at Kingsbridge Station.
One of the Classic Trains Photo of the Day pics had a ‘pinch hitting Pacific in Burlington’ substituting for the doddlebug that day, very very near the discontinuance of the train itself. We kids called it ‘the ghost line’ as so few trains. The line went along the Niagara Escarpment past Mt Nemo and thru incredibly beautiful rural rustic countryside. In later years it became a big deal, extensively rebuilt and double tracked with most of the traffic from the North and West routed that way. I believe it’s called the Halton Sub these days.
Anyways , back to Kingsbridge!
This is the station in the 2 steam photos, without the footbridge, which may be nearby, providing access to the IRT station.
Look at that bridge! No-BS steel and masonry! Built for the ages and not just a few decades!
We should stand in awe of the people who built things like that!
I was thrown off by “Kingsbridge Station”. I eventually realized it was Marble Hill Station. There was a Kingsbridge Station on the Putnam Division a little bit to the nortn and east. Also the upper level on the Broadway swing bridge is a subway line. That bridge has been replaced with a vertical lift bridge, still with subway.
Interesting open letter to Mr. Smith.
An even more interesting photo of Mr. Smith.
Is it just me, or does he look like he could give a shit?
I’ll tell you what though, today’s “PC” world would give the folks who put together that “Valentine’s Guide” a nervous breakdown!
Smith most definitely could; in my opinion he is one of the best and wisest people in the contemporary railroad world. His solution for the problem of overbuilt Canadian railways was probably far better than the nationalization that was committed (and Thornton probably more effective several times over in it). He is also responsible for setting in motion the program that led to Selkirk and the Castleton Cutoff.
He was killed young, trying to be chivalrous as I think was his nature; imagine what impressive things the Central would have achieved had he lived longer.
Try this image as a bit of a balance for the period in question:
Much better photo, he looks like a fine, proper gentleman in that one!
He does look a bit PO’d in the first one.
Then again, there are some people who the camera just doesn’t like, for whatever reason. Richard Nixon had that problem.
And no doubt Mr. Smith was a great railroader, that’s a given.
Brooklyn 1922 - last soldier returned from France
http://dcmny.org/islandora/object/photosnycbeyond%3A31204/datastream/OBJ/view
http://dcmny.org/islandora/object/photosnycbeyond%3A31205/datastream/OBJ/view
http://dcmny.org/islandora/object/photosnycbeyond%3A31206/datastream/OBJ/view
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The map of the Kingsbridge area shows how the earlier Hudson Division looped around the meander of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and then the new cutoff (penciled in) that follows the new ship canal. An X marks the spot of the old Kingsbridge station near the spot where the old line and the Putnam Division part ways. I would assume that that remained the location of the Putnam Division’s Kingsbridge Station. In the first posts with the photos of the Marble Hill/new Kingsbridge Station, looking in the background above the station you see boxcars on the grade where the old line and the Putnam Division ran side by side. The old line, or parts of it, remained in frieght service for at least a half century.
Moved this subject over to this thread. Click on the link for the BIG picture. Heck of a photo, been staring and analyzing for some time.
Very somber photographs of that fallen Doughboy’s return home.
Any idea who he was? I wish we had a name.
Lest we forget…
Somewhat sad as well, but there’s no one left alive who was in those photos. Time marches on, what can you do.
Miningman’s four 1929 pics were apparently taken from the NW corner of the Paragon bldg 40.7424N 73.94915W . Goes to show you don’t need a skyscraper to get a terrific panorama – 100 feet of elevation can be enough.
Surprised to see LIRR Hunterspoint Ave station – almost no trains stopped there in 1929. Or did DD1s not pull LIRR trains out of NY Penn that early?
Question for timz… what is the double tracked elevated line shown on the right?
See post 2 back for super clear image with the link.
Miningman’s three 1929 pics were apparently taken from the NW corner of the Paragon bldg…
Man, did I just learn a good lesson about looking at a photograph too quickly!
I saw the Hell Gate Bridge, I saw people in swimsuits, and the first thing that popped into my mind was “Are those people swimming in the East River? What, are they nuts? That river was so polluted you could walk across it before you could swim in it!”
Then I looked again. “Oh, swimming pools! Never mind!”
My “Emily Litella Moment.” For those who don’t know her, let me introduce you.
The one just right of the steam plume, that disappears underground at the bottom edge of the pic? That’s the IRT subway, now the 7 line. Still looks about like that now – a westward train enters the tunnel, makes one stop in Queens, then under the river to run along 42nd St in Manhattan.
