My brother often digs around on the interwebs to find pictures of trains to send me. This is a way we have managed to stay close over many kinds of distance, since we have had railfanning and model railroading in common since we were kids (that’s us in my avatar photo, though you can hardly make us out). Often he doesn’t have time or remember to remark where he found a photo or the details about it. Today he sent me this photo, which I absolutely love:
It has everything I love in it. Big steam. F-units. Even what looks like an ALCO switcher. We started musing over where and when this might be. It’s obviously a New York Central operation.
I know there are several NYC modelers here on the forum, and I wonder what any of you might tell us about this photo. I’m guessing late '40s. But there’s only one diesel switcher in this whole yard. Is the NYC using some of their steamers for yard duty at this time? Does anyone know where this was taken? Is it a famous photo that I could find in higher res and make a print out of?
What can we know of this image?
Thanks.
-Matt
P.S. Here’s me 'n the kid brother. I call him Youngblood.
Collinwood is gmpullman Eds neck of the wood, though it would appear that very little if anything remains of the infrastructure in the photo.
If the diesel switcher has the road number 834, it is a NYC Class DES-8, Alco/GE 660 hp S1, built 1943, originally #715 but renumbered 6/48.
IF the cab locomotive next to the switcher has the road # 1634 then it is an EMD F3, NYC Class EF15, built 1947.
A real stab in the dark is 74**?**4 (??). Is it a NYC Class U2(?), 0-8-0 switcher?? I gather some of them lasted until 1957, though I think, for no good reason, that there are too many steam locomotives in the photo for it to be taken at that late a date.
Well. Matt — You’ve landed right smack dab in my childhood back yard. I grew up just about a mile from here. (See my location in my avatar) My dad would bring me here several days a week during nice weather and we would stand for hours on a wooden stairway on the far side of the bridge (East 152nd St.) and that’s where, at about age eight, one of the engineers of a switcher hollered to me “Hey kid, you wanna ride a train?” I was down those stairs and on that engine in a flash (it was an ex-NY,O & W NW2 #9512) he let me “run” the engine from one end of the yard to the other.
This is the view from the landing of those wooden steps:
After the Penn-Central built a new crew dormitory in 1970 the old wooden YMCA mysteriously burned to the ground [:S] You’ll also notice in the upper-right there are several catenary supports visible… This was the east end of the Cleveland Union Terminal electric operation that ran until 1953 or so.
Holy Moley! Thanks Bear. Thanks Ed. Although I hoped it, I didn’t really expect such success. I can’t wait until my brother sees this. I’m especially glad we were able to uncork the little vignette about the engineer hollering down to the eight-year-old Ed. What a treat!
We should have a Monthly Puzzler post, just a shot of some yard or industry spur or stretch of mainline or a coaling station or interlocking tower somewhere, and throw it out unlabeled for members to identify.
Today, the NYC System Historical Society’s online store is called “The Collinwood Shop”, an indication of the important role Collinwood held in NYC / LS&MS history.
Ed - I believe Collinwood is part of Cleveland now?
Collinwood resides in Euclid, which is one of the eastern suburbs of Cleveland.
I presume the photo was taken atop the monstrous concrete coaling tower located on the west side of the E.152nd bridge. It was still standing proudly in Collinwood before finally being razed in 2017. A sad day for NYC fans…[sigh]
In the above shot, looking west, you can see remaining catenary supports on the left. The 22 P-1a electric locomotives were rebuilt for third rail pickup at GE’s Erie plant before being sent to the Electrified district between Harmon and Grand Central Terminal in New York.
In 1929 construction was begun on repair facilities on the south side of the yard for servicing the electrics. This facility became known as the P-1a shed and retained that moniker for its remaining years.
Glad I clicked on this thread! I grew up on Long Island, NY, with nothing but electric commuter rail. This thread has shown us all another side of railroading we never really thought about. Thanks, guys.
Then around 1970 the “New” Penn-Central crew dorm was built. I played a lot of pinball in that building. There was a TV and game room plus a great cafeteria serving excellent meals:
Mysteriously, once the new dorm was built the big, old YMCA burned to the ground [:|] That thing went up like a tinder box.
This photo below was taken from the exact landing on that stairway that I called my “RR home” for so many years. From this vantage point I could look behind me (to west) and see under the 152nd St bridge to all the trackage toward Cleveland as well.
It’s a model that my Uncle Jim made for my dad when my dad was a kid. Jim was the oldest of six kids, 14 years older than my dad, who was the youngest. I always thought it was a trolley, but lately I’ve come to understand it was an electric locomotive. It looks a lot like your Cleveland Union Terminal unit!
That’s a treasure! I love electric locomotives of all kinds. I am so thankful that I got a chance to ride behind the old C.U.T. electrics in the New York area before they were scrapped.
Once you “feel” their presence and power plus graceful speed you have a life-long appreciation for their engineering.
Your model looks quite like the old New York Central “T-Motor”:
I love that photo because it looks a lot like the engine terminal at my main yard of my layout, which is a fictional subsidiary of the NYC. A mix of late steam and first generation diesels, mostly Es and Fs. My switchers are EMD SW7s.
I’m guessing either late 1940s or early 1950s. Sadly, the Hudsons were all scrapped by 1957. The only left over is the tender from subsidiary Toronto, Hamilton, and Buffalo #502 which was converted to a steam generator car and now resides at Steamtown in Scranton.
The CUT motors look like someone put a P5a boxcab on a GG1 underframe and trucks. Sadly I grew up on the west side and never got a chance to ride behind one. They would have been long gone by the time I would have noticed one.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me the NYC kept steam going in the western end (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio) longer than in the east? Think I saw that B&A was all diesel by like 1952 for example. I know I bought a video/DVD on the NYC where I was surprised to see a J-3 pulling a train of stainless steel cars between Cincinnati and Chicago in like 1956.
Wouldn’t have been unusual for a railroad to congregate all it’s remaining steam in one area / division so they could eliminate steam facilities (coaling towers, water towers etc.) in other areas. Kinda like how in the 1980s the C&NW assigned all their Alco diesels to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
This thread keeps being interesting and educational. So here’s a question that keeps occurring to me. Why do the front and rear pilot trucks on those electrics extend so far out from under the car body? And what are those extra trucks for, anyway? It looks like the platforms above them are made to swivel sharply, but what is the purpose of those articulated front and back sections? Okay, three questions.
And before the internet, and Google, and Forums like this, this is the sort of question that could be nearly impossible to research and track down, even assuming you could find someone to ask the question of! The information was all there the photos were all taken – but they were impossibly dispersed and nobody could put it all together. The rise of railroad historical societies in the 1960s-70s helped, but even they could be stymied in the pre internet era.
Might have been the James Whitcomb Riley. I read that is where the streamlined Hudsons for the 1941 Empire State Express finished their service life. That train also used non-streamlined Hudsons. Whatever was available. Here are a few pictures I’ve found of the steam powered Riley.
