This operation is still in business, but about its only customer is its owner, the New York City Transit Authority of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It does the final delivary of new subway cars and possibly other material from a connection with the Cross Harbor Railway, the remaining car float operation in the New York Harbor. It has some diesel road-switchers, meeting subway clearances, including the A division that has no freight service, and these can be used for utility purposes on the subway system. The Cross Harbor delivers to the TA’s 39th Street yard, on tracks that used to have trolley wire, then the South Brooklyn pulls the delivery to Coney Island Shops via the West End Line (now the D, earlier the B, and before that 3, but usually not displayed), mostly on elevated structure, and there the delivery is turned over to the Transit Authority.
During WWII, it owned about seven steeple-cab electric locomotives, B - B, all with both trolley poles and third rail shoes. There were freight sidings for small industries all over Brooklyn, business was booming for them because many were defense related, and trucking would have used precious oil. So possibly six or seven trolley lines had trolley freight service. In addition there were two freight sidings on the north side of the Sea Beach Line. This line runs in an impressive cut, much adjacent to the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch, which had 11000V AC overhead for New Haven frieghts. There used to be four tracks, but I believe it now three, plus the one of the two on the freight railroad, which also connects with Cross Harbor near the Bay Ridge dock. The Sea Beach line was trolley wire up to about 1915, then replaced with third rail, and the sidings only had trolley wire. As mentioned on another thread, when short of power, the South Brooklyn would borrow anything from BMT divison of the TA that they could to move the freight cars, including 900 and 1000-series wood Bruooklynn United open-gate elevated cars that had been converted to work
I thought I’d add to this because of personal questions regarding freight on streetcar tracks, particularly in NY. First a correction. When I said McDonald Avenue had the last street track I meant for the South Brooklyn. NY & Atlantic, Cross Harbor, and NY Dock all still have street trackage, some of which was also used at one time by South Brooklyn.
Manhattan conduit lines had freight service at one time. Two or more department stores had their own street-freightcars, open platform cars with nearly flat arch roofs and one large boxcar like door on each side, used for deliveray around 1910. I believe they were owned either by New York Railways or the overall operator that at one time leased or owned nearly all Manhattan streetcars lines, Metropolitan Street Railways. Just before WWI, the department stores switched to battery-powered solid-tire trucks, which I remember still running as a youngster in the 30’s. The freight cars were then used for utillity purposes by New York Railways, which ran its last streetcar on the 86 St. Crosstown Line in 1936, having been bought by GM in 1926 (except that the 86 St. Line and the 4th and Madison line were actually bought from the New York and Harlem, an NYCentral subsidiary, in 1934.).
I lived on Ave F & East 2nd Street 1 block from Mc Donald Ave. Yes I know the yard you are talking about as well as where the trains exited the tunnel to reach the car ferry. The steamship company I worked for used to load at 36th street Brooklyn & to the best of my knowledge the streets still have tracks in them down there. Also, we used to put pennies on the rails as the trains/trolleys went by. My wifes family owned a minature golf course around the corner fron Nathans across the street from the Thunderbolt so we would go by the Coney Island yards every time we went to the golf course. When the IND was extended unto the Culver Line tracks the Culver line then terminated at Ditmas Ave station & you had to change trains there to go further to Coney Island if you desired. The line ran under the Culver Line el from Ditmas to 9th Ave where there was a yard. You could also connect there to the West End Line as well as the Culver line (maybe now the “B”). I also seem to remember they served some factories between 9th Ave & Ditmas Ave as there were spurs off the two tracks that follow underneath the El. The 1st IND train to come up from Church Ave was the “D” train later changed to the “F” train. The “D” train now runs on what used to be known as the Brighton Beach Line. I do remember seeing them hauling freight cars on Mc Donald Ave on the way to & from the CI yards. In the 50s you could also take the trolley to CI if you did not want to climb the steps to the EL.[:o)][:D]
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QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper
This operation is still in business, but about its only customer is its owner, the New York City Transit Authority of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It does the final delivary of new subway cars and possibly other material from a connection with the Cross Harbor Railway, the remaining car float operation in the New York Harbor. It has some diesel road-switchers, meeting subway clearances, including the A division that has no freight service, and these ca
Recently, the Transit Authority did some shuffling, and the B now runs on the Brighton and the D on the West End and skips DeKalb during rush hours like the B did with the B stopping at DeKalb. The Q still provides supplementary service on the Brighton. (Which one is express and which is local during weekdays is a question I’ll look into. Answer, the weekday-only B is local above 59th Street Manhattan, exoress below and on the Brighton in Brooklyn. The Q is local in Brooklyn full time and exoress on Broadway in Manhattan. The F is stlill running on the Culver. I remember all the tracks you are talking about. When the D first started running to Coney Island on the Culver, the IND taking over the line from the BMT, the BMT still provided full Culver service as far as Ditmas Avenue, even with Nassau Loop expresses during rush hour. But then this was reduced to just a Ditmas - Ninth Avenue shuttle, finally limited to one short train (a three-car BMT steel “B-Type” unit or ex-Staten Island carsm an d even for a short period IRT Loe-Vs, then a four-car R-9 and later types) finally on just one track used in both directions. During this period the inbound local (north) track on the lower level (Culver) of the 9th Avenue station was connected to the at-grade South Brooklyn tracks so the South Brooklyn track that bypassed 9th Avenue station going to the yard on the north side could be removed and not maintained. Of course the shuttle used the middle track for access to West End trains in both directions upstairs. I don’t remember which track the shuttle used on the el structure, but I think it was the south track (eastbound). I wonder how the TA managed to abandon the shuttle complete, but the surface South Brooklyn tracks outlasted the 1916-era later elevated structure! I presume the right of way has been sold now. It was opened, as you doubtless know, in the middle of the 19th Century for steam Culver trains running from the 39th Street docks to Coney Island. And early in the
Dave,
Thanks for the very interesting thread. I’ve always been fascinated by the BMT and the South Brooklyn Rwy. I was not aware that there were frieght sidings to customers on some of the lines. I knew about the interchanges, and the line down Macdonald Avenue.
Reminds me of the Chicago Rapid Transit freight service that servived until 1973.
The South Brooklyn Railway (SBK) ran on McDonald Avenue until 1977 or 78. The tracks were torn up in a few places during the reconstruction of McDonald Avenue in 1978, rendering the line unusable. The useless tracks themselves were only paved over in 1991, and were only recently ripped out of the street. Some sections of the track may have been over 100 years old.
Sometime in the postwar period,. Macdonald Avenue was repaved, and new girder rail was installed. This was European girder rail with flangeways deep enough for standard railroad cars, the same type of girder rail rail used by the North Shore for its last trackwork in Milwaukee. The girder rail installed on Nostrand Avenue had a shallower flange groove, and there were places in Brooklyn where on occasion freight cars ran on their flanges, at least for short distances. The previous rail on Macdonald Avenue was not girder rail, and the flangeway was defined simply by missing pavement.
Located and had scanned these 1948 photos. As l already noted, S. B. trainmen were friendly, even allowing me to ride on occasion. But they were specific that I must not enter LIRR property. See the H8 2-8-0 pix at Classic Trains Sunnyside Yard thread for a glimps of what shoved these R10 subway cars up the Avenue H interchange track.
CTA’s freight operation was a bit different from the South Brooklyn. South Brooklyn was/is a common carrier in its own right while CRT/CTA was a contractor that handled freight for MILW to customers along the North Side L, which was originally a MILW branch.
Another view of what might be the same train, here from the overpass at the 9th Av. Station. In retrospect, with ITC being a St. Louis Car C. customer, with their building the post=WWII ITC streamlined interurban trains, StLCC may have used an ITC boxcar to ship maintenance and overhaul parts to NYCTA for overhaul of the original PCC fleet and the Bluebird. Logically, the car would be unloaded at the 39th Street Yard, up the ramps in the photo, and the parts brought on work-motors that are also used as motive-power, to the 9th Avenue Barn, the home of the PCC fleet (which did not go to Coney Island for maintenance and overhaul, nor to DeKalb Avenue shops). This was just before the massive repainting of the PCC fleet from Pachyderm Grey and Scarlet to green and silver
The same freight train after dropping off the ITC boxcar. Note the third-rail shoe on the rear truck. A doublr-throw knife switch was used to switch between third rail and overhead power, so the shoe was not energized when operating on streets:
Pretty sure 9980, from its number as well as design was owned by the B&QT, the surface streetcar division, but South Brooklyn used it anyway. Here at the 2nd Avenue Yaed:
First, the reverse case of the previous photo: South Brooklyn’s own No. 5 used with a MoW flat for new tie distribution, probably at 39th Street yard, and below near Avenue H and McDonald (LIRR interchange) with a short S. Brooklyn freight, just a reefer and a hopper car.
Two photos sent me by Russ Jackson, the first near 2nd Avenue and 39th Street, pre-WWII, source unknown, and the second his pholto, Box-Cab loco 4, at McDonald Avenue and Avenue I. See the Peter Witt thread on Classic trains for a streetcar photo (also preWWII and sent by Russ Jackson) at the same location ss the first photoi.
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