The ERA Bulletin 2017-05
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ERA BULLETIN — MAY, 2017 The Bulletin Electric Railroaders’ Association, Incorporated Vol. 60, No. 5 May, 2017 The Bulletin SECOND AVENUE SUBWAY PLANS Published by the Electric (CONTINUED FROM APRIL, 2017 ISSUE) Railroaders’ Association, Incorporated, PO Box City officials, who had been searching for North’s Grand Central Terminal. 3323, New York, New York 10163-3323. funds to build the subway, thought that they A year later, the city approved construction succeeded when the $500 million bond issue of eleven new subway routes, including the was approved in 1951. But they were disap- Second Avenue in three sections — Battery For general inquiries, or pointed when the money was diverted else- to 34th Street, 34th Street to 125th Street, and Bulletin submissions, where. In 1967, they were lucky; the State 125th Street to the Bronx. Included were the contact us at bulletin@ rd erausa.org. ERA’s Legislature appropriated $600 million for sub- 63 Street (Manhattan) crosstown where F website is way construction. This money was part of the and Q trains are operating, and the Archer www.erausa.org. $2.5 billion bond issue approved by the vot- Avenue Line with connections to EJZ. ers in a referendum. Instead of extending Also approved were several other lines that Editorial Staff: from the Battery to the Bronx, the new route Editor-in-Chief: were never built. Tracks from the existing Bernard Linder would have been a high-speed route built Second Avenue middle (F) and south of Ca- between 34th Street and the Bronx, where it Tri-State News and nal Street (E) would have been extended via Commuter Rail Editor: would have coordinated with the Lexington Ronald Yee separate river tunnels to a junction under S. Avenue, Pelham, and Dyre Avenue Lines in th North American and World th 4 Street in Brooklyn. After extending under the south Bronx and E. 180 Street. To avoid News Editor: Beaver Street and Bushwick Avenue, it would disturbing surface traffic, the subway would Alexander Ivanoff have diverged again with one branch contin- Contributing Editor: have been constructed by the deep tunneling uing under Myrtle Avenue, 99th Street Jeffrey Erlitz method. (Queens), and alongside the Long Island Rail City officials estimated that the shortened Production Manager: Road to Far Rockaway and Rockaway Park. portion of the subway would cost $400 mil- David Ross Also planned was the Utica Avenue Line from lion, with $2.5 million from the state and the Myrtle Avenue via Stuyvesant Avenue, Utica rest from the city. Construction was expected Avenue, Avenue S, and Nostrand Avenue to ©2017 Elect ric to take five to ten years. Railroaders ’ Voorhies Avenue and the Nostrand Avenue The Lexington Avenue Subway has always Association, Extension from Flatbush Avenue to Avenue Incorporate d been overcrowded in the rush hour, but it S. A year later, the eleven routes, some of became intolerable after the Third Avenue “L” which were described above, were reduced ceased operating in 1955. Riding was ex- to seven due to cost escalation. pected to increase by 15,000 to 20,000 after On October 27, 1972, ground was broken In This Issue: Co-Op City’s opening in the late 1960s. at E. 103rd Street and Second Avenue for the From Construction on a double-deck four-track rd first section of the Second Avenue Subway. 63 Street Tunnel was expected to provide Recognition to On July 25, 1974, city and state officials ap- relief for Queens riders and slight relief for Dominance— peared at Second Avenue and E. 9th Street, Lexington Avenue riders. The upper level where they broke ground for the fourth sec- The New York tracks would have connected to the Second tion, which extended from E. 2nd to E. 9th Connecting Avenue Subway and also extend under 63rd Street. Construction on the remaining routes Street to the existing subway stations under Railroad was adversely affected by the city’s 1975 Sixth Avenue ( ) and Seventh Avenue (Continued) F financial crisis. A year later, seven new …Page 2 (NQRW). Under construction are the lower level tracks and a new terminal under Metro- (Continued on page 18) 1 NEW YORKERA DIVISION BULLETIN BULLETIN — MAY, OCTOBER, 2017 2000 FROM RECOGNITION TO DOMINANCE: THE NEW YORK CONNECTING RAILROAD (BRIDGING THE BAY AND CONNECTING THE PIECES) by George Chiasson (Continued from April, 2017 issue) This second progression of steel catenary supports White Plains that in part paralleled the future paths of along the Harlem River Branch was virtually identical to both the Hutchinson River Parkway and New York State those of the 1907 Stamford installation with but one no- Route 125; and 3) a 1½-mile, two-track branch east- ticeable difference: a piece of somewhat ornate-looking ward from Columbus Ave. Junction in Mount Vernon to reinforcement where the three main members (each North Avenue in New Rochelle, which was about ⅓- lattice upright and cross-truss) intersected. The catena- mile short of the New Haven’s four-track main line. Exe- ry itself was also a bit simpler in function and appear- cuted under the supervision of J.P. Morgan himself ance, having just one messenger wire instead of two, (though managed through designees), development of which required a much less ostentatious bracing system the New York, Westchester & Boston was opulent to than had the original “triangular” type. It also incorpo- say the least. There were level grades and no grade rated a long steel anchor bar, tethered to the overhead crossings; it had 18 substantially-built stations done in on either side of the towers through insulators, to main- several architectural styles that typically employed cut tain vertical position. Utilizing seven substations provid- stone, brick, steel, and concrete, complete with full- ed at Pelham Bay (near Baychester), Westchester, Van length high platforms. The system also had few but th Nest, West Farms, Oak Point, Bungay (E. 149 ) Street, easy curves and there was a sizeable steel viaduct and Harlem River Terminal itself, local New Haven pas- across the Hutchinson River Valley that physically senger operations were electrified on the Harlem River crossed the New Haven’s main line to Grand Central Branch effective July 29, 1911, with train service con- between the Mount Vernon and Pelham stations, just currently being extended at its northerly end from New south of the system’s major junction point at “CA” Tow- Rochelle as far as Stamford. Ten bi-directional rush er. As a result, two sets of platforms were built at Co- hour expresses were also offered between Harlem Riv- lumbus Ave. station (NYW&B above and NYNH&H be- er Terminal and New Rochelle which generally skipped low) to provide a direct connection between the two all the stops south of Van Nest en route, or simply made routes. The system was also completely electrified, em- no stops at all between the terminals. Nominally the ploying the same cutting-edge “autotransformer” tech- New Haven’s fleet of EP-1s were employed to provide nology as did the New Haven’s Harlem River Branch. In the motive power for all of this service, in company with fact, NYW&B was to be provided with its power by the the same coaches used previously. Also now in opera- Cos Cob generating station, which dispatched raw volt- tion was the Van Nest Electric Shop, which by this time age to a pair of substations that were several miles was performing all types of maintenance and repair on apart, one at Columbus Avenue and another near the NYNH&H MUs and EP-1 locomotives. The landscape terminal in White Plains. was continuing to grow around the railroad as well; be- The “Westchester’s” initial rolling stock was equally tween the Pelham Bay Draw and Eastchester Avenue, advanced for the time, representing a compromise be- the new catenary towers had to be threaded to allow the tween the rapid transit and multiple-unit commuter rail addition of a hefty street overpass that carried the new cars that were then emerging. Designed by Louis B. “Bronx and Pelham Park Way” (Pelham Parkway in its Stillwell and his engineering team, cars 101-128 were original form) across the Harlem River Branch. built by Pressed Steel Car Company of Butler, Pennsyl- In the meanwhile, creation of the New York, vania. They employed fully-enclosed, all-steel bodies Westchester & Boston Railway proceeded apace with lines reminiscent of the Hudson & Manhattan’s re- through 1910 and 1911, considering that the vast major- cently-produced equipment, and had distinctive ity of its north-northeastward right-of-way had to be laid “porthole” end windows in the same profile as the Long through undeveloped real estate acquired virtually on- Island Rail Road MP-54s. The NYW&B cars also had the-spot and constructed from scratch. As finally in- pneumatic, platform level end and center doors as on a stalled, this system consisted of three basic elements: rapid transit car, with steps and traps in the vestibules to 1) a wholly-new, six-mile, four-track main line from West enable low-platform loading while on the Harlem River Farms Junction, where its trackage fed into the existing th Branch. Each NYW&B unit weighed approximately Harlem River Branch near E. 174 Street, across the 120,000 pounds, was 70 feet 4 inches long, 9 feet 7¾ Bronx on an almost arrow-straight survey to Columbus inches wide, 13 feet 3½ inches high, and had a Avenue Junction in the Westchester suburb of Mount “monitor” type roof outfitted with two pantographs that Vernon (a site inside the present Wilson Woods Park); 2) a 9-mile, two-track branch to Westchester Avenue in (Continued on page 3) 2 ERA BULLETIN — MAY, 2017 From Recognition to Dominance and 1-2 for expresses) from newly-opened Signal Sta- tion 8 (West Farms Junction, located south of Tremont (Continued from page 2) Ave., now E.