The ERA BULLETIN - MARCH, 2014 Bulletin Electric Railroaders’ Association, Incorporated Vol. 57, No. 3 March, 2014 The Bulletin THIRD AVENUE “L” SERVICE CURTAILED Published by the Electric 60 YEARS AGO Railroaders’ Association, Incorporated, PO Box In 1954, trains operated between Chatham the morning, they can be handled north- 3323, New York, New Square and Gun Hill Road on weekdays dur- bound in the evening. York 10163-3323. ing rush hours and midday. Expresses oper- “There is also available at the 149th Street th ated only in the rush hour. There was no ser- station the 7 Avenue subway line express th For general inquiries, vice south of 149 Street weekday evenings service, which serves the same downtown, contact us at bulletin@ and midnights and 24 hours on weekends. City Hall, and financial district as the Lexing- erausa.org. ERA’s The May 4, 1954 report recommending that ton Avenue express. website is th www.erausa.org. service be discontinued completely south of “The 7 Avenue service takes only four th 149 Street also predicted that there would minutes longer than the Lexington Avenue Editorial Staff: be space for the displaced passengers on service to get to the City Hall area, the same Editor-in-Chief: Lexington and Seventh Avenue trains south destination as the present Third Avenue Ele- Bernard Linder th th News Editor: of 149 Street. The report states: vated Line. Traffic checks of the 7 Avenue Randy Glucksman “The deci- line trains Contributing Editor: sive factor is southbound at Jeffrey Erlitz whether there 149th Street is sufficient show that the Production Manager: David Ross capacity on riding is lighter the alternate on these trains subway lines than on the to accommo- Lexington Ave- date the addi- nue trains and ©2014 Electric tional rush therefore great- Railroaders’ hour passen- er capacity ex- Association, gers who now Third Avenue “L” express train, January, 1932. ists for carrying Incorporated Bernard Linder collection use the Third additional pas- Avenue Elevated Line to travel to Manhattan sengers.” in the morning from points north of 149th (Editor’s note: NYC Transit’s schedule makers In This Issue: Street, and in the reverse direction in the did not follow the suggestions in the report. They evening. The non-rush hour traffic offers no decided to increase the Lexington Avenue service Super Bowl® th problem. and reduce the 7 Avenue service stopping at XLVIII “Traffic checks made in March and April 149th Street-Third Avenue, as shown in the table ...Page 2 1954 of Lexington and Seventh Avenue sub- on page 6. The new schedules went into effect on way trains leaving 149th Street-Third Avenue January 14, 1955, several months before Third southbound and of the Third Avenue Elevat- Avenue Elevated Manhattan service was discon- ed trains arriving at 149th Street-Third Ave- tinued.) nue show that there is capacity on the sub- Because southbound rush hour subway way to absorb the additional load. Since the trains arriving at 149th Street-Third Avenue passengers can be handled southbound in (Continued on page 4) NEXT TRIP: GRAND CENTRAL TERM1 INAL TOUR, SATURDAY, APRIL 5 NEW YORKERA DIVISION BULLETIN BULLETIN - MARCH, OCTOBER, 2014 2000 SUPER BOWL® XLVIII by Randy Glucksman On January 19, the Denver Broncos and Seattle Sea- New York City. The schedule, in a PDF, was sent as hawks earned the right to compete in the Super Bowl. part of an email advisory. There were 31 westbound Since publication of the last Bulletin, there is a lot of trips to MetLife Stadium and 26 eastbound trips to Se- additional information, which appears below. caucus Junction. Connecting service from/to Hoboken The press was making a big deal about the added NJ was also shown on this PDF. The car swap of multilevel Transit service and using multilevel equipment on the cars for single-levels was not complete by the end of shuttles. Member Julien Wolfe took note of the press the week of January 20 (February Bulletin). Bus service releases and wrote: “There is an ‘error’ in the press re- was added on Routes 124, 129, 158, 162, 163, 192, lease — this will not be the first mass transit Super 199, 320, and 321, and special green timetables were Bowl! Back in 1982 we had all we could do to run the issued. Member Danny Chazin took advantage of the two trains (which included such things as using a SUPERPASS and wrote that he used it for 6 of the 8 $40,000 State of Michigan grant to build a platform near days it was valid. “On Monday, I rode to Gladstone; the Pontiac Silverdome for the one-time use of the Tuesday to High Bridge; Wednesday to Suffern; Thurs- trains, working with a caterer to supply a $25 box snack day to Bay Head; Friday to Pearl River on the Pascack for some of the 1,500 who rode the two trains; a total of Valley Line, and (Saturday) to Atlantic City, Philadelphia, 60,000 were in the Pontiac Silverdome for the game, and Camden.” which featured the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Cincin- As I passed through Secaucus Junction on the morn- nati Bengals. We at one time thought that an Amtrak ing after the Super Bowl, aside from some signs about special would come up from Cincinnati, which most like- the previous days’ events, it was business as usual. ly would have sold out, but no one in Cincinnati either However, early on Super Bowl Sunday, ice patrols in the tried to do this, or if they tried it was unsuccessful; get- Hudson River Tunnels caused 30-45-minute delays on ting portable toilets installed in our coaches (after lots of trains in and out of New York Penn Station. Despite the memos from me to those who initially thought this to be frigid weather in the metropolitan area earlier in the funny, and then realized how serious it was); getting week, and all of the required preparations, nobody ever contracts with Consumers Power so we could put one expected a temperature at kick-off of 49 degrees, warm- train on the track into their plant during the game so that er than in the home cities of the competing teams. Be- the engines could be near a roadway and thus have lieve it or not, the lowest temperature at kick-off oc- water supplied to them. We also had to arrange with the curred in New Orleans for Super Bowl VI, when it was Pontiac Fire Department to have a pumper engine there 34 degrees. According to news reports, 32,900 rode NJ to provide hoses for the water, to keep our steam heat Transit trains to the game, far exceeding the previous going, which was needed on that very cold day, though record of 22,000 for a U2 concert. Typical ridership for not cold by our recent and current ‘Polar Vortex’ cold we regular football games is 8,000. Super Bowl Committee are enduring; and having GTW spike all the switches officials anticipated that 10,000-12,000, later revised to though their Pontiac freight yard to reduce chances of a 15,000, would use the rail option. The long wait at Se- derailment. We did run two trains (and, a lot of buses, caucus Junction for security screening was apparently and SEMTA was actually responsible for emergency more than some could handle. Coupled with being over- repairs to the many charter coaches from all over the dressed and an overcrowded and overheated station, a Midwest that also showed up). In the Detroit region number of passengers required medical assistance. ‘mass transit’ is whatever you can take, but the logistics The shuttle service ran until its scheduled 1 AM depar- of what NJ Transit is hoping to do will be very impres- ture. Buses that had been on standby were called in to sive, I am sure.” Julien was in charge of running the speed up the departure process. I watched the Channel SEMTA rail service. 4 6 o’clock news, where some of the train riders who NJ Transit announced a special non-commemorative were interviewed were upset about the delays going version of the SUPERPASS on January 17 to be sold at through Secaucus Junction, where the screening took TVMs and available on MyTix Mobile at the same $50 place. There were also reports of fans waiting up to 90 price. Both were valid for 8 days of unlimited travel — minutes to board trains. NJ Transit officials told fans to January 27 through February 3 on all NJ Transit rail, expect similar conditions after the game, but assured bus, light rail, and Access Link services throughout New them that trains would not stop running "until every sin- Jersey, including travel to and from Newark Airport and (Continued on page 3) 2 ERA BULLETIN - MARCH, 2014 Super Bowl® XLVIII work was suspended for the weekend. MTA METRO-NORTH RAILROAD: From January 29-31, (Continued from page 2) there was one extra late-morning inbound train on each gle customer who has a ticket" is transported back to line. The New Haven added one eastbound departure New York. In the end, the score was Seattle 43, Denver at 11:11 PM. On February 1, the New Haven Line 8, and yes, snow began falling in the metropolitan area “Shoppers Specials” were operated. around midnight. MTA LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD: A brochure titled, Super The next day Chairman James Weinstein was inter- Bowl Boulevard Engineered By GM, was published viewed, happily boasting that NJ Transit had done a and detailed the transit options for those with tickets to good job.