ERA BULLETIN — JANUARY, 2017 The Bulletin Electric Railroaders’ Association, Incorporated Vol. 60, No. 1 January, 2017 The Bulletin THE MILEPOSTS OF THE Published by the Electric NEW YORK SUBWAY SYSTEM Railroaders’ Association, Incorporated, PO Box by ERIC R. OSZUSTOWICZ 3323, New York, New York 10163-3323. Many of us are familiar with the chaining three former divisions (plus the Flushing and system for the tracks of the New York sub- Canarsie Lines) had one zero point. Most of For general inquiries, or way system. Each track on the system has a these signs have been removed due to vari- Bulletin submissions, marker every 50 feet based on a “zero point” ous construction projects over the years and contact us at bulletin@ for that particular track. For example, the ze- were never replaced. Their original purpose erausa.org. ERA’s ro point for the BMT Broadway Subway is is unknown, but shortly after their installation, website is just north of 57th Street-Seventh Avenue. The they quickly fell into disuse. www.erausa.org. southbound local track is Track A1. 500 feet Over the years, I have been recording and Editorial Staff: south of the zero point, the marker is photographing the locations of the remaining Editor-in-Chief: A1/5+00. One hundred fifty feet further south, mileposts before they all disappear com- Bernard Linder the marker is A1/6+50. If you follow the line pletely. These locations were placed on a Tri-State News and all the way to 14th Street-Union Square, one spreadsheet. Using track schematics show- Commuter Rail Editor: Ronald Yee will find a marker reading A1/120+00 within ing exact distances, I was able to deduce the North American and World the station. At this point, one is 12,000 feet locations of the zero points. The Flushing News Editor: from the zero point located at 57th Street. Line presented a particular problem, since I Alexander Ivanoff Each BMT and IND track uses the same was only able to locate one remaining mile- Contributing Editor: Jeffrey Erlitz basic system, although the IND uses a zero post. Without this one milepost, it would have point for its tracks at the New York/New Jer- been impossible to find the zero point for this Production Manager: sey state line south of Staten Island. The IRT line. David Ross uses a similar system where the last digit The zero point for the IND is the bumping denotes the track number and the remaining block at the Far Rockaway station on the A ©2017 Elect ric numbers multiplied by 100 represent the dis- line (see photograph below). Every milepost Railroaders ’ tance from that track’s particular zero point. placed on the IND is based on this one zero Association, The IRT system is further complicated by the point. This is the only known actual zero Incorporate d fact that the number 4 as last digit denotes point sign that still survives. This is the fur- Track 1, the number 2 denotes Track 2, the thest “railroad south” any train can travel on number 1 denotes Track 3 and the number 3 the IND. The zero point for the IRT is the In This Issue: denotes Track 4. This is system known to leaving home signal going north at New Lots From many of us. We will discuss some of the Avenue on the 3 line. This station is the fur- more interesting examples. There is another thest “railroad south” any train can travel on Recognition to distance measurement system known to very the IRT. The tracks continue beyond New Dominance— few. Lots Avenue into Livonia Yard, but mile post The New York At some point after the opening of the line zero is at the north end of the New Lots Ave- Connecting to Far Rockaway in 1958, another system of nue station. measurement was added to the New York Railroad The BMT is more complicated due to the subway system. Mileposts were placed on “loop” characteristic of Stillwell Terminal. The (Continued) the IND, BMT, and IRT at half-mile intervals. zero point is the center of the Coney Island …Page 2 These were not based on the above- mentioned chaining system. Each of the (Continued on page 4) 1 NEW YORKERA DIVISIONBULLETIN BULLETIN — JANUARY, OCTOBER, 2017 2000 FROM RECOGNITION TO DOMINANCE: THE NEW YORK CONNECTING RAILROAD (BRIDGING THE BAY AND CONNECTING THE PIECES) by George Chiasson (Continued from December, 2016 issue) THE PENNSYLVANIA’S GREENVILLE YARD Haven Railroad). Ironically, for all the investment ex- Even before reconstruction engulfed the Harlem River pended by the Pennsylvania Railroad on both of the Branch, and while the Pennsylvania was left to hang on maritime terminals to be supported by the New York its initial franchise application by the City of New York, Connecting Railroad, cutting-edge cable-suspension construction was proceeding at full speed on the mas- bridges were installed only at Greenville, being placed sive yard at Greenville, New Jersey in judicious antici- in service with its car floating operation that began mov- pation that the New York Connecting Railroad would ing cars to Bay Ridge by barge on December 22, 1909. soon ascend from the planning stage to reality. This On the Brooklyn side of the Bay meanwhile, more was especially so once the massive excavation work by “conventional” pontoon floats were used on the equally Henry Steers Company had commenced at the site of new transfer facility at the former 65th Street Ferry. Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan after the summer of At this point it is worth reflecting on the evolution of 1904, as many tons of its “spoil” (tailings) were trans- New York Harbor to date (1907), inasmuch as the rail- ported to the Greenville site by barge where the dredg- road car floating trade had developed across its first 40 ing out of an artificial bulkhead was quickly being com- years. On the New Jersey side of the Hudson there pleted. Once there, it was used along with other copi- were six principal terminals, five of which were by then ous quantities of general rip-rap (including a generous equipped with car floating capabilities of one sort or helping of New York City garbage) to create a man- another. The oldest was the Jersey City (Port Liberty) made island that measured two miles long by one mile terminus originally established by CNJ in 1866, which wide, quite literally at the edge of New York Bay. At the by then was shared with the powerhouse Baltimore & same time, other artificial fills were created to support Ohio along with the Philadelphia & Reading, all of which the eastward extension of PRR’s New York Bay Rail- had formed a cooperative triumvirate in 1886 to divide a road from Oak Island Junction into the new facility. By competing route to the Pennsylvania’s Northeast Corri- the end of the 1906 construction season things had tak- dor. The Erie and Delaware, Lackawanna & Western en shape nicely at Greenville Yard, but even so, the (through predecessor companies) had been sharing the company’s stubborn process in obtaining its city fran- so-called “Long Dock” terminus at Jersey City (near chise was still being played out. By all indications these Pavonia) since its beginning in 1861, but this location troubles were overcome at last in March, 1907 (at even in 1907 still required trans-shipment between rail- which point that long-sought and well-planned conces- cars and liter vessels, with a modest float terminal hav- sion was finally obtained) and initial operations at ing been newly established near the Lackawanna’s new Greenville Yard commenced. It was concurrently at this Hoboken terminal earlier that year. All other surviving time that the Long Island Rail Road and the smaller but New Jersey car floating venues to that time had been steadfast Sea Beach Railroad worked a swap of termi- the province of the mighty Pennsylvania: Harsimus nal facilities which granted that inbound railcars from Cove and its (mostly passenger train) companion at Greenville could be berthed at an improved facility on Paulus Hook, which was now supplemented by the new the Brooklyn side. Since the 1895 reconfiguration of Greenville facility. On the New York side, there were a Bay Ridge LIRR’s car floating operations continued to number of West Side (Manhattan) piers available as be performed through the enlarged-but-geographically- destination points for the car floats, but this was not an constricted “65th Street Ferry” terminal, which had tight option for furtherance toward Long Island or New Eng- curves and limited additional space. To counteract this land. There were also two “dead-end” float terminals in operational limitation LIRR bought out the adjacent pier- Brooklyn, the most noteworthy being that at N. 1st age of the New York & Sea Beach in March, 1907, in Street in Williamsburg, which was operated on behalf of exchange providing it with the property to establish a both B&O and New Haven; and the recently opened wholly new bayside terminal at the end of 63rd Street. In Lackawanna float at “Greenwood,” which had been es- the end this even greater expansion at 65th Street pro- tablished at the foot of 25th Street in 1906. Otherwise vided the joint Pennsylvania/LIRR operation with a su- the Long Island Rail Road remained “king of the hill” in perior basis for marine transfer operations, and better this regard, able to provide terminal connections or fa- yet a straight shot from the new Bay Ridge car floats cilitate the furtherance of intact carload freight through onto the Manhattan Beach Division that was easily suffi- its extensive facilities at Long Island City, originated in cient to support the long strings of freight cars that were 1861 and float-equipped in 1904, along with its newly expected to form the through freights to be created in the years to come (and moved northward by the New (Continued on page 3) 2 ERA BULLETIN — JANUARY, 2017 From Recognition to Dominance Section 2, much like the methodology followed on the Harlem River Branch in the Bronx.