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New York Connecting Railroad,The Long Island’s Other Railroad by Robert C Sturm
New York Connecting Railroad,The Long Islands Other Railroad by Robert C Sturm & William G Thom
Hard Cover w/ dust jacket
126 pages
Copyright 2006
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE3
CONCEPTION AND EARLY HISTORY7
CONSTRUCTING THE EAST RIVER BRIDGE 19
THE SOUTHERN DIVISION 37
THE BAY RIDGE BRANCH 49
ELECTRIFICATION63
OPERATIONS73
THE POST-NEW HAVEN ERA93
PHOTO SECTION99
GLOSSARY 123
INDEX 125
PROLOGUE
The subject of this volume is the New York Connecting Railroad (NYCR), a little remarked property that served as a bridge line between the Pennsylvania and New Haven Railroads. It had no rolling stock of its own, and its only two stations were at the interchange with the Long Island Rail Road at Fresh Pond Junction in Queens and with the New Haven at 142 St. in the Bronx.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) was consolidating its system into the economic powerhouse that was about to undertake a massive program for entry into the New York Metropolitan Area. It was actively developing plans for direct access to Manhattan for its passenger services, and desired to increase its share of originating and terminating freight traffic. Accordingly, the PRR purchased the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in 1900 to facilitate the construction of Sunnyside Yard, which was to become, according to some, the largest passenger yard in the world, and to capture the extensive originating and terminating freight market serving Brooklyn.
The PRR also desired to gain freight and passenger access to New England and Canada, a region that was being served by the rival New York Central. The plan was to construct, with the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (the New Haven, or NH), a connecting link between Long Island and the Bronx, using some of the existing rights of way in the possession of the LIRR. (Brooklyn is the westernmost county located on Long Island.)
The connecting link was to become the New York Connecting Railroad, a link that would provide access through Penn Station for passenger trains from the south and west directly to the principal cities of New England and Canada via what is today known as the Northeast Corridor. The link would also provide for a better and shorter cross (New York) harbor freight transfer via carfloat from Greenville, New Jersey to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. This provided access to a direct and unimpeded route north via the LIRR Manhattan Beach Division/Bay Ridge Branch and the Hell Gate Bridge to the Bronx and thence to New England and Canada.
Carfloats at the time just prior to the building of the NYCR interchanged 1000 freight cars daily between the two railroads. The interchange route between the PRR and the New Haven involved a six-hour marine transfer (which was operated
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