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Third Avenue Railway System Roster of Equipment 1853-1953 by Vincent Seyfried SC
Third Avenue Railway System Roster of Equipment 1853-1953 by Vincent Seyfried
Soft Cover Stapled Name of front cover, Table of contents pag, Personal library sticker inside front cover.
112 pages
Roster of Rolling Stock Passenger and Service Cars Third Avenue Railway System and Subsidiaries
INDEX
Preface3
Outline History Third Avenue System5
Horse cars, Manhattan Third Ave. routes6
Cable cars, Manhattan Third Ave. routes9
First electric cars, splice cars, electri-
fied cable cars17
Metropolitan period21
Temporary renumbering of 1908; Third Ave.
independent again25
Old 7-window cable cars and sales26
Convertibles30
10-window box cars, new PAYE35
Storage battery cars38
Lightweight cars, new43
Lightweight cars, second hand49
Birneys53
Experimental cars; unused cars54
Service cars(conduit and storage battery only) 56
Union Railway: Outline history; early cars57
Metropolitan period60
Standard box cars64
Convertibles68
12 and 13 window closed box cars71
Open cars73
Service cars (all trolley pole)77
Dry Dock East Broadway and Battery RR81
New York City Interborough Ry.; Passenger cars81
Service cars86
Westchester Electric RR: Outline history88
Passenger cars88
Service cars92
Yonkers RR: Outline history; passenger cars94
Service cars97
Tarrytown White Plains & Mamaroneck RR (Westches-
ter St. RR) Outline history; passenger cars102
Service cars104
Steinway Lines: Outline history; passenger cars107
Service cars110
PREFACE
It is just one hundred years ago that a gfoup of bearded gentlemen gathered together one day in New York and organized the Third Avenue Railroad Co. In November 1952 the last trolley operation of the Third Avenue system ended at Yonkers, just a few months short of the company's 100th anniversary. In the intervening century the city of New York wl_thessed the rise and growth of its most extensive street railway empire, remarkable alike for the great variety of its operations, and for its long series of capable and progressive managers.
It seems fitting, therefore, that the centennial year of this pioneer corporation in the transit field should not pass unobserved. Surely the most fitting memorial would be a complete history of this interesting and immensely varied operation but such a work would require years of research and many volumes, and must reluctantly be left to some future historian more leisured and abler than I.
Yet, that the memory of the once-great Third Avenue R.R. system might receive at least some small part of the honor and homage that is its due, it would seem appropriate to issue on this occasion a handbook for which a need has long been felt: a complete, alltime roster of rolling stock of the Third Avenue system from horse car days to the present.
A work of this extent is somewhat of a rash undertaking; the Third Avenue roster is notorious for its complexity and bewildering changes. The long history of the company, the many subsidiaries, and the all too numerous renumberings and reduplications have made the task of composing any reasonably correct roster unusually difficult and full of pitfalls. In the preparation of these pages every possible precaution has been taken to avoid errors, to rely on the company's own records as primary sources, and to double-check these records against other sources, public and private. In addition, the various street railway magazines and builder's records have been combed for information, especially for the early days of the company. To make this handbook as intelligible and as useful as possible, very short histories of the various important companies and their lines have been included; in the way of illustration, a photo of almost every type of passenger car has been added to supplement the text and make reference clearer. Despite every effort, it has been impossible to secure full and complete information on each and every car. Much valuable information, once easily obtainable, has perished over the years beyond hope of recovery. At times the available information is disappointingly incomplete or obscure; finally, many facts that we should like to know were never recorded at all. Yet, in spite of these handicaps, the average reader will find that a surprisingly large amount of material has been assembled here, nearly all of it brought together for the first time.
In general, the material has been arranged chronologically under each company. For many years the Third Avenue company maintained the senarate identities of the various important subsidiaries, and this practice has been followed here, because it enables the reader to see at a glance what types of cars operated on a given system, such as Yonkers, Westchester Electric, etc. For the sake of uniformity the information is given as follows:
1. Number group
2. Maker
3. Year of manufacture
4. Number of units in series
5. Type of car
6. Number of windows
7. Type of roof
8. Type of trucks
9. Number and kind of motors
10. Tyne of controllers
11. Seating arrangement
12. Capacity
13. Weight
14. Disposition of each car
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