"Bob Watt" wrote in message
...
On 08/04/2004 22:05, in article
,
"Stephen Furley" wrote:

The original station in Newark, I can't remember the name.
Park Place, IIRC. In the 70s, the swing-bridge which carried the H&M
across
the Passaic River en route to Park Place was still extant. It had two
levels with RR tracks on both - the H&M was on the upper level.

That's it. I don't know anything about it. where was it, and when did it
close? Newark Penn seems to have undergone some major reconstruction in the
'30s, judging by the style of the builnings; was the H&M diverted there
then?


Between Newark and Juornal Square the line crosses two rivers, which of
these is the Passaic, and what is the other. There are massive bridges
crossing both of these rivers, which obviously opened at one time, but I
don't think they do now. Where was Manhattan Transfer, and whos trains
served it?

Hoboken is interesting, with its views across the Hudson to Manhattan,
and
its fine old copper clad ferry terminal building, long closed and now in
poor condition, but to be restored. The waiting room of the main line
station has also been restored, and reminds me of the Great Hall at the
old
Euston.
In the 70s, there were two large-scale models of steam locomotives in the
waiting room - one in Erie livery, the other painted for DL&W; are they
still there ?.

I didn't see any large-scale models, but there are two large wood and glass
cases, one in the waiting room, and the orher as you walk down the right
side of the station towards one of the Path entrances, which collect money
for charity. I dropped a few coins in as I walked past, but didn't look
closely. I think they had model railways in them. I'll have a better look
when I'm there.

On the South side of the station, near the entrance to the last track, there
was a small pipe coming down from above, from which came a burst of steam
and hot water every few seconds. It cane from the direction of the old
ferry terminal; I've no idea of its purpose.

The terminus of the new Hudson-Bergen light rail line is also on this side
of the station. It doesn't reach the main station concourse, but ends some
distance to the West. There is Major development taking place in this area;
the old ferry terminal is to re-open, so the temporary one will no longer be
needed. I don't know if the line will then be extended those last few tens
of metres to reach the main station.

One station which changed name; Pavonia Avenue. Was originally Erie
(before
the Erie trains were rerouted to Hoboken). Look carefully at the
decoration
on the pillars holding the roof up, and you'll see an 'E' worked into
them.

They are still there, but are no longer picked out in paint. The whole
capitol is painted green unlike, for example, Hoboken where the letter is in
white, on a blue background. It has been renamed again in fairly recent
times, and is now Pavonia Newport. The area has seen much new development in
recent years, greatly increasing use of the station, and the old side
platform is being re-opened. The Hudsen-Bergen has a station nearby, which
was called Newport, but which seemed to be announced as Pavonia Newport. It
is however a rather poor interchange, several minutes walk, and poorly
signed. It is now generally better to change between the lines at Hoboken
or Exchange Place. Newport was the terminus of the line from when it opened
about four years ago until the opening of the extension to Hoboken, sometime
between my April and October visits in 2002. The line turns East to enter
Hoboken, but there is a triangular junction in place, and the line is to be
extended further North.

Taking the H-B South from Newport, can be seen another relic of the old H&M,
the original power station, derelict, but with some rather fine decorative
brick and ironwork. it stands alone in the centre of a large cleared area,
and there were proposals for ir to be preserved, restored and converted to
ather uses. I haven't heard if its future, if any, has yet been decided.

A couple of years ago the Newark City Subway was re-equipped with similar
light rail units to those operating on the H-B. Some of the old cars were
still in the depot last year, and from what I could see of the one nearest
the fence, still looked in remarkably good condition for their age. I don't
know if there are any plans to preserve one. Towards the end of their life
they were fitted with pantographs for working from the new style overhead
line, though one or two of those stored at the depot still had trolley
poles.

The Penn Station terminus of the line was a building site last year, with
major renovations taking place. Only the two outer tracks are now in use.
There were workmen cutting metal and concrete slabs, clouds of dust and
smoke, gas cylinders and various construction plant on the platforms, 110
Volt cables trailing everywhere, and the station was still open to
passengers. Over here the Health and Safety people would have had a fit!

At the other end of the line the old loop has been removed, one of the
stations has closed, to be replaced by a new one nearby, and the line has
been extended to a new terminus, close to which is the new depot.

There is to be another extension to the line, a branch to Newark Broad
Street station. Since the subway already has a Broad Street, I assume we
will see a renaming here.

Last month NJ Transit opened a new, Diesel-powered light rail line, the
'River Line', from Trenton to Camden; I will be going to see it while I am
over there.

There's a lot of money being spent on railway development in the area at the
moment, but it is far from universally popular; one mans new or improved
rail system is another mans 'waste of my money by leftist liberals'. You
can't please all of the people all of the time. You will find many posts on
this in nyc.transit, misc.transport.urban-transit and
misc.transport.rail.americas, though sadly nyc.transit has recently been
taken over by Bush v Kerry, pro and anti-gay and anti-Jewish spam, and sadly
now has little worth reading. It's happening to more and more groups now.

The Prelinger archive has a rather nice little film of the old Third Avenue
Elevated line he
http://www.archive.org/movies/detail...ger&collection
id=31238

It is freely available for download, in various formats. I took the MPEG2
versiion, de-interlaced it, removed the 3:2 telecine pulldown, and made a
DVD from it. That links to another of my interests: film, and in
particular, documentary film. One of the main reasons for my visit to NJ is
to visit the Lowe's Jersey Theatre in Journal Square, which is now, slowly,
undergoing restoration. There's still a lot of work to do, but they run
film about one weekend a month between about October and May. They have
their original 1929 stage lighting board, and a lot of other plant still in
place. Up in the projection box there are now two relatively modern, as
projectors go, maybe 30 years old, Kinoton machines, with Ashcraft carbon
arcs, running at about 160 Amps, but I don't know how long they will be able
to get the very large carbons for them. There's also a simplex projector on
a Western Universal base, complete with turntable for sound on disk, two not
working but restorable Brenograph effects projectors, a carbon arc follow
spot, storage cabinet for the old 16 inch sound disks, and much more. They
have a web site he www.loew'sjersey.org. I do occasional projection work
at various places, and the reason that I couldn't get to the Path meeting is
that I was projecting at the David Lean Cinema in Croydon at the time.

The river to the west, between Newark and Harrison, is the Passaic
River which passes through Paterson up north, flows southwards and
empties into Newark Bay; the next river, inside Jersey City, is the
Hackensack River, also emptying into Newark Bay.

Manhattan Transfer was slightly to the east and slightly to the north
of the present Harrison station. The Pennsylvania originally switched
from steam to electric power there for the trip into Penn Station [New
York] though the North River Tunnnels that were finished around 1912;
until then the Pennsy had its New York terminal in Jersey City at
Exchange Place and used ferries to Manhattan. When the Pennsy
electrified the New York Philadelphia Washington route in the 1930s,
Manhattan Transfer was no longer needed and was demolished. It was at
that same time that the new [present] Newark Penn Station was built.

The Hudson Tubes website at
http://www.hudsoncity.net/tubes/gatewaytubepage.html
has a sightseeing tour [#9] which may be helpful for out of town
visitors to the Tubes.
======================
Between Newark and Juornal Square the line crosses two rivers, which of
these is the Passaic, and what is the other. There are massive bridges
crossing both of these rivers, which obviously opened at one time, but I
don't think they do now. Where was Manhattan Transfer, and whos trains
served it?

On 09/04/2004 12:26, in article ,
"Stephen Furley" wrote:

That's it. I don't know anything about it. where was it, and when did it
close? Newark Penn seems to have undergone some major reconstruction in the
'30s, judging by the style of the builnings; was the H&M diverted there
then?
Newark Penn was opened in June 1937, and H&M trains operated there from June
20. By 1974 there wasn't any trace of Park Place terminal, although you
could pinpoint it to within a block or so by the orientation of the
swing-bridge when shut.


Between Newark and Juornal Square the line crosses two rivers, which of
these is the Passaic, and what is the other. There are massive bridges
crossing both of these rivers, which obviously opened at one time, but I
don't think they do now. Where was Manhattan Transfer, and whos trains
served it?

The Passaic is at the New York end of Newark Penn; the other river is the
Hackensack, much nearer Jersey City.

Manhattan Transfer was about 1 - 1.5 miles East of the present-day Harrison
stop on PATH. It was served by H&M and Pennsylvania RR trains. If Hudson
tower is still there, alongside PATH, that will give you the exact location
- it used to be tower S, at the East end of Manhattan Transfer.

Manhattan Transfer existed to enable interchange between PRR trains and H&M,
and was also the place where electrics replaced steam for the run into Penn
station in NYC. It opened in 1910, and closed June 20, 1937. Like Dovey
Jct., it had no road access whatever.

I didn't see any large-scale models, but there are two large wood and glass
cases, one in the waiting room, and the orher as you walk down the right
side of the station towards one of the Path entrances, which collect money
for charity. I dropped a few coins in as I walked past, but didn't look
closely. I think they had model railways in them. I'll have a better look
when I'm there.

The large-scale models were high up on the walls, about 30 ft. up.

If you can find a copy of "Rails Under The Mighty Hudson" (Brian J Cudahy,
Stephen Greene Press, 1975) it will answer many questions about H&M/PATH
history.

Bob Watt wrote in message ...

If you can find a copy of "Rails Under The Mighty Hudson" (Brian J Cudahy,
Stephen Greene Press, 1975) it will answer many questions about H&M/PATH
history.

There's a new edition out, by Fordham University Press.

I'd also recommend "The Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Revisited" by
Paul Carleton, published by D. Carleton Rail Books.

Michael Wares

On 10/04/2004 17:40, in article
, "Michael Wares"
wrote:

There's a new edition out, by Fordham University Press.

I'd also recommend "The Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Revisited" by
Paul Carleton, published by D. Carleton Rail Books.

Thanks. Will try to find one.

Bob Watt wrote in message ...
On 09/04/2004 12:26, in article ,

The large-scale models were high up on the walls, about 30 ft. up.

Bob, I am in New York at the moment, I had a look at Hoboken Terminal
yesterday afternoon. There is one model still there, I'm not sure
which RR company it was from, but it was dark red in colour. It is
rather difficult to see; there is a Hudson News outlet on the station
I don't know if it was there when you saw the models, but it has
entrances from both inside the waiting room, and outsine, on the
station concourse. The model I saw was on top of the part inside the
waiting room, and difficult to see, unless you are standing in just
the right place. It was almost certainly there before, but I just
didn't notice it. I don't know where the other one is, I can't see it
anywhere.

There seems to be some refurbishment work taking place on the old
ferry terminal building now.

On 26/04/2004 20:08, in article
, "Stephen Furley"
wrote:

Bob, I am in New York at the moment, I had a look at Hoboken Terminal
yesterday afternoon. There is one model still there, I'm not sure
which RR company it was from, but it was dark red in colour.

That sounds like the one I remember, but I can't remember which RR it
represented.

there is a Hudson News outlet on the station
I don't know if it was there when you saw the models, but it has
entrances from both inside the waiting room, and outsine, on the
station concourse. The model I saw was on top of the part inside the
waiting room, and difficult to see, unless you are standing in just
the right place. It was almost certainly there before, but I just
didn't notice it.

I don't remember the Hudson News outlet, but my visits there were almost
thirty years ago - indeed, they were pre-Conrail, in the days of E-L.

There seems to be some refurbishment work taking place on the old
ferry terminal building now.

That's good - I must have seen Hoboken terminal at its lowest ebb, and it
was obvious that refurbishment or demolition must follow soon. The
surrounding area was pretty well at rock bottom as well, and I understand
there's been a lot of redevelopment. In particular, coming up to street
level at Pavonia was like emerging into a nuclear wasteland.

Thanks for the information - time I visited NYC again.

On 26/04/2004 20:08, in article
, "Stephen Furley"
wrote:

Bob, I am in New York at the moment, I had a look at Hoboken Terminal
yesterday afternoon. There is one model still there, I'm not sure
which RR company it was from, but it was dark red in colour. It is
rather difficult to see; there is a Hudson News outlet on the station
I don't know if it was there when you saw the models, but it has
entrances from both inside the waiting room, and outsine, on the
station concourse. The model I saw was on top of the part inside the
waiting room, and difficult to see, unless you are standing in just
the right place. It was almost certainly there before, but I just
didn't notice it. I don't know where the other one is, I can't see it
anywhere.

I've just been looking at some old copies of 'Trains' magazine; the August
1998 issue has a long article about NJT, with a photograph of the interior
of Hoboken Terminal. From this I can see that, if you stand in the middle
of the waiting room facing the Hudson News outlet, and then turn 90 degrees
right, you will be facing the wall with the ticket windows, and in the
centre of that wall is a large archway which, IIRC, is the entrance from the
street. I think one of the locomotive models was above that archway, but
the photograph shows something rather like a Solari indicator where the
model used to be.

I also think the other model was in the wall opposite the street entrance,
so it sounds as if both have been moved, and space was found for one over
the Hudson News outlet (the photo is way too dark to detect a model in that
position). I hope the other one is safely stored somewhere.