NYC 1935 New York High Line

The West Side Cowboys and the White Turkeys have been forgotten. The West Side Line has seen the same people-friendly repurposing as many of Canada's pioneer railways. Today, you can even travel along the New York High Line urban park via Google Maps. 

This article comes from a short-run serial magazine from the mid-1930s: Railway Wonders of the World (Amalgamated Press). They were dutifully transported to Canada in airborne luggage by a penpal contact of long standing who visited my mother from the UK. They were transported because her spouse - LC Gagnon - 'likes trains'.

The identity and interests of the original conscientious collector of the 1930s are lost to history. He might well have been of the same cohort as our maternal grandfather who was in Europe 1915-1919 with the Canadian Railway Construction Corps. 

Busy with all sorts of written correspondence, grandchildren-related activities, history reading, and a having a greater interest in Canadian, and some American roads, LC Gagnon carefully wrapped and salted away this collection in the garage. They were passed on to me in the 1990s with limited and almost apologetic artifact-promoting enthusiasm. From time to time, selected articles are posted here if I think there might be some interest in them. Often we do become quite specialized in our own railway interests, it seems.

As I get older, I find my interest in railway systems has become deeper and broader. The original simple idea of steel wheels running on 'metals' to keep carts transporting heavy loads from sinking in the mud has contributed, and still does contribute, a great deal to the world's standard of living. 

This magazine series includes articles on many of the colonial railways then in place. These railways promoted local economic activity and increased the prosperity of the various empires whose engineers were sent to build them.

The series is also available on-line. You'll see that it really does present a true international perspective on railroading. Typical for the era, Canadian railway company publicity photos are used in many of the articles on Canadian topics. 

Here is the New York Central-supported article on their new West Side line.

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The YouTube link below perfectly illustrates the typically dangerous urban conditions before this grade separation on the west side of New York. This is one of the YouTube channels which Jim Christie first discovered and generously shared with his correspondents. 

The description indicates that the location is probably in the area of 33rd Street and 11th Avenue. At around 4:30 in the video, an engine passes and the engineer displays typical, harmless, 'don't take it so personally' 'New-York-style acknowledgement behaviour' to the hand-operated camera operator. 

As I understand it, the old motion film cameras had no automatic speed regulation and adding simple spring-driven mechanisms would subject the frame-rate to torque decay. However, skilled professional camera operators were known for their ability to maintain a solid, steady crank rate with their right hands. 

Both the engineer and the photographer share the skill of regulating cranks attached to wheels.

New York Central: the West Side Line in 1927 and 1928

In the video, you'll notice very short, boxy steam-emitting locomotives ... these steam 'dummies' were designed to enclose the motions of the side rods, etc, so as not to startle horses where close contact between the two was possible. Being short tank engines underneath the box, they gave the crew better visibility to avoid accidents on this dangerous line and they produced less smoke (I think some burned oil) than a full-sized locomotive.

You'll notice that some trucks crossing the tracks are hauling loads of coal ashes.

The brakemen riding atop the cars are protecting the leading end of the switching move by giving (or relaying) hand signals to the locomotive engineer from their highly visible, all-seeing position ... decades before the days of portable radios. Also, it was probably a much safer place to ride than on the end-ladders in this environment!

At the end of the video notice the gondola car of 'The LCL Company' shipping containers. This was an initiative of the New York Central to try to deal with small freight shipment (or Less-Car-Load) shipping bottlenecks. A common factory crane could extract the container for unloading at trackside - leaving the siding or teamtrack clear for fully-loaded boxcars.

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Map from 1956 Showing New York Central's New York Operations

LC Gagnon had become a seasoned New York visitor via the D&H in the late 1940s - seen elsewhere on this blog. However, I don't think he was down there when this March 1956 tourist pamphlet was picked up: The New York Visitor (map, attractions, advertising pamphlet); March 1956; New York Central System.

I had to do a 'work-around image cut' to have the map display properly (Blogspot software is in flux these days). However, a key location is just above where I cut the image, so just find the cut and look above for the "New York Central Freight Yards 33rd Street".

from: The New York Visitor (map, attractions, advertising pamphlet); March 1956; New York Central System.

The New York Central, St John's Park freight terminal mentioned in the article (the High Line's southern terminal, as seen above) was redeveloped into warehouse space after rail use ceased in 1960. In the late 2010s, Toronto-based Oxford Properties and CPP Investments (yes, that CPP) had the building redeveloped. Google bought the building for $2.1 billion. Now it is the North American headquarters for Google's Global Business Organization ... where Google makes most of its money. Google's regional business teams in many parts of the world are based there as well. 

NYC M&SC Public Timetables 1924, 1951 - Montreal's South Shore

Here are a couple of small folder timetables. 

The Montreal and Southern Counties interurban service is well documented elsewhere online, so I'm just adding another small document. 

The NYC timetable showing schedules between CPR Windsor station and Valleyfield and Malone is a little unusual. It was hard to find a good map to detail the entire route - you'll have to use your imagination east of Adirondack Jct. 

My father found it in some papers of his mother's - something for my imagination to work on. 

from: Canadian Railway Atlas; 1991; Railway Association of Canada.

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Montreal & Southern Counties

Some interesting maps follow the folder.

from: Catenary through the Counties; Clegg & Lavallee; 1967; Railfare.

An undated photo shows the Montreal terminal of the M&SC - probably during the afternoon rush hour.

from: The Intercity Electric Railway Industry in Canada; 1965; University of Toronto Press.

GM EMD E7 Operating Manual, Part 3

Steam generator operation, electrical equipment, troubleshooting and truck removal are covered in this third and final installment of the E7 operating manual. The veteran hoggers and firemen must have been thrilled to have to learn how to 'make steam' all over again - using the complex steam generators.

The other two sections of this manual can be found in the index Railway Technology & Systems 04 (button above). This and other manuals can be found under the heading Diesels, The First Generation.

The loose-leaf binder holding this 70 year old manual would not open, so I used the expedient of scanning a two-page spread for most images.

The diagram above is shown at what you could call GoogleMax (the maximum image display size after it is uploaded to Google).

To make it possible to read the details, the diagram is split and presented in two halves below. 

Look for the overlap - which duplicates the 'fuel pumps' location at centre/bottom (above).

End of manual.

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In the first part of this series, I explained the unlikely

north shore of Lake Superior provenance of my particular E7 manual.

E7 locomotives were not purchased by Canadian railways.

Here are the sales figures for some of the EMD E-units.

The Second Diesel Spotter's Guide; Jerry A Pinkepank; 1980; Kalmbach. 

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Early Trains magazines were surprisingly non-specific when it came to nailing down the builders' models of diesel locomotives in articles and photo captions ... at least by today's standards. An E7 was used on the GM Train of Tomorrow. The latter has an excellent, detailed article on Wikipedia.

from: Trains magazine; July 1947; Kalmbach.

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My father attended (he won it through a Montreal Star competition) a teacher's summer course and travelled to Syracuse University in July 1961. The course was on the use of newspapers as teaching aids in the classroom. He travelled to Syracuse, New York by bus because we didn't own a car and also because the bus got him there conveniently.

My father 'happened' to visit the Syracuse station and took this slide of the DeWitt Clinton (a named train) westbound. An E8 leads and perhaps there is an E7 trailing. With 4000 horsepower for what looks like mainly mail and express, they probably got over the road quite efficiently.