Malcolm Laughlin wrote:

The Empire State Building was a half mile south of the Chrysler Building.

Probably still is. <g>

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Discussions about BEDT, unless referring to frt cars there, is out of scope and, therefore, the thread is terminated.

Mike Brock
STMFC Owner

This is NOT to get a colour discussion going. But have a look at this
photo.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/2799?size=_original <http://www.shorpy.com/node/2799?size=_original>

Every car in this photo (from a Kodachrome slide, and Kodachrome being
well-known for its colour stability over time) looks like it belongs to
the PRR, "The Standard Railroad of the World".

Yet there is quite a variance in car colour, and the PRR would
certianly have painted them all with "PRR STANDARD" paint.

This shows why I don't get too hung up on paint matching--the prototype
didn't.

Steve Lucas.

Further to your point, Steve, layouts which have all the cars painted the "right color" are
basically not credible, and lack of weathering, even for "new this year" cars isn't realistic. A
few years ago (um, well. . .~10) I drove past a brand new box car with a "NEW date the same month, a
Pacific NW road's car, so new the paint still smelled of its vehicle. It was spotted at a lumber
yard, and thought "I need to get a picture of that!" So I went back at lunch, and noticed that in
what could not have been more than one trip across the US, it was dusty, spattered with mud, and
since morning, the locals at the yard had used a forklift to open the door, resulting in a six-foot
"scratch" about a quarter-inch deep, which was already showing rust.

SGL

Good point, Dennis. The BEDT was an exception to many rules, including some work rules. Even though it moved railcars, BEDT was not a formal railroad but a terminal. It got away with running steam into the 1960s regardless of 1920's smoke abatement laws with which the railroad companies had to comply.
============

Not so. BEDT was a common carrier by railroad under the IC Act and subject to all ICC regulation.

I don't know of a 20's smoke abatement law but there was amuch earlier law prohibiting steam in tunnels on Manhattan. The LIRR ran steam out of Long Island City up to the 50's and it's engine house at Jamaica was also in New York City.


Malcolm Laughlin, Editor 617-489-4383
New England Rail Shipper Directories
19 Holden Road, Belmont, MA 02478

The Chrysler Building at 42nd Street is on Lexington Ave., the street that the camera is looking straight down. The Empire State Building at 34th St. is on 5th Ave to the west, visible near the Borden's sign.
============

That doesn't compute. The building at the end of the long avenue is oviously much farther away from the camera. The Empire State Building was a half mile south of the Chrysler Building.


Malcolm Laughlin, Editor 617-489-4383
New England Rail Shipper Directories
19 Holden Road, Belmont, MA 02478

This is NOT to get a colour discussion going. But have a look at this
photo.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/2799?size=_original

Every car in this photo (from a Kodachrome slide, and Kodachrome being
well-known for its colour stability over time) looks like it belongs to
the PRR, "The Standard Railroad of the World".

Yet there is quite a variance in car colour, and the PRR would
certianly have painted them all with "PRR STANDARD" paint.

This shows why I don't get too hung up on paint matching--the prototype
didn't.

Steve Lucas.

Paint them with (I believe) Model master metalic paints. The kind you
buff to make shinning. They make several kinds of metals and they work
great.
Clark Propst

BEDT 0-6-0T w IC boxcar

Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal

Malcolm Laughlin wrote:

<snip>

I was rather puzzled this afternnon by that Bronx Terminal photo.

This evening I realized that it is a photo of a model cleverly
superimposed on a real background photo. If you study maps of the area,
you will see that the round freight house was not adjacent to the
bridge. It was actually to the left of the Blue Ridge coal tower.

As for date of the photo, my best guess is late 50's. It can't be

ebfore 1955 when the Third Avenue el was dismantled. The car in the
photo is late 40's. The truck isn't likely to have been around in the
60's. It has to be before 1961 when the Chase Manhattan Building, not
in the photograph, was completed. It was next to 60 Wall Tower. So
that makes the date between late '55 and early '61.

Malcolm,

This is interesting as the website author, Tim Warris, states this about
the photo "" This is a very rare shot showing the entire terminal. This
image appeared in Michael Krieger's book "Where Rails Meet the
Sea", which I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in
railroad/water transportation.
Taken in 1944, this image shows the round freight house, yard, and car
float attached to the apron. In the background can be seen the Willis
Avenue and the Tribourough Bridges."

I don't have that book to verify the author's statement.

Yes, he apparently is building both an HO and N scale layout of the
terminal.

Bob Witt

List,

In addition to Mike's posting as to the location of the shot in the transparency, I can add some further information as regard to the tank engine in the photo also.

The engine is Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal #16, and as you can see it is a 0-6-0 wheel arrangement tank locomotive. It was one of 8 oil burning steam tank engines owned by this company.

The BEDT had their main terminal at South 3rd Street and yard between South 3rd Street and 11th Street and the East River in Brooklyn. They serviced the team tracks, private sidings and Freight Houses in Brooklyn from this terminal. They also serviced the Brooklyn Navy Yard the Pigeon Street Terminal at Long Island City.

To do this, the BEDT received and delivered all the freight cars to and from these locations entirely by car float. They floated cars to and from connections at the following terminals:

B&O, CNJ, Erie, and LV at Jersey City.

DL&W at the New York Lighterage Station, NJ and Brooklyn.

NYC at New York, NY and Weehawken, NJ.

NH at Oak Point, Harlem River NY.

NYO&W at Weehawken, NJ.

PRR at Greenville and Harsimus Cove, Jersey City, NJ.

As you can see the movement of freight cars for just this one small switching road was quite large. This does not count the much larger float operations of the trunk railroads.

I visited the Brooklyn Terminal in 1963 with a friend, Bob Naegle, who worked for a steamship line and lived in the Jamaica area. While there I was able to take a number of photographs of BEDT #16 and #13. Unfortunately, Bob was one of those who lost his life in the World Trade Center attack on 9-11-01.

The information above was taken from the October ORER listings. The transparency with #16 brought back the memories of having taking photos of the locomotives switching the floats in the Brooklyn Terminal.

The #13 and #16 have been preserved. I believe #16 is in the State Railroad Museum at Strasburg. The other may be the engine Strasburg Railroad uses for their Thomas, The Tank Engine Shows several times a year across the street from the museum.

Tom Olsen
7 Boundary Road, West Branch
Newark, Delaware, 19711-7479
(302) 738-4292
tmolsen@...

That's interesting. Did they just part the car behind the gas station and run a line from it to the pumps? No need to have tanks in the ground.

Dave Demeny

--- In STMFC@..., "Schuyler Larrabee"
<schuyler.larrabee@...> wrote:

What kind of end is this -- Buckeye?
http://www.first-out.com/ebay/0726035.jpg

<http://www.first-out.com/ebay/0726035.jpg>

Tim O'

Yes.

That looks like an NP Monad on the side.

The ERIE (or perhaps the EL, not sure of the date) sold some cars to

the NP. One (or a few) of them

is rumored to have been a car with Buckeye ends.

Where did the LSBC get them?

SGL

Maybe the LSBC stole them? Or was that only after the time frame of
this group?

Time stopped in November 1941
Walter M. Clark
Pullman, Washington, USA

On Jul 28, 2008, at 6:07 PM, benjaminfrank_hom wrote:

Tom C? wrote:
"SFRD 50' cars did not get diagonal panel roofs, when rebuilt."

That's true, and the car in question is not an SFRD car, but look
again - that's not a diagonal panel roof. What looks like diagonal
panel creases is actually wreck damage.

As is easily determined, because the diagonal creases go the wrong
way. Many of the responses to the question about the origin of this
refrigerator car have been not merely speculative but totally at odds
with the physical evidence. Come on, guys, try looking carefully at
the photo and engaging brain before activating keyboard.


Richard Hendrickson

Forwarding a useful note from the erielack list. Click the first link, then click the top
thumbnail on that page.

SGL

David,

I stand by my earlier statement that the photo was taken from the Bronx side of the NYC bridge to the Park Ave. Viaduct and Grand Central Station. Notice in the lower right the railing for the bridge. The photo could possibly be taken from the vestibule of a passing train. The bridge to the extreme left is the 3rd Ave. bridge and the steam era freight cars are at the Harlem Transfer Facility. The photo referenced for the CNJ facility shows the double deck bridge used by the Second and Third Ave. Elevated trains from Manhattan to the Bronx located at Second Ave. The CNJ site is to the east of the Harlem Transfer station.

A good photo looking from Manhattan to the Bronx at this location is found in Model Railroad Planning 2007 on page 42 included with the Harlem Transfer article by Charlie Conway. In this interesting photo the original NYC Harlem River crossing is still in service but the new span is under construction. Notice the Blue Ridge concrete silos also appear in the MRP photo but were then named Cramer. A map of the area is also included in the article and should clear up any confusion.

Matt Herson

After some study, I'm certain of what that view is. It is looking down Third Avenue from the Bronx. The bridge to the left is the Willis Avenue Bridge. This is the same bridge that is behind the Third Avenue elevated tracks in the Bronx Terminal photo.

The bridge from which the photo was taken is the Third Avenue Bridge. That bridge lands in Manhattan about halfway between Third and Lexington Avenues. Another clue that we are looking down Third Avenue is that the Chrysler Building is to the right. I know it is on the east side of Lexington at 42nd street.I was at first a bit concerned about the angle of the bridge. The walkway railing in the poto points too far to the west. But on scrutinizng the model phoi, I see that the walkway is at an angle to the bridge.

The skyscraper far down Third Avenue is the Cities Service Building aka 60 Wall Tower, the third tallest building in the city. The building to its right is the Bank of Manhattan Building. They were the only tall buildings in the Wall Street area until the 60's. They are seven miles from the camea and the Chrysler Building is four miles.

I know those building well because my father had an office on the south side of the 55th floor of 60 Wall Tower. I could look down on the Third Avenue el trains snaking through the streets to South Ferry. I could also see the cars rolling off the CNJ car dumper and reversing to roll down into the yard. But we couldn't see the Statue of Liberty because the Bank of MAnhattan Building was in the way.

I was rather puzzled this afternnon by that Bronx Terminal photo. This evening I realized that it is a photo of a model cleverly superimposed on a real background photo. If you study maps of the area, you will see that the round freight house was not adjacent to the bridge. It was actually to the left of the Blue Ridge coal tower.

As for date of the photo, my best guess is late 50's. It can't be ebfore 1955 when the Third Avenue el was dismantled. The car in the photo is late 40's. The truck isn't likely to have been around in the 60's. It has to be before 1961 when the Chase Manhattan Building, not in the photograph, was completed. It was next to 60 Wall Tower. So that makes the date between late '55 and early '61.

Malcolm Laughlin, Editor 617-489-4383
New England Rail Shipper Directories
19 Holden Road, Belmont, MA 02478

Not to be confused with the more common cars of Hercules Powder Company. <g>

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

http://www.shorpy.com/node/4058?size=_original

Scott Pitzer

Tom C? wrote:
"SFRD 50' cars did not get diagonal panel roofs, when rebuilt."

That's true, and the car in question is not an SFRD car, but look
again - that's not a diagonal panel roof. What looks like diagonal
panel creases is actually wreck damage.
http://www.first-out.com/ebay/0726116.jpg


Ben Hom

--- In STMFC@..., "Donald B. Valentine" <riverman_vt@...>
wrote:

Jeez, Andy, did any part of the Bronx ever look that bad? But I
cannot tell for certain whether the skyscraper showing is the Crysler
Building or the Empire State, though it looks more like the latter.
Which of the two is further north? You would know that better than I
and that might give us the direction in which we are looking. If it
is the Empire State or the Crysler building taken from the Bronx why
is it that more skyscrapers do not who to the left (south) of it?
Note, too, the Borden milk processing plant to the front and right
of the uncertain skyscraper. The fuel dealer, the bridge, the Borden
plant and the nearly empty skyline to the left of the primary
skyscraper lead me to the same conclusion Tim has drawn but to
specify a photo taken from Jersey City or Hoboken looking
northeasterly. Otherwise I would have to suggest from Brooklyn
looking across the southern tip of Manhattan but that bridge really
troubles me with that possible conclusion. Regrettably, I do not have
a list of where all the Borden milk processing plants were located in
the mountain of milk train material here and either location is a
strong possible for such a plant.

Now that I've muddied the waters further I'll leave you both to
draw your own conclusions.

Don Valentine

Also, keep in mind that the Hudson river was a navigable waterway for
ocean going ships, and as such, that bridge is WAY too low (I think
the discussions I've seen about the proposed bridge crossing leading
up to the Pennsy tunnels into Manhattan mentioned U.S. Navy or USACE
minimum clearance above high tide of at least 150').

So I'd doubt it could be from Jersey looking East....or am I mistaken?
Tim Barney