Harlem Div. freights in NYC days

I was recently looking through my copy of Lou Grogan's great opus on The Harlem --- he reminisces at length on is fond memory of the "Rut Milk," which he wrote lasted until about 1958 or so.

Question: was that the only symbol freight that ran the whole length of The Harlem in "modern times," or was there another one that lasted longer? I remember JNDO and its turn in the 60s, but that only ran from Put Jct. south.

Until the late 1940's #86 a through second class freight train operated eastbound out of Chatham. It's counterpart was NK-3. BTW, the so-called Rut Milk was symboled NK-1 westbound and KN-2 eastbound during the 40's and 50's. N = New York K = Chatham

Jack

Interesting, thank you!!

Any symbol freights in the 1950s to early 60s besides the "Rut Milk?"

I have a Feb. 1, 1941 NYC Fast Freight timetable. Looks just like a NYC passenger timetable (Form 1001) of the same era inside and out. On the cover is on the the freight 4-8-2s. Tables are in same format as the passenger folder. Consists of each freight are just like the equipment and through cars in the passenger timetable.

BN-1 was a Boston-Chatham operation.

Beacon Park 5:10p
W. Springfield 9:15p
Chatham 11:50p

Connected to KN-4

Chatham 12:30a
33rd St. NYC 7:30a

Return NK-3

33rd St. NYC 6:00p
Chatham 1:00a

NB-4

Chatham 1:30a
W. Springfield 5:20a

Combined into BA-4

Beacon Park 11:40a

Westbound shown as exept Sun. Eastbound except Sun. out of NYC and except Sun & Mon Chatham-W. Springfield.

In the final days (60's), I believe the bulk of the freight on the Harlem went to the Grand Union warehouse on the Mt. Kisco/Bedford Hills town line. Anyone know the disposition of the warehouse since Grand Union slid into history?

Another big customer was the lumber yard in Hawthorne, another lumber yard in Thornwood with a siding that always had a box car on it, and don't forget Aunt Millie's factory in Hawthorne.

How much through freight went all the way to Chatham before they dug the line up?

Dieter.

Pleasantville had that lumber yard that was served on the runaround track just south of the station. Looked like there were other tracks in that area too, especially just south of Thornwood station. For years, you could still pick out the rails and switch points.

Mount Kisco had a freight house, there was a gas or oil dealer that got cars once in a while, and of course the Grand Union warehouse. All gone now. Was there ever a customer on that long tail track that headed away from the main due southeast? Someone told me that was the original mainline alignment through town before the turn of the century. In later years, that siding was used to store MOW equipment. Now, I think it's gone?

Bedford Hills once had a coal dealer (you can see the coal chutes built into the retaining wall along Rairload Avenue- coal was dumped from rail cars to waiting trucks below). There was also a freight house at Bedford Hills at some point. Probably all gone by the 1950s.

Katonah: H.H. Park/Gulf Oil; Katonah Coal, Feed & Lumber; and the other customer (maybe the Hardware Store?), stopped rail service by the 1960s... the Lumber Yard decamped for Golden's Bridge and became King Lumber. The Hardware Store sopped receiving rail traffic who knows when (freight door still visible around back). The Gulf Oil distributor stopped using rail. The Katonah freight house was probably razed in the 1950s. Lew Catone could clear this up for us in a jiffy!

Golden's Bridge- Kings Lumber got cars until 1996. I think there were some other customers around here before King's Lumber. I know there was a coal dealer there- Art Deeks sent me slides of the commercial coal tower that was once there through the 1970s. The frieght house wasn't used, and was razed with the passenger depot around 1974 to make way for I-684.

Croton Falls had a freight house (which was the first depot), but I dont know if any customers ever got cars here after the 1940s.

Brewster had its freight house just north of the depot. I think the freight house was razed sometime after 1980.

Pawling- customers here, but hard to say. I think the freight house finally collapsed sometime around 1995.

Dover Plains- once home to a wye and water tank (the third leg of the wye went due west away from the mainline, just north of the present depot). Looks like there were customers there adjascent to the station?

Millerton- the feed mill got cars until 1980. That was the farthest north you coudl go on the Harlem at that time. By 1981, the line was cut back to Wassaic, and that feed mill still got cars until 1996 or so, I think?

Is is safe to say that local LCL-type freight fell off the Harlem after the 1940s? Were local freight houses used by the railroads much after the war?

-otto-

There was not both a KN-4 and a Train 86 on the Harlem Sub. Division i.e, Between Chatham and WPNS. On the Harlem Sub. Division KN-4 operated as 2nd Class Train #86. On the Electric Sub. Division and 30th Street Branch it was symbol as KN-4 and had no timetable rights.

Jack Shufelt

I commuted on the Harlem from Brewster 1966-68 (my senior year of college and my first year working). During this time the principal "watershed" event I experienced was the coming of Penn Central.

Anyway, during that time I remember seeing a fair amount of freight activity.

In those days there was still a third track (on the track 1 side of the main) running east (railroad direction) from Holland Ave. to beyond the I-287 underpass. Most weekday mornings you would see a fairly large cut of cars that I presume had been left there overnight by the job from 60th St. yard.

In those years I also remember seeing cars on sidings at Pleasantville (I believe this was a plywood company) and Mt. Kisco. Grand Union at Mt. Kisco also took a fair number of cars then. North of there was King Lumber at Goldens Bridge.

There may have been other customer sidings active then that I do not recall.

I am told there was also a fair amount of freight north of Brewster in the 60s (examples: both the state institutions at Wingdale and Wassaic took a lot of coal, and there were a bunch of lumber companies and feed & grain dealers), however I didn't ride up there so I didn't see it first hand.

In the early 1970's I remember the freights coming into Philmont on Tuesday and Friday nights on their way up to Chatham. My buddies and I would wait for it or run like heck for the tracks when we heard the horn blowing for Seivers Crossing. The crew would switch the siding with CN boxcars of peat moss for a plant outside of town. There was and old coal dock on the enbankment that would unload by gravity in earlier times. This coal dock still stood when I left Philmont for the USAF in 1980. The engine crews would allow us to ride the cab of the RS-3 while they did their switching, 4-5 boxcars or maybe a few more. The southbound would return on Wednesday and Saturday mornings heading back to Brewster. The crews would spend the night in Chatham at the old Chatham House Hotel. I remember when the the salvage crews came thru in 1979 pulling the tracks up on their way up to Chatham, a sad day indeed.

Keep'em on the Advertised
Larry

"is safe to say that local LCL-type freight fell off the Harlem after the 1940s? Were local freight houses used by the railroads much after the war?"

While LCL freight traffic continued to diminish after the war the freight house at Millerton was an inbound and outbound rail distribution facility for the Harlem Division between Pawling and Philmont until 1953. Carloads of LCL would come into Millerton and be distributed by Millerton Trucking between Pawling and Philmont. Millerton Trucking was owned and operated by the NYC RR.

After the rail distribution operation was eliminated at Millerton LCL was trucked into Millerton from Poughkeepsie. A truck from Millerton, now called Yonkers Trucking, then went south to deliver the freight to Pawling Monday, Wednesday and Friday and north to Philmont on Tuesday and Thursday. By the late 50's LCL was peddled by truck two days a week out of Albany to Philmont and south to Pawling. Another truck came out of Yonkers to serve the stations south of Pawling.

Individual freight house's or combination freight and passenger facilities were used right up until the individual stations were closed. Hillsdale, as an example, until it closed in 1959 would get LCL delivered by the peddle truck on Tuesday and Thursday. The Agent Bill Glynn would then send out a card to the customer to come and pickup the freight. Depending on the location and customer the peddle truck would deliver directly especially after the local station was closed. Pawling Rubber in Pawling always got direct delivery.

The Millerton freight house was used until the LCL business was terminated in the early 60's.

Jack Shufelt

In Mount Kisco, I believe that Young and Halstead had a siding. Across from their property was the place the government secretly worked with radioactive materials during WW2, and I think that structure had a siding as well. That's the place boxed in with the stockade fence because the ground is still radioactive!

I never knew that there was a different alignment through Mt. Kisco. I thought the station was where it was from the begining. When you think about it, most of the line from Chappaqua to Bedford Hills is built through the center of a long swamp. I wonder where the fill for it came from?

What is on the property now where the Grand Union Warehouse was located?

More Central freight on the Harlem; You forgot Chappaqua. Chappaqua had a freight house which was located where the Rite Aid stands (nee Gristedes). The freight house was torn down around 1967 or 1968. The Gristedes was built at that location, adjacent to where there was a major derailment in the fall of 1969, during the first months of Gristede's operation.

Immediately north of the freight house was an oil company called CORNELL HAVILAND, and I believe they got their deliveries by rail. Cornell Haviland went out of business around 1968.

Across the tracks from the old Post Office, was a twine factory which had it's own siding. Years ago, Chappaqua had three tracks running through where the station stands today. The Twine factory was in business into the 1960's. After it closed, it became a restaurant called "The Siding", name due to it's adjacent siding. Now it's something else. The twine factory was located on Hunts Lane, between the tracks and the Parkway.

Does anyone know if the old Post Office in Chappaqua had it's own siding for REA?

I know I mentioned it previously but it seems nearly everyone has forgotten Hawthorne's most famous business. How could any of you who ever lived in the area forget the siding for AUNT MILLIE'S????? Now that would be a fun model.... A 50 foot tank car lettered for AUNT MILLIE'S!

OK, is it SAUCE, or GRAVY? Let that arguement begin!!

Dieter.

Dieter, thank you for your recollection of freight in the Chappaqua area. And yes, I forgot about Aunt Millie's too!!!

RE the ROW alignment at Mt. Kisco: the tracks were indeed relocated some distance to the west. This was one of two major grade crossing elimination projects done in towns in that area, and was done in 1955 (The other was the huge "sinking" of the ROW through Pleasantville, done 1958-59).

I never rode the Harlem until the 60s, but the way it was explained to me, the station was moved to the south and west, and the tracks were moved west for several hundred feet both north and south (That's compass direction --- railroad direction is of course east and west!).

I understand the previous location of the station was approximately on the corner of Main St. (Rt. 133) and Kirby Place (I think I have the two street names right), and the tracks crossed Main St. at grade.

Two other Mt. Kisco crossings were eliminated in the same project.

Tom, that's interesting. the line must have been curved, as once you get to Moger, the land isn't flat enough for a rail line. It's worth taking a look at the area, as you can usually tell where a rail line was for a long time after it's gone.

I also didn't know the cut at Pleasantville was that late (58-59). The station looks a lot older than that, and it's stone, so it wasn't dragged from anywhere. Don't you feel sorry for the guys who first surveyed that line? I bet they were wet up to the waist all day long on that job!

Dieter.

I guest the building of all those parking lots around the station wiped out all traces of the old ROW through downtown Mt. Kisco.

RE Pleasantville, the stone station was always there, just south (compass dir.) of Manville Road, and on the same side of the ROW as now . It was moved east (compass dir.) during the trenching job.

See Grrogan's book, if you have it, for some good photos

Thanks! Moving that stone structure must have been a monumental task!

Were there any other major projects like the dig in Pleasantville, where stations were moved?

Dieter.