Subway Connections to the National Rail Network.

I've read in a different thread that NYNJ's old track that connects to the SBK yard at 39th Street is no longer connected to the rest of the railroad on 1st Avenue. I've also read conflicting accounts about whether the connectoin still exists between the Canarsie line and the Long Island Railroad's Linden Yard. Does anyone know if there is presently a rail connection between the subway system and other railroads? (The emphasis on present is meant to recognize the work in progress to connect the SBK Yard to the tracks on 1st Avenue which are due for an upgrade).

There is a connection on the Bay Ridge to get into Linden yard (NYCTA yard not LIRR) thats still active. I know, I was on it when we moved the Caboose in there.


Track going to the left is the lead into Linden yard, the track the engines are on is the East end of Linden Yard. Track were sitting on is the Bay Ridge BR.

The former route down 41st/2nd ave to get to 39th street yard has not been in service for some years, all the switches on 1st ave were welded. The track is in deplorable condition. They are currently building a new connection between 1st and the SBK trackage next to costco (thus in turn 39th Street yard will soon be a memory with just a single interchange track).

The other former route at Parkville Jct. and the Bay Ridge has also been out of service since SBK abandoned the street trackage on McDonald Ave.

I live right near that old Parkville junction. There's a Shop Rite store, and Amazing Savings store and a UPS mail store with a large parking lot where the old connecting track used to be between the SBK and the Bay Ridge Branch. A retaining wall on the parking lot follows the path of the connecting track. The switch for the connecting track was still there in the pavement on MacDonald Avenue when I moved here in about '77, but the rails have been pulled, the street paved over, and the old "RR Xing" signs painted on the pavement on the side streets is long gone. 'Tis pity.

Actually, where the Shop-Rite and parking lot is now was once the site of a freight yard, according to some old maps.

INteresting that NYCTA still has these links, I just found out on a fan trip a few months ago that Chicago CTA is down to one unsevered connection to the outside world, and it's unused (and in fact blocked by piles of stored material). All deliveries are by flatbed.

It's a shame that with railroading being more efficient than road vehicles that rail cars are delivered by truck instead of on other trains (or run over the rails directly).

I think that is for insurance reasons, and the fact that you need a certain number of cars to put a "new" train into service. Railroad delivery of cars is also hampered due to the hell gate bridge having wires, not sure what the clearance is there, but i'm sure it plays a role. Easier to truck the cars right to the yard they are going to for the subway.

But the wires on the Hell Gate Bridge are only on the two tracks leading to Penn Station. One of the two freight tracks has long been gone, and there is no catenary at all on that side of the bridge.

Is the Kawasaki? assembly plant in Yonkers connected to the Hudson Line? I can't recall.

Regarding the posts on whether new subway cars could be shipped by rail, or should be shipped by truck, it should be noted that while electrification on the Hell Gate Bridge is by caternary on some tracks and not at all on the other, new subway cars could ride into town on flats, the same way that I've actually seen old M-1's being shipped out.

Yes, Kawasaki is connected -- but it is a via a very short switchback, and rather poorly maintained (lots of weeds and garbage around).

When I was at NYCTA Track & Structures in the 1980s, we received most of our track materials at 38th Street Yard via the NY Cross Harbor RR. One spring their barge lost several gondolas of rail (including our entire order of heat-treated rail) into Gowanus Bay. For a couple of weeks, there was a crane with an electromagnet on a barge out in the bay, fishing for our rail. I don't know how much of it they found.

We also had a track connection at Linden Shop, which is adjacent to the Canarsie Line. I don't know if the 38th Street connection is still active, but I'm sure the Linden Shop one is. When a contractor was assembling new cars in the Brooklyn Army Terminal, they were moved on their own wheels up the Bay Ridge Branch to Linden and onto NYCTA that way.

There used to be a track connection into East 180th Street Yard in the Bronx, as well, but that was inactive 25 years ago and may be gone entirely now.

As for trucking subway cars, I remember the R-62 and R-62A orders coming in on flatcars via NY Cross Harbor. The Redbirds moved out the same way. In fact, there was even an excursion that went onto the SBK trackage a few years back, so maybe the 38th Street connection (which involved an at-grade crossing of 3rd Avenue) is still active.

There used to be a track connection into East 180th Street Yard in the Bronx, as well, but that was inactive 25 years ago and may be gone entirely now.

What did it connect to?

That was to the present-day NEC, formerly the NH and NYW&B.

I don't know if they stayed on flatbeds all the way to New York City, but either late last year or early this year I observed somewhere around ten NYC Subway cars being hauled down Interstate 81 southbound between Binghamton and Scranton.