30th Street Branch enginehouse and DO Tower

Was there an enginehouse / roundhouse that served the 60th Street Yards ? Anyone have any detail as to where it was located and what it looked like ?

Also any pics of DO tower ?

This was not a part of my territory with Penn Central and later but from an old timetable here is what I am able to find out:
Engineers locker room at West 33rd Street, turntable and diesel house at 60th Street and engine house at 72nd Street.
The above was all from timetable no. 19 dated April 24, 1966. It seems like there was more than one might expect during that period but that is what was shown.
Noel Weaver

In the mid-60s when I visited the 72nd Street yard -- which officially was the 60th Street yard -- the enginehouse and adjoining turntable were about a city block south of W.72d Street. They were located on the river side of the yard, under the West Side Highway viaduct. I believe getting a unit into the house required the use of the turntable but I could be wrong about that.The enginehouse was rectangular and looked only big enough to house one unit. Former NYC employees told me that by the 60s Central probably only used it for running repairs and inspections on the yard engines. If a road unit needed some quick work it was probably done on the ready tracks or the unit was sent dead-in-tow to Selkirk.

The signal tower / yard office DO was flush up against 72nd Street but just a bit lower than sidewalk level. You could look into the office area from the sidewalk. In fact if I remember right, employees could exit directly onto the sidewalk. It always looked like a small airport control tower to me.

There aren't many NY Central era photos of the yard that I have seen. A few in one of the Nowak books are the only ones I know of. Too bad because it could be a very interesting and busy place.

When I visited 72nd Street I was junior high school age and not really into photography yet. I was happy just to watch.

Thank you, this is very interesting. I live in the riverfront apartment complex that has been built on the site of the yard, and you have no idea how often people in the neighborhood wonder out loud what that huge hulking rusting piece of steel is (The 69th transfer bridge, or North River pier 108, which is remarkably intact and has a historical site plaque on it). Also, if you go there ---- today the area is called "Riverside Park South" --- you will see that the modern recreational piers built there go out into the river at an angle. This is, so I understand, because the Coast Guard requires that new piers be constructed on the same "footprint" as the original [NYC Railroad] piers. Also, former NYC pier 104, although it is falling into the river, is recongnizable. The pilings for piers 105, 106, 107 are all visible, particularly at low tide --- in fact I'm sitting at the window looking out at it as I write this.

The best panoramic photo of the yard is in the book New York Central Facilities in Color by Geoff Doughty. The photo looks north from 60th Street in 1957.

"The best panoramic photo of the yard is in the book New York Central Facilities in Color by Geoff Doughty. The photo looks north from 60th Street in 1957."


I found this picture but can't figure a perspective other than the GW Bridge in the distance

Here is a photo of the roundhouse area I ran across at the Canadian Southern (NYC subsidiary from Buffalo to Detroit) site;

http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/images/nyc-60th.jpg

Nice view of the water front, docks, car float bridges, and yard area.

Clif, what a great picture ! Thanks for posting. What a very interesting operation.

Can anyone give me some locational detail ? Cross streets in the picture perhaps ? Would appreciate the same info on the photo referred to in the NYC Facilities book and locational relationship between the two photos.

Is the location of DO Tower in either of them ?

These 1930 maps may help:
http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/ ... /New+York/
http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/ ... /New+York/

No problem, I ran across it when looking for pics of the NYC yard and engine terminal constructed in 1910 at Corning NY,

Tom,

"The signal tower / yard office DO was flush up against 72nd Street"

Was there a sign that identified it as "DO"?

Thanks,

Jack

Jack I don't recall any sign though there could've been one. As I said it looked like a small airport control tower to me. Or a computerized hump tower.

There was, at one time, and IIRC up to WWII some morning and evening commuter trains that ran the West Side Line down to at least 30th St. Is the building, snug against the East side of the tracks, right at 130th Street what used to be the 130th St Station? If so, any visible remnants of it being such?

I wanted to add some information to the date of the end of passenger service on the 30th Street Branch.

First of all, the date of the last passenger service along the West Side Line is a little tough to pin down. I have seen the date given as during the WWI years. An employee timetable (in pdf) on the Canada Southern site (go to the home page and click on "Other Stuff") from June 1921 shows two first-class trains each way but they don't look like passenger schedules. Try as I might I could not get the smaller text to be entirely readable. There were no intermediate stations shown, just 30th Street and Spuyten Duyvil.

In 1918-1920 the railroads were under federal control because of WWI. Since the line was a very important supplier of food to Manhattan there is a certain logic to the federal agency in charge (the United States Railway Administration) ordering a halt to passenger service to clear track space for freight. That same reason was cited in news articles of the time as to why Lehigh Valley passenger trains were rerouted to Penn Station. To get them off track leading to important waterfront terminals in Jersey City.

At any rate, earlier employee timetables I have seen show about eight passenger trains each way per day operating between 30th Street terminal and Spuyten Duyvil on the Hudson Division. They connected there with Hudson Division trains. The service was roughly every two-three hours and it looked like one train set could've handled all runs. In a November 1902 ETT the trains were numbered from 171-182 plus 38-39 and 48-49. The distance was shown as exactly 10.0 miles. There were five intermediate stations -- 60th Street, 130th Street, 152nd Street, Ft. Washington and Inwood -- running time was about 32 minutes.

The train (or trains) were nicknamed "Dolly Varden." That name appears in news articles of one hundred years ago. That nickname was not entirely unique to the West Side trains though. I've seen it applied to other small local passenger services.

From news searchs in newspaper archives it appears there was a small group of commuters that continued to use the line -- including a group from Yonkers (local newspapers in Yonkers carried the schedule of 30th Street trains) -- but as Central electrified the lines into Grand Central in 1907 [edit-local electric service was extended to Yonkers in late 1910 I believe], and as the IRT subway was built up the west side around the same time, the commuting patronage slowly dwindled.

I also found a short New York Times article from the teens about the passenger service. By then many of the riders were housewives from the Upper West Side that used the trains to get to the large shopping district -- with many of the city's largest department stores -- located within easy distance of the West Side passenger terminal at 30th Street and Ninth Avenue.

"..............from June 1921 shows two first-class trains each way but they don't look like passenger schedules. Try as I might I could not get the smaller text to be entirely readable. There were no intermediate stations shown, just 30th Street and Spuyten Duyvil."

In the 1921 period the 30th Street Branch was still under the management of the Hudson Division, so the abbreviated schedule set forth in the Electric Division ETT was provided as information only. The detailed and official schedules were published in Hudson Division ETT No. 13A of June 26, 1921. The trains listed were No. 173 and 175 westbound and No. 174 and 176 eastbound. It was not until the early 30's that the 30th Street Branch became part of the Electric Division.

http://www.kinglyheirs.com/NewYorkState ... ight1.html

The above website while having some excellent information and photos is apparently in error as regards the date of the end of passenger servce on the 30th Street Branch.

After the consolidation [between the Hudson River Railroad and the original New York Central], suburban passenger service continued until 1917 but only went as far as Peekskill.

I also believe the 30th Street trains did not run as far as Peekskill after the 1870s. The efforts of Yonkers and local commuters did keep a couple of 30th Street trains operating to/from Yonkers -- the schedules were published in local Yonkers newspapers -- but that service too was gone, probably by the 1890s.

Jack Shufelt wrote:The detailed and official schedules were published in Hudson Division ETT No. 13A of June 26, 1921. The trains listed were No. 173 and 175 westbound and No. 174 and 176 eastbound.

Thanks for the additional information. I take it those were passenger trains? Jack do you know when the final passenger service operated on the West Side line?