Half-Z Scale - 1:440 Tiny Trains and even 1:900 Tiniest Trains!
[To conserve space even further, the index for material on separate pages has been removed; see the main model RR page.
Visit the courtesy and official home pages listed in the index on the main MRR page.
You may also wish to jump to SB,III's RAILROAD Page.
MODEL RAILROADING Page 5
(continuation of Page 2)
VEST POCKET RAILROADS
YOU CAN MODEL
(continued from MRR page 2)
On page 2, I noted that we walked the Degnon Yard on 15 Sep 02; the handouts on that tour were fantastic and I''ll reproduce them here shortly. The BIG eye-opener for me was that Murrer's Sidings and Kearney Yard are no more than the southern end of Degnon and that the line between them is STILL THERE (albeit buried and obstructed by illegal buildings) AND that the Kearney turnout is still in place!
ATLAS TERMINALS RAILROAD
One day, ca. 2000, after a visit to the New York & Atlantic
Railway's (ex-LIRR) Fresh Pond Yard on Otto Avenue in Glendale, I was returning
eastward along Cooper Avenue in central Queens County, New York City, on western
Long Island, when I noticed a tiny diesel locomotive up on a plinth in front of a
handsome old industrial building. It turned out to be a retired (and restored)
loco of the Atlas Terminals, at 8000 (80-00) Cooper Avenue.
Vince Seyfried, noted Queens historian, states that Atlas Terminals was the largest
employer in heavily-Germanic Glendale in the 1940s.
Naturally, I can't find the pictures I took at the time (they'll turn up - I reshot them
digitally). Not only did Atlas restore the loco, they even took the trouble to
place a bronze plaque giving its history! Bravo, Atlas!
I only vaguely remember Atlas of old and find virtually (pun) nothing about it on the
Web; most hits turn out to be either the Atlas Terminal Company, Inc.
(see Atlas Van Lines disclaimer, below), or Atlas
terminals, rail joiners made by Atlas Railroad Company, Inc., the old and
well-established model railroad firm!
Art Huneke's ARRt's ARRchives turned up
the following; a map from the LIRR track plans (I have those!) and two photos of an
older loco (apparently a Plymouth or similar) out of service and then in again:
[Cropped and edited from ca. 1973-75 LIRR Track Plan courtesy of A. Huneke]
Jul/Aug 1958 photo by and courtesy of A. Huneke - all rights reserved]
Jun 1959 photo by either A. Huneke or J. J. Earle, courtesy of A. Huneke - all rights reserved]
I find it fascinating to spot that the two photos are a year apart and the loco is
spotted within three or four bricks of the same spot! Obviously, someone put
the hood panels back sometime during that intervening year.
What does NOT show on the LIRR track plan is that Cooper Avenue runs immediately
north of the property (I added it on my excerpted copy shown); the top of the plan is
NORTH. I also added an "X" to show the approximate location of the
old loco on Cooper near 80th Street.
Note also that wild switchback directly across the spur, just shy of the Engine House
turnout.
[That track plan is excerpted from the LIRR track plan page
"GLENDALE 5.2" (ca. 1973-75),
the area between "FRESH POND 3.9" (to the west) and "RICHMOND HILL 7.6"
(to the east).]
First, it must be noted that ATLAS TERMINALS is NOT a warehousing
and transportation operation; it is actually a very early INDUSTRIAL PARK
(see also the 1905 Degnon Terminal). The
word "terminal" is applied here in the true railroad sense; a place where the track
ends (as opposed to a station on a through track). Secondly, ATLAS
TERMINALS is in no way related to the ATLAS TERMINAL
COMPANY, INC., one of the original seven founding firms of the 1947
Atlas Van Lines ("More than a
mover.TM"). Because of the confusion
engendered by the virtually identical names, "our" Long Island Atlas Terminal
now uses the acronym "ATCO" (for ATCO
Properties & Management, Inc.). However, for the purposes of this page,
which is to introduce yet another "Vest Pocket Railroad You Can Model", we
will continue to call the operation ATLAS TERMINALS (except for present-day
commercial matters) without meaning any disrespect for "ATCO".
Thanks to ATCO's superb cooperation, I am able to bring you material
excerpted from the Thursday, 19 and 26 Mar 1987 issues of the RIDGEWOOD TIMES
(now the TIMES NEWSWEEKLY),
in an unsigned feature called "Our Neighborhood - The Way It Was" (pp. 17,
28, 31 and 17, 24, 32, respectively). "Excerpted" because the articles are a
very complete history of the land and the industry and the people involved, indeed,
but far beyond the purview of a basically-RR-oriented page.
Should you desire more of this history, the Queensborough Public Library
would probably be the best place to start.
Brief History of the ATCO Property:
Suffice it to relate that the property was originally the farm of Edward Titus (of one of
the oldest Long Island families) and by 1790 was owned by Johanes Bartlefolk (later
shortened to John B. Folk). In 1867, the Folk folks (like that?) sold a 50' strip of
their land to the South Side Rail Road of Long Island, which built a single
track line from Jamaica westward to the Williamsburgh's Bushwick Avenue terminal.
Traffic increased such that the line was double-tracked in 1870 (the SSRRofLI went
under on 25 Sep 1874 and was subsumed into the Poppenhusen empire - Seyfried).
The Folks (I did it again!) sold the farm (some 20 acres with barns and a farmhouse),
but excluding the RR RoW (good thing!), to Henri Wolfurst, a farmer, for $8,800 ($440
per acre) on 14 Jan 1868. Henri died in 1902 and the farm (now down to 18.72
acres) was then sold to American Grass Products Company for $26,222 (~$1,400 the
acre) on 10 Jun 1902. AGP liked it for its proximity to local main roads such as
Woodhaven Avenue (now Boulevard), Metropolitan and Myrtle Avenues, and the
adjacent Cooper Avenue and Dry Harbor Road (80th Street) and, of course, the LIRR
(which had by then absorbed the SSRRofLI's Poppenhusen successor, The Southern
Railroad of Long Island).
AGP started building Building #1 (as it is now known) almost immediately, partly for
their own use and partly for lease-out. AGP ran into difficulty and sold the
property to a Rhode Island knitting mill firm, J. W. Bishop Company, which pushed
Building #1 to completion in 1904. Demand for space was so great that Bishop
leased out the entire building. V & O Press Company, a manufacturer of
metal-stamping presses and dies moved in, followed shortly by the Eastern Sales
Book Company and Mirmont Photo Paper Company; you can barely make out the signs
of Mirmont, Eastern, and V & O painted on the wall of Building #1 in this
badly-reproduced 1905 photo:
(early 1905 picture from 19 Mar 1987 Ridgewood Times)
[Thumbnail image - click on picture for larger image.]
However, to save your eyes and patience, I enlarged that portion of the photo and
captioned it:
(enlarged from early 1905 picture from 19 Mar 1987 Ridgewood Times
and captioned by SB,III)
In addition, by Feb 1905, Westinghouse Air Brake Company (of RR fame), Prairie
Grass Furniture Company (sure hope they kept their stuff away from bison,
antelope, and jackrabbits), Hawkes McD. Rec. Gibbs Engineering and
Manufacturing Company {that's what it says! - "receiver"?}, and
Samuel Carey Company had signed on. Carey made equipment for producing
chocolate candy and for mixing paints; Lofts Candy Company was one of their big
accounts. Hercules Contracting and Columbia Knitting Mills were added by 1908 and
1912 saw the addition of Progressive Mills, a ribbon manufacturer (a division of Bay
View Ribbon Company) and of braid manufacturer Walter J. Vogt.
About this time, the New York Connecting Railroad began
operations, from Port Morris (just south of Oak Point Yard) in the Bronx, across the
Hell Gate Bridge to Brooklyn's Bay Ridge
cross-harbor float operations, running N-S at Fresh Pond, just under a mile to the
west of Atlas.
In 1919, William J. Hughes & Co., Inc., came aboard on 18 Feb and Arctic Knitting Mills
on 25 Jul. Then, after some legal maneuverings, the property came into the
hands of Bay View Ribbon and thence, on 27 Sep 1922, to Hemmerdinger
Real Estate Corporation. Now, we're getting somewhere; aren't you glad this
is only a brief history?
Atlas Terminals, as we know it today, is a tribute to the vision of Henry Hemmerdinger,
who, after acquiring Atlas in 1922, set about expanding it as a still-vital part of of
today's ATCO Properties & Management, Inc., which is now headed
by H. Dale Hemmerdinger, Henry's grandson and third generation realtor. The
Hemmerdingers settled in the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn after coming from
Germany in the 1880s; Moses (later known as Morris) Hemmerdinger started out as a
rag merchant and built his trade up, finally manufacturing mattresses. Son
Henry took over from his father, who died ca. 1907, and located the firm near the
Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1910, reverting to the rag trade (as a supplier of bedding and
upholstery supplies) in 1912. He moved again in 1917, still in Williamsburgh,
but then, in 1922, Henry's Hemmerdinger Estate Corporation (founded with his late
father's assets) bought the Glendale property from Bay View Ribbon.
Henry moved the operation into what is believed to be Building #9, part of some
300,000 square feet of available factory space and leased out the rest.
Hemmerdinger employed about 200 employees, processing about 100 tons of fiber
daily for sale to paper and textile mills and to the mattress and upholstery trades.
If you'll look at the track plan (it's not a map), you'll see that the property
extends from Cooper Avenue south to the LIRR tracks and east from 80th Street (Dry
Harbor Road) to 88th Street.
You can also make out some of this on the (again-badly-reproduced and undated)
aerial photo from the second half of the article:
(undated picture from 26 Mar 1987 Ridgewood Times)
[Thumbnail image - click on picture for larger image.]
In this view, which appears to be looking NNE over the LIRR's Montauk Division
towards Cooper Avenue, with 80th Street at the far left and 88th
Street at the upper right and 78th Avenue running diagonally across the
bottom, parallel to the LIRR tracks, the tall chimney is barely visible in the lower left
corner of the property, with the powerhouse to its right (east) and the water tower
just east of that. Doran and 73rd/Rutledge Avenues run
westward into the property from 88th Street, below (south of) and
parallel to the eastern end of Cooper Avenue.
Being a viable and active commercial operation, ATCO would, of
course, be pleased to hear from you if you have commercial or industrial space needs
in a location convenient to all forms of transportation (rail, road, air, sea) and
Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau, as well as the other boroughs,
Westchester and New Jersey and beyond. Not only are the rails and roads
noted in the preceding history still there but the property is also quite convenient to
both Jackie Robinson (Interborough) and Grand Central Parkways (and thus the
Triborough and Bronx-Whitestone Bridges) and the Long Island Expressway (I495,
the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, and the Queensborough Bridge), the Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway (I278 and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge), and the Van Wyck Expressway
(I678 and the Throgs Neck Bridge). Glendale is almost equally close to both
LaGuardia and JFK airports and it's not all that much further to Newark, either.
Contact George Rozansky at:
ATCO Properties & Management, Inc.
80-00 Cooper Avenue
Glendale, New York 11385
718-326-3560
[No, I am NOT being paid for this blatant plug!]
On 21 Sep 2002, on my way home from the Sunrise Trail Div./NER/NMRA Fall Meet
nearby, I stopped by ATCo and took photos of this "Vest Pocket Railroad You Can
Model"; first, here's a general sketch map of the area so you can orient yourself:
(24 Sep 02 drawing by and © 2002, 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved;
revised 08 Jun 04 to add scale)
(08 Jun 04)
[If you think I can remember how 88th Street crosses the Montauk Division (at
grade?), think again!]
First, here, looking SE, is the loco, 25-ton GE #13028 {Image 1}:
(this and all succeding 21 Sep 02 photos by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
That enginehouse door goes nowhere; there isn't anything beyond the wall, so I
assume that it may well have been the north wall of the original enginehouse.
The right side {Image 2}:
The commemorative plaque (what a nice touch!) {Image 3}:
A (nearly-)left side view showing that it is parked alongside Building 15 {Image 4}:
The main gate into ATCO showing the loco and door at left and the
water tower in the far right distance {Image 5}:
A view looking east from the 80th Street bridge, giving the layout of Building 1, the
stack, the water tower, and the LIRR Montauk Division (out of sight along the right
side) {Image 8}:
The large white arrow was added to show a very thoughtful detail; there is a photo
port set into the fence on the east side of the bridge! Of course, some vandal
(railfan?) punched a smaller hole (a clear spot in front of the near left leg of the tower)
a bit to the left (north), indicated by the smaller arrow.
Looking through the photo port, the stack {Image 6} and the water tower (with the
LIRR to the lower right) {Image 7}:
The view slightly further north with the signage on Building 1; the West Gate is under
the sign on the bridge {Image 9}:
Looking east down on the tracks, there is an abandoned loading dock on the left
(north) side {Image 10}:
Diverging slightly, there are some grand old buildings on the property; here is an
oldie silhouetted against a western evening sky next to Building 22 over on 83rd
Street {Image 11}:
On the east side of 83rd Street, at 70-39, is Building 30-A, with a mock keystone still
bearing the inscription (almost illegible on the image) "HEMMERDINGER ESTATE
CORP"! {Image 12}:
Further down, in the bend of 83rd Street, at 70-60 on the west side, is Building No. 12,
with the old sign still visible under the new one in this NE corner view {Image 13}:
Finally, down towards the SE corner of the property, on the south side of what
possibly was 73rd Avenue, was this grand old building; they just don't make factory
entrances like that any more! {Image 14}:
(all preceding 21 Sep 02 photos by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
There is a West Gate under the 80th Street bridge, as indicated above, and an East
Gate over at 88th Street near the LIRR.
Rumor had it, as of 29 Jan 03, that Atlas Terminals was to be turned into a giant shopping center (just what the world needs)! Oh, 'tis true, 'tis true; as of Oct 2003, most of the old buildings are down!
(08 Jun 04)
Grosste Eisenbahnmodelleaustellung
(Moved from page 2 on 15 Sep 02)
On Railroad Continuation Page 4, there is a write up and
photos of both the ruins of the Anhalter Bahnhof,
the world's largest trainshed, and an HO museum model of it; that shed's about as
long as the whole Marion River Carry Railroad!
On the same trip to Berlin, I went though Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin on a
Sunday, 27 Sep 1987, and headed up the Unter-den-Linden from the Brandenburger
Tor at Potsdamer Platz, past the ruined Dom cathedral, and towards the giant
Fernsehturm (rundfunksturm, broadcast or radio-TV tower); here's what I saw as I
wandered:
That's the Marienkirche (Mary's Church) on the left and the Fernsehturm; they really
are both vertical but the perspective is something fierce!
As I got closer to the tower, I saw that there was a huge exhibition hall at the base
with a big sign; closer still and the sign turned out to state, "Grosste
Eisenbahnmodelleaustellung" (that's "greatest model railroad exhibition")!
Wow! In I went and was promptly mobbed by East Berliners and just plain
East Germans, most of whom had never met an American, let alone under friendly
circumstances! I stood out like a sore thumb, tall, relatively well dressed in
sports clothing of obvious western cut; a buzz went through the room as I entered.
The show was their annual blowout and it was HUGE; each exhibitor had to personally
drag me over and explain all about what he'd done (very few women exhibitors).
The biggest "modular" (well - disassemble-able) layout was that of the
Deutsche Modellverein (DMV - German Model Club,
strictly East German).
Here are two views of the DMV's giant layout (note the East German soldier in the left
center of the second photo).
What you just can't see is that most of the stuff was handmade out of scrap wood
and cardboard and discarded soda cans; these people were dirt-poor! It took
about a month's or more salary to buy an open-frame motor. Many of the
modelers were forced to turn their own wheels out of metal scrap!
But what touched me more than anything else was one East German who excitedly
showed me his small diorama on which he had reproduced his home small-town
station in "EXAKT" detail, down to every single sign and newspaper:
27 Sep 1987 photos by and © 1987 S. Berliner, III
I deeply regret that I've lost the gentleman's name and address; my camera could not
focus down close enough and the exceedingly-fine details are not apparent on this
blurred shot but they are there in profusion. Note how he used a broken piece
of Perspex scrap to protect the delicate arch over the entrance to the station grounds.
Continued from Model Railroading Page 3, VEST POCKET RAILROADS YOU CAN MODEL.
If you like model railroading nonsense (and good tips), take a gander at Jim Wells'
incredible 
and at the AW NUTS Magazine site, "A
Publication of the A.W. N.U.T.S. Garden Railway Society".
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
=
of this series of Model Railroading pages.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III -
2000, 2002, 2003,
2004
- All rights reserved.
Return to Top of Page
times since the counter was installed.
(07 Jun 04)
