[* - Refs.: Ziel, "Steel Rails to the Sunrise" (1965), pp. 10, 11, 21, and 187.]
Because the LIRR is the only surviving Class 1 railroad still operating under its original
name and charter (since 1834), it is a shame that some RR historians perpetuate the
error (however minor it may seem) of combining Rail and Road into
"Railroad". The two leading LIRR historians, Vince Seyfried and Ron Ziel, have
each taken the trouble to get it right in their many books; go thou and do likewise.
LIRR Double-Deckers
My friend, Mike Boland, wrote two major articles on the old LIRR fleet of so-called
"Double-Deckers", one in the PRRT&HS Keystone and one in
the Spring 2003 issue of Classic Trains (pp. 64-69). In the
latter, the editor left out Mike's roster and notes, which I have reproduced here:
(06 Feb 03)
Road No. Class Type Length Aircond. Built Notes
200 T62 trailer 68’ 0” no 1932 1
201 T70 trailer 80’ 8-3/4” no 1937 2
202-205 T70A trailer 80’ 8-3/4” yes 1947 3, 6
1287-1322 MP70B motor 80’ 8-3/4” yes 1948 4, 5
1323-1336 MP70B motor 80’ 8-3/4” yes 1949 5
1341-1346 MP70A motor 80’ 8-3/4” yes 1947 6
1347 MP70 motor 80’ 8-3/4” no 1937 7
Notes to table:
1. Midtrain trailer; no motors or controls. Only surviving LIRR double-decker;
preserved at Railroad Museum of Long Island.
2. Controls removed 1958.
3. Delivered without motors because of strike at Westinghouse; motors
added 1947-48; renumbered 1337-1340; reclassed MP70A.
4. Seven cars (1287-1289, 1291, 1334-1336) converted to motorized
trailers in late 1950's, reclassed MP70BT.
5. Ten cars (1301-1307, 1309, 1311, 1312) rebuilt in 1967 with sealed
windows and improved air-conditioning.
6. Five cars (1337, 1338, 1340, 1341, 1345) converted to motorized trailers
in 1958; reclassed MP70AT.
7. Controls and motors removed 1958, reclassed T70.
I could add (facetiously) that the "double-deckers" aren't passenger cars at all! They
are multiple-well-flats, with sidewalls and windows and a cover added, and
alternating people pockets inserted above the wells, up under the cover! :·)
LIRR Miscellany
Tommy Malloy (of LI tractor fame) allowed me to copy a postcard-format photo from the late George E. Pickering of an auto accident at the Glen Head crossing in 1920, in which a LIRR loco got the better (and then some) of a Model T-type vehicle; the reverse is rubber stamped #129 (inverted) and:
George W. Pickering
137 Eighth Ave.
Sea Cliff, L.I., N.Y.:
(G. E. Pickering photocard courtesy T. Malloy)
Also at the Glen Head station, a shiny "new" G5 locomotive heading "west" (south), looking NNW at the Glen Head crossing on 21 Apr 1931 at 1:44 (or was that the 1:44 train?), and of his dad, Engineer A. F. Hornosky, and Fireman James Everett, on Pat Hornosky's old photos:
(G. E. Pickering photos courtesy T. Malloy)
The first shot is of a purpose-built PRR G5 engine on the LIRR, as evidenced by the silver smokebox front; the LIRR delighted in "defacing" PRR engines with such "attentions". The second shot is of a leased PRR loco as evidenced by the PRR road number; note the old-style long double-window cab and low tender of the old leased Pennsy Class E7s Atlantic 4-4-2 steamer. She's a 1901-1903 Pennsy antique, a Lines West E2 rebuilt ca. 1910 to Class E7sa, and later sloughed off on the stepchild LIRR.
Here's an odd duck to model:
(17 Nov 03)
(from Railroad Work Equipment and Special Service Cars,
Robert J. Wayner, NY, ca. 1989
[Thumbnail image - click on picture for larger image.]
LIRR tool car #221 had lift-up hinged flaps along the sides for ease of access
to contents.
LIRR Cross-Sound Service
Oyster Bay to Wilson Point
1891-1892
Speaking of firsts, as one can see in my LIRR bibliography on the LIRR and LIRR Historical Society pages, Vince Seyfried's The Long Island Rail Road - A Comprehensive History, in Part 6: The Golden Age: 1881-1900, Chapter 11, The Oyster Bay Sound Ferry and the Boston Service, there was a cross-Sound car ferry (car float) operation from Oyster Bay to Wilson's Point in Connecticut (Norwalk area), for passengers and freight, that only ran from 12 Sep 1891 to 13 Jul 1892; it is well covered, with old photographs, on Art Huneke's aRRt's aRRchives in his Oyster Bay Part 3.
Art's site shows a rough map (redrawn excerpt immediately below - that's New Haven at the far right, with Hartford above it), where it appears to be a southward extension of the Danbury Branch, but just try and find Wilson's Point in any atlas or gazeteer!
(08 Oct 02 map by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
I finally located it on a Hagstrom's map for Norwalk, Connecticut (redrawn excerpt based on that, below). The exacting street detail I showed on my drawing was lost in the translation but you can see the dotted red lines for the NYNH&HRR from NYCity to Boston with the Danbury Branch splitting off in downtown "old Norwalk" and, sure enough, there is even a spur heading directly down towards Wilson('s) Point (between Roton Brook and Village Creek):
(08 Oct 02 map by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
{Thumbnail image - click on picture for a larger image]
Wonder just where the RoW ran and where the dock was.
Wonder no longer! A budding historian writing about the Long Island Motor Parkway sent the URLs of a bunch of old USC&GS topo maps in the collections of the University of New Hampshire and I started exploring and, sure enough, there was Oyster Bay in 1900 and Wilson (no "'s") Point in 1897 and 1947 locking down rather well where everything was:
[Thumbnail images - click on pictures for larger images]
(from 1895 Norwalk topo map surveyed 1889-90 and 1947 Norwalk topo map and
from Oct 1900 Oyster Bay topo map as reprinted 1935)
You can see how the Danbury & Norwalk Branch of the Housatonic RR (successor to the New York & New England) splits off southerly from the NYNH&HRR just west of the turnout for the northerly Danbury branch on the west side of the Norwalk River and heads due south to the Point. On the LI side, you can see how the LIRR's Oyster Bay yard used to extend all the way to the water's edge.
Now, all I need is an 1891-92 topo map of Oyster Bay to (hopefully) show the actual dock layout!
Bingo (well, not quite)! A LI Motor Parkway enthusiast sent me the 1918
Camp Mills Quadrangle, a WWI overprint of the 1918 reprint of the south
half of the 1897 Oyster Bay Quadrangle and the north half of the 1897
Hempstead Quadrangle; here's the pertinent portion, showing exactly the
same layout:
(from 1918 Camp Mills topo map surveyed 1897)
I still need to find the actual dock trackage.
The full 1918 topo map is posted on my Long Island page 2.
Speaking of the LI Motor Parkway, I received a near-mint special timetable for trains
to the 30 Oct 1909 running of the Vanderbilt Cup Race, part which ran on a portion of
the LIMP parallel and adjacent to (north of) the CRRof LI in Central Park (now
Bethpage); it's posted on my LIMP Vanderbilt Cup
Cont. Page 1.
Oyster Bay Station in 1900
As a result of an inquiry about the trackage and such at Oyster Bay over the years, I
took the 20" x 24" 1900 "aerial" view of Oyster Bay and scanned the RR area (40Mb),
cropped it down (1.3Mb) and then reduced that to this blurred thumbnail; click on it
for a much larger image:
(Cropped from image courtesy of Oyster Bay Historical Society)
[Thumbnailed image - click on picture for 1.3Mb image,
then click HERE for an
exactingly-detailed 40Mb image (and WAIT), if your server can handle it.]
This is a truncated index to the numbered waterfront/railside features:
28 - Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Transp'n Co. Steamer Wharf
58 - A. J. & E. N. Hutchinson - Coal, Groceries, Hardware
35 - James Thompson - Oyster Shipper and Dealer
59 - E. H. Kirby - Sail and Awning Maker
41 - W. W. Sammis - Carriage and General Painting
40 - P. N. Layton - General Blacksmithing and Carriage Work
66 - Pausel & Son - Machine Shop
27 - Franklin Hotel
36 - Frank Bayles - Insurance, Coal and Wood
* 29 - F. D. Bligh - Oyster Bay Station and and L.I. Express Agent
15 - Casino (really!)
2 - {Oyster Bay Station}
[Odd - there seem to be TWO 29s, one in the grass across from the
station, in what is now Roosevelt Park, and one by the little building along the tracks
to the station's left (east), just beyond the buggy; I assume the latter is correct,
unless, of course, he was the O.B. Station Agent in the ticket bay window and the
L.I. Express Agent in the small building.]
Jacobsen's shipyard (harbor tugs) is half again further to the right of the LIRR
locomotive off this image (IF it was that in 1900 - not indexed). Note the freight
cars on the stub Dock Track by #59. For those interested in modeling the
turn-of-the-20th-century RR facility, it is worth the time to bring up the full image.
To make it even easier to see just these features, here is a blow-up of the station
and yard:
(Cropped and enlarged from image courtesy of Oyster Bay Historical Society)
[Thumbnailed image - click on picture for larger image]
Now, for those intrigued by the many guises of the station building itself, with its two
(or more) structures and various sheds or varying placements and lengths, here is the
artists conception of the 1900 version, shown with a single, short, full-depth shed
extending the full depth out beyond each end wall:
(Cropped and greatly enlarged from image courtesy of Oyster Bay Historical Society)
Artistic license or a version of which "I know noth-ing!"? That's no
help! Notice, however, that the chimney is NOT at the end wall to the east and
notice the otherwise-full symmetry of the building (other than the chimney).
Morris Park Maps
(19 Jan 05)
Steve Lynch, noted LIRR historian, sent me two files, one a map of the Morris
Park shops ca. Mar 1973 and one a tabulation of the buildings then, both
compiled from an unknown source by by Steve Rothaug; I combined the two
into a massive GIF drawing and, in doing so, realized I'd forgotten that I have
an LIRR drawing of the shops from 01 Aug 1968 (I do NOT remember how I
came by this one). I can not speak to the relative merits of these but
thought I would post them both for the record. Here, then, are
thumbnails of the two, the LIRR one at left, which will bring up a whopping
~1.6Mb image, and Steve Rothaug's at the right, which will bring up
one at ~63Kb:
(Cropped and enhanced from LIRR image {l.} and
combined S. Rothaug images courtesy of S. Lynch {r.})
[Thumbnailed images - click on the pictures for a VERY much larger ~1.6Mb
image {l.} and a ~63Kb image (r.)]
For those not familiar with these shops, the Morris Park shops, started in 1883
and substantially completed by Nov 1889 (Seyfried, VI, pp. 129-130) were the
primary service facility for steam locomotives for the LIRR (and for the PRR
east of the Meadows Yard in New Jersey) right through the end of steam in
1955 and then served for diesels for another 40 some odd years, with electrics
serviced there until the Dunton Car Shops were built. It finally met its
demise in 2004. In the Pennsy era, steamers only went back to Altoona
(Pennsylvania) for major work (heavy repairs or complete rebuilds).
It's interesting to note that on an aerial photo from 1949 (in Ziel, Steel
Rails to the Sunrise, pp. 224-225, taken 28 Oct), the roundhouse is a full
half-circle, on the Aug 1968 LIRR plan it has a "patio" (doncha love it?), and
on the 1973 Rothaug plan, it's down to a quarter circle.
LIRR Bibliography:
[moved to its own page from this page on 01 Mar 02]
[this page was separated out from my RAILROAD, LI Rail Road, and LI Railroads pages, et seq.;
you might wish to see them also.]
THUMBS UP!
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S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
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of this series of LIRR pages.
To tour the Long Island railroads pages in sequence, the arrows take you from the first LIRR page to the LIRR index, to this page and on to pages 2 and up, then to the other LI railroads page, and lastly to the LIRR Historical Society page.
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1999, 2001, 2002, 2003,
2005
- All rights reserved.
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