Keystone Aspirations: The Evolution, Creation and Construction of Pennsylvania Station

Transcription

1 February 2015 Special Issue Number 1 $ Keystone Aspirations: The Evolution, Creation and Construction of Pennsylvania Station Plus Its Initial Opening for the Long Island Railroad By George Chiasson, Jr. New England Chapter, Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society

2 Published Quarterly by The New England Chapter of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society President Vice President Secretary Treasurer OFFICERS NEW ENGLAND CHAPTER CHAPTER INQUIRIES Please direct questions about the New England Chapter to Ralph Weischedel or Tim Garner: Ralph Weischedel, President 17 Riverview Rd., Canton, MA Tim Garner, Secretary 533 Brigham Street, Marlborough, MA , Chapter web: Discussion group: Ralph Weischedel Andy Miller Tim Garner Keith Thompson The New England Chapter of the PRRT&HS serves members in all six New England states. Official membership meetings are held quarterly in different locations in the region to share the distance. The Chapter sponsors additional activities such as home model layout visits, group railfan trips, and other events between meetings. Anyone with an interest in the PRR is welcome. Annual dues are $15 payable by January 1. Dues cover mailing, printing, and web hosting expenses for the club. Anyone living or traveling through New England is welcome to come to our meetings and check us out. Regular membership in the USA is $15 U.S. Mail your name, address, phone number, address, Society membership number (if any), and your check to: NE Chapter PRRT&HS PO Box 624 Marlborough, MA THE EAST WIND The East Wind is the official quarterly publication of the New England Chapter of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society and is published in October, January, April, and July of each year. Subscription is by membership in the New England Chapter. We welcome any material dealing with the PRR for possible publication. Please forward articles, photographs, and other materials to the Editor at the address below. We cannot pay for submissions. We will handle all authors property with the utmost care and return it after used. You may submit articles on paper, on 3.5 floppy, CD-ROM, or by attachment in PC format, preferably in MS Word, Excel, or text. We prefer actual photographic prints, 35mm slides, 126 slides, or electronic image files. Files should be 300 dpi at 5 x 7 in.jpg format or larger. We can also scan or photograph your postcards and other memorabilia for publication. The information we publish is accurate to the best of our knowledge. We welcome your corrections and comments. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Chapter. The East Wind is copyrighted by the New England Chapter PRRT&HS. All rights reserved. THE EAST WIND Tim Garner, Editor 533 Brigham Street, Marlborough, MA t.a.garner@verizon.net Eve: THE EAST WIND FEBRUARY 2015 CONTENTS Special Issue No.1 Keystone Aspirations: The Evolution, Creation and Construction of Pennsylvania Station Plus Its Initial Opening for the Long Island Railroad By George Chiasson, Jr. INTRODUCTION RESEARCH CREDIT AND COMMENTARY... 3 PART 1: THE LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD SUPPORTS PENNSYLVANIA STATION... 5 PART 2: MOLING BENEATH MANHATTAN THE NINE-YEAR CONSTRUCTION CHRONICLE OF PENNSYLVANIA STATION...11 PART 3: PENNSYLVANIA STATION COMES TO LIFE...28 PART 4: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED MANHATTAN MEETS MAIN STREET...47 PART 5: PENN STATION OPENS AND A SUBURBAN COLOSSUS EMERGES...64 MAPS, PLANS, AND TIMETABLES Map 41: Greater New York Railways & Terminals Map 42: New York Bridge & Terminal Proposal Map 43: Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Project Overview as Completed Penn Station Floor Plan 1: Street Level Penn Station Floor Plan 2: Main Level Penn Station Floor Plan 3: Lower Level Penn Station Floor Plan 4: Platform Level Timetable 1: Penn Station to Manhattan Transfer Timetable 2: Penn Station to Sunnyside Timetable 3: Sunnyside Yard Map 44: Greater New York Railways & Terminals, Nov Map 45: The Evolution of Manhattan Transfer Map 46: Long Island Rail Road Main Lines in Queens, Nov Map 47: Long Island Rail Road Penn Station Services, Sept Front Cover Pennsylvania Station Concourse (PRR) Back Cover GG1 at Bergen Hill In an undated view from the 1960 s, westbound GG1 #9124 with a Florida-bound streamliner exits the northern tube into the Jersey Meadows. (William D. Volkmer collection) The East Wind 2 Special Issue No. 1

3 Keystone Aspirations: The Evolution, Creation and Construction of Pennsylvania Station Plus Its Initial Opening for the Long Island Railroad By George Chiasson, Jr. INTRODUCTION RESEARCH CREDIT AND COMMENTARY This work endeavors to examine the Evolution, Creation and Construction of Pennsylvania Station, mainly from the perspective of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In conclusion, it relates the events surrounding Penn Station s initial opening on behalf of the Long Island Rail Road in September of The story will be continued in Book 3, a gargantuan undertaking which will examine the historical development of the Pennsylvania and other railroads lines on the so-called Jersey side of the Hudson River as an off-set to, and a variety from, the previously-described developments regarding the Long Island Rail Road. It will also relate later evolution of the Long Island and Pennsylvania Railroads in the Metropolitan Region prior to World War II. The alternating affairs of these two intertwined railway entities will continue to be so reflected in future writings across the decades, with the ultimate goal of granting a basic understanding as to how the presentday passenger railway system of Metropolitan New York came to be. Several years ago, a fairly broad account of the original Transcontinental Railroad was published under the title Nothing Like It in the World, intended as what might be termed a popcorn history (meaning for the general population and not necessarily for, or reviewed by, academic historians). Though it was panned by railroad aficionados soon after its publication in 2000 for playing fast and loose with factual content, the book became quite popular and remains in circulation to this day. How deeply the actual tale of development for the Transcontinental Railroad was compromised, if at all, is a matter of conjecture, but this allegedly-flawed publication did nevertheless accomplish its original intention by bringing a detailed description to light of how this unique transportation system was established, and did so by way of a much larger constituency than had previously been possible. In a similar vein, the following work seeks to build upon the foundation of the Long Island Rail Road history that has thus far been recounted, employ information gleaned from a variety of additional previously-published histories and expand the narrative into a complete, detailed description of how the Pennsylvania Railroad was able to plan and execute its long-standing ambition to bring its operations into the heart of Manhattan from the American mainland. The hope is to relate the full story of this previously daunting and absolutely herculean task, perhaps for the first time, and do it in such a way as to be at least coherent (if not entirely understandable) to as many readers as possible. The question may arise as to what makes Penn Station s story of more importance than most tales of American railway development. To this it can be answered that, after the passage of a full century, the opening of Pennsylvania Station and the means in which it incorporated the nation s largest city into the National Railway System of the United States mark as much a counter-balance, perhaps even an end to its general expansion, as establishment of the Transcontinental Railroad had signaled its creation. Sources for the following series of texts, as usual, are many and varied including the aforementioned series of selfpublished Long Island Rail Road histories by Vincent Seyfried, plus these several formal histories of Pennsylvania Station: Conquering Gotham, Building Penn Station and Its Tunnels by Jill Jonnes (Penguin Books, 2007). History of the Engineering, Construction and Equipment of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company s New York Terminal and Approaches edited by William Couper (Isaac Blanchard Co., 1912). The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station by Lorraine B. Diehl (Basic Books, 1996). New York s Pennsylvania Stations by Hilary Ballon (W.W. Norton & Co., 2002). Pennsylvania Station (McKim, Mead & White), Architecture In Detail by Steven Parissien (Phaidon Press Ltd., 1996). Triumph V, Philadelphia to New York by David Messer & Charles Roberts (Barnard, Roberts & Co., 2002). The East Wind 3 Special Issue No. 1

4 Manhattan Gateway New York s Pennsylvania Station by William D. Middleton (Kalmbach Publishing, 1996) These works were then magnified or expanded through numerous websites and a wide variety of separate, ad hoc materials made available through the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society and the New Haven Railroad Technical & Historical Association. Further, a particular effort was expended to superficially, yet not dismissively, treat some of the better-known elements of Penn Station s story herein so as to avoid their simple repetition after decades of prior publication. While these existing works have collectively provided a superb account regarding the inherent architectural splendor of the original Pennsylvania Station and the municipal embarrassment of its demise, its basic and continuing function as an equally-magnificent railway terminal has all too often been subsumed to the facility s institutional fate. Thus, when all this material was exhaustively evaluated against, and consolidated with additional knowledge resources, the following text was created in the hope that it will not only paint an accurate picture of the creation, construction and the very existence of Penn Station and its marvels, but also shed a great deal of light upon its detailed operational legacy. With that I now leave it to you, the reader, to determine if this objective will be achieved, and hope that you are able to join me on the following trip into a previous time. George Chiasson Jr., August 26, 2012 A WORD OF DEDICATION These and all pages regarding the development, construction, opening and subsequent operation of Pennsylvania Station, New York, from its conception to the present time are dedicated to the memory of late Amtrak Baggage Clerk Theodore Blaise, Jr. ( ). Ted was happily employed across his 47-year career ( ) as a Ticket Agent by the Long Island Rail Road, Pennsylvania and Penn Central Railroads, then as a Baggage Clerk by Amtrak all of it spent at Penn Station in its various forms. Notably (and as the result of a serious boyhood injury), Ted was the only male new-hire when the LIRR opened its newly-expanded ticket office in the lower level at the start of World War II. A victim of the PRR- LIRR bankruptcy proceedings, Ted crossed over to the parent company by 1949, and was also among those on duty upstairs at the real Penn Station that fateful day of October 4, 1963, when the final sales were dispensed from the Tichy ticket bureau in the Main Waiting Room. After dodging years of heavy construction around his office, Ted was on-hand as a Sales Agent in the Penn Central s new facility beneath Madison Square Garden for the first few years after its opening in He then changed hats to become a Baggage Clerk after Amtrak assumed Penn Central s Northeast Corridor passenger service in 1971 and held that position until his retirement in A long-time resident of Edison, New Jersey whose backyard was right against the Northeast Corridor, Ted was a somewhat gruff New Yorker by birth, but in reality known as a knowledgeable, gentle soul who was always eager to share his familiarity of the railroads inner workings with those possessing acute curiosity (such as your author). More than that, he encouraged those around him to experience the freedom of our nation s railway system as often and as far as possible. Ironically, for all the tickets to distant places that he sold through the years, Ted was never to travel much himself. During some of his early years at the P.R.R., until 1952, he was sometimes able to join fellow employees on 3-week crosscountry railroad tours that were offered through the company, but otherwise he stayed strictly on the Northeast Corridor as his trains evolved from the Pennsy to Penn Central to Public Service Coordinated Transport and finally to New Jersey Transit. Though most of his former Penn Station customers have joined the grand depot in eternity, he is still fondly remembered by his former, fellow workers for the old-fashioned air of responsibility he imparted, a now-rare style that was so typical of the service employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad May he Rest in Peace. The East Wind 4 Special Issue No. 1

5 PART 1: THE LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD SUPPORTS PENNSYLVANIA STATION MANHATTAN AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAILROADS Long before land for it was plotted or even acquired, the Pennsylvania Railroad contemplated the site of its ultimate terminal in the heart of Manhattan in terms of location, construction and operation. The earliest prevailing wisdom, in general terms, had assumed that at some point in time one of the numerous railroads which terminated their lines on the west side of the Hudson River would finally be able to garner the financial, political and institutional wherewithal to penetrate the heretofore impenetrable (so to speak) and bring its trains right into New York City. New York (Manhattan specifically) was a sea-faring urban center that was surrounded on three sides by rather formidable waterways as it had developed geographically, so as a result (and with only two exceptions) had been passed up or passed by while the Northeast s network of railroads took shape all around it in the second half of the 19 th century. By the 1880 s, the list of railroad companies that came to terminals up and down the Jersey side of the Hudson was like a who s who of the steel highways that had enabled the region s industrial might to flourish. Included (by names we still recognize in 2014, along with their respective termini) were such notables as the Baltimore & Ohio, Reading, Central Railroad of New Jersey and Lehigh Valley at Jersey City/Communipaw; Erie at Jersey City/Pavonia; Delaware, Lackawanna & Western at Hoboken; New York, West Shore & Buffalo and New York, Ontario & Western at Weehawken; and, last but most certainly not least, the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York, Susquehanna & Western at Jersey City/Paulus Hook. All either called at one of the various railheads of their own or another that was leased, rented or otherwise shared with other another company, but the common fact was that every passenger had to use a ferry boat to cross the Hudson River for access to New York City itself. Excepted from this natural exclusion were the two railway lines that bore on New York City from the north: the New York & Harlem, which started out of a Manhattan terminal on the Bowery at Prince St. in 1832 and reached into upstate White Plains by 1844, and the Hudson River Railroad, which originated in north-to-south fashion from Peekskill to Chambers St. on the West Side in Obviously, both entities had far less difficult barriers to overcome than those approaching from the west or east, and both were readily claimed as major components in the development of Cornelius Vanderbilt s New York Central System during the time following America s Civil War. For other transportation companies, the prospect of simply building long trestles across the East and Hudson Rivers was so onerous as to be dismissed almost immediately, though it was often proposed. This was not just the case in the railroads boardrooms but also the halls of government, where this matter was perpetually inhibited by corruption at the city and state level, and military and legislative considerations in Washington (this given that the East River, Hudson River and New York Harbor were then considered an essential element of the nation s defense infrastructure). Obvious economic benefits aside the concept was also shunned by some real estate developers, who worried that it would destabilize monetary and property values significantly, and by water transportation providers, who simply feared the competition. An additional consideration was the operational legalities that might confront any railroad which actually did succeed in getting its trackage into Lower Manhattan. As an example, the Harlem and Hudson lines had in fact been required by city statute to use horses to dray their trains south of 26 th and 30 th Streets, respectively, in the time before the first Grand Central Terminal opened in late 1871, and their passengers thus required to endure slow rides through the streets of Lower Manhattan to begin and end their journeys. THE PENNSYLVANIA TO JERSEY CITY What evolved into the Pennsylvania Railroad s first station to be called New York had started as the modest Paulus Hook terminus of the New Jersey Rail Road & Transportation Co. in It was there that new and at the time inspiring little horse-drawn coaches from Newark pulled up to what had been earlier established as America s first steam ferryboat landing in From an early date this location primarily functioned as a transfer for passage between ferries from New York City and a railroad system that at the time accessed Newark, New Jersey, but the availability of such a resource was far from instantaneous. As for the P.R.R., it was actually (and understandably) a network of lines concentric to the Philadelphia area during its developmental phase (that is, the years from its beginnings in 1848 through the Civil War), and as such was forced to reach outside of its own territory through the use of leases, trackage rights or other cooperative arrangements. The New Jersey Rail Road (through yet a third party, the Camden & Amboy Rail Road) was one such company with whom the Pennsylvania had a long-standing relationship, providing the framework for what developed into its route segment between Philadelphia (actually Camden) and Northern New Jersey via Trenton. Through trains between Jersey City and Philadelphia weren t even operated by the independent companies on behalf of the Pennsylvania Railroad until the early 1850 s, but then as the former State Road grew into a national concern it gradually swallowed up the littler railroad in function, gaining sufficient stature to carry the Paulus Hook railhead in its own name (as The Pennsylvania Terminal ) starting in Amalgamation of these various companies was formalized at last in 1871, at which time the United New Jersey Rail Road and Canal Co. (successor to the The East Wind 5 Special Issue No. 1

6 New Jersey Rail Road of 1834) became part of the widereaching Pennsylvania Railroad system. For generations thereafter P.R.R. passenger trains of all types (intercity, regional and commuter) ended their runs at The Exchange Place in Jersey City, which in 2014 is the site of a medium-sized office tower at the end of Christopher Columbus Drive. In 1857 a 5-track railway terminal with building was established on the site, being expanded to 12 tracks in 1874, and then raised onto an elevated fill by 1891 so passengers could flow to and from the upper level of connecting ferry boats. Starting in April of 1876 the matching availability of the New York, New Haven & Hartford s Harlem River Branch accommodated the earliest through operation from points west and south to New England, its trains being car-floated around Manhattan from a ramp at Exchange Place to Harlem River Terminal in the South Bronx, where they regained the rails for the balance of their trips. At various times between 1853 and 1869, the Jersey City terminal was also shared with trains of the New York & Erie, Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and Central Rail Road of New Jersey; even later being joined by the New York Susquehanna & Western, New York, West Shore & Buffalo and the Lehigh Valley Rail Road, which continued to operate into Exchange Place as late as The terminal was even equipped with a.c.-fed overhead catenary as part of the New York Terminal re-electrification in early The P.R.R. s intercity and regional operations were naturally moved over to Penn Station in the time following its opening in 1910, but most of the commuter traffic that was at first retained for Exchange Place (as had been planned) was diverted to Penn Station within a few short years as the destination curve rather dramatically shifted from Lower Manhattan to Midtown during its first decade, with operations already being considerably downgraded as early as By the time the Exchange Place terminal was finally abandoned outright on November 17, 1961, it was being used solely by a selection of rush hour commuter runs, which included electrics to New Brunswick, Trenton and South Amboy, with a handful of diesel-powered through trains serving Bay Head. The Pennsylvania s connecting ferry boat from Jersey City was initially expanded after the opening of Penn Station (and a new building even put at the Cortlandt St. terminal in April 1912), but as the railway s passenger traffic increasingly swung over toward Midtown, or dished out an extra fare for the H. & M. tunnels, so too did its former ferry patrons. Certainly by the late 1920 s the ferry was being maintained by the Pennsylvania on a continuously-thinning basis for connecting railway passengers and had assumed a greater level of importance to the otherwise difficult, non-railroad passage of auto traffic between New Jersey and New York. Even this role diminished markedly after the opening of the Holland Tunnel in 1927, with the elder terminal at Debrosses St. closing in January Its standing was further compromised by inauguration of the George Washington Bridge in 1931 and lastly the Lincoln Tunnel in 1937, though the P.R.R. tried to counteract this negative momentum by establishing alternative waterborne truck carriage between Jersey City and Brooklyn in 1929 as a way to circumvent the growing traffic of Lower Manhattan. After a number of service interruptions in 1949, the P.R.R. s Exchange Place ferry finally made its last voyage to the slips at Cortlandt St. (current site of the World Financial Center) on January 6, After that time all passengers arriving at Exchange Place terminal were required to use the H. & M. (now Port Authority Trans-Hudson, or PATH) to get under the river into Manhattan. THE GOAL: A RAILROAD INTO NEW YORK CITY In 1890 the City of New York consisted entirely of what is now the Borough of Manhattan, which itself was still being transformed from a layered urban area (that is, varied in the urban, suburban and rural elements of its character) to the center piece of the largest American metropolitan region. As had been the case for well over 200 years by this time, most of its density was concentrated in the traditional Downtown area south of City Hall, with the so-called Midtown district burgeoning as the cross-streets gradually bridged the island between its rivers and proceeded northward. Looking at an 1890 map of Manhattan reveals that the zone from roughly Canal St. to 14 th Street was just reaching maturation; that from 14 th to about 40 th was gaining on it rapidly; and Uptown to at least 86 th Street was either already built up or committed to some kind of development. Beyond that point, the actual truth as reflected in such a map is not completely clear, for as the grid goes farther north there were some places that were already being solidly urbanized while others had barely progressed from their earlier (if not entirely natural) states, and some of the streets as shown perhaps planned but still fictitious. In the Philadelphia planning offices of the Pennsylvania Railroad, each of these characteristics were digested and analyzed with an eye toward the eventual disposition of its railroad someplace in Manhattan, a future goal that would come to mark the ultimate accomplishment of its corporate enterprise. The first inklings of such an endeavor actually dated back to the company presidency of John Edgar Thompson ( ), under whose leadership the P.R.R. was transformed from a down-home industrial shipper into the leader of its field through the Civil War and its aftermath. In 1884 the railroad received its first solid proposal for such a project from civil engineer Gustav Lindenthal, whose company had just won the first Congressional authorization (as required under Federal law) for a high-level cable suspension bridge across the Hudson River to Lower Manhattan that would hold 14 jointly-used tracks and several carriage and trolley lanes. Unfortunately this proposal was scotched by a poor economy, but then another developed in the early 1890 s that called for the same bridge across the Hudson, or North River as it was then also known, to a different Midtown terminal serving The East Wind 6 Special Issue No. 1

7 both railway and rapid transit trains at 18 th Street. This scenario drew the Pennsylvania s keen interest, as reinforced by an independent and quite comprehensive study of the matter conducted by P.R.R. Vice President Samuel Rea in 1892, but the idea was again aborted by yet another downturn stemming from the Panic of It was later revived for yet a third time with the P.R.R. becoming its most visible advocate, but the measure s inherent shortcoming was its requirement that all railroads serving the various termini on the west side of the Hudson be able to use the big bridge jointly, much like the arrangement for the Eads Bridge across the Mississippi River in St. Louis. As time and the involved inter-corporate relations progressed this proved to be the most prominent obstacle of all, as the other companies exhibited a decidedly egocentric and fickle attitude toward such a long-term alliance and were disinclined to follow through. As early as 1897, it was clear to the P.R.R., then under the guidance of George B. Roberts, that while the Hudson River bridge option would be preferable, it was in the company s best interest to prepare a parallel plan of independent access to Manhattan, whatever the associated risks and possibly exorbitant costs. As a result the railroad bided its time while Lindenthal pressed aggressively for unfettered adoption of his bridge, mainly unaware of the self-affected institutional barriers that the various operators were creating to prevent its execution. By any measure, it was increasingly apparent that the ever-accelerating growth of New York as a destination city demanded this situation be addressed at the earliest possible opportunity, yet accomplished in such a way as to not compromise the overall commercial welfare of the corporation. From its preliminary concept, potential solutions focusing on this approach were forced to question the long-held assumptions that simply integrated the railroads as they were with the business center of Lower Manhattan. Specifically, it had long been a matter of foregone conjecture among some parties as to how a future New York tunnel from somewhere in New Jersey to New York could be operated than where, or even if, it could be built. As exhibited in the 1897 Atlantic Avenue Commission report, this widely-held air of inevitability that a railroad tunnel from New Jersey would soon penetrate Lower Manhattan prompted its formal proposal to match such construction from the Brooklyn side, with a centrallylocated terminal that would serve all purposes for markets on both sides of the core city. This particular idea had also been espoused by one-time L.I.R.R. President Austin Corbin ( ), who prophesized a three-way system of tunnels to and through Manhattan that linked Long Island, New Jersey and Grand Central Terminal. Were it not for an earlier clash of self-interested parties and the City of Brooklyn s inherent political superficiality (as discernible in the feud between the original Long Island Rail Road and its municipal authorities regarding the inner Atlantic Avenue trackage and waterfront terminal), the east-west penetration of Lower Manhattan by railroad may have somehow actually occurred by the last years of the 19 th century. It never did develop in any serious way, however, and it was only through the sentiment of corporate competition that by 1892 the Pennsylvania was facing pressure to take action on both sides of the equation. On one hand the company was faced with a generally hostile, anti-railroad attitude from the still-forming and profoundly corrupt municipality, one whose obstinacy was only forecast to intensify through time, while on the other it felt very strongly that some kind of near-term action was essential to bring the railroad directly into Manhattan lest its corporate position ultimately begin to degenerate. And then, and perhaps of the greatest importance to the Pennsylvania, was consideration of the practicalities and operational details associated with the proposed terminal. Vice President Samuel Rea, who had recently traveled overseas to observe electrified operations of the City & South London underground line in Great Britain, was appointed at that time to sift through the range of alternatives which confronted the railroad, and charged with formulating a definitive plan. Certainly by 1897, as technologies deemed appropriate for the accomplishment of this goal began to come to fruition elsewhere in both the railroad and rapid transit fields, the Pennsylvania Railroad (at least internally) had begun to plot its future course for the attainment of a railhead in Manhattan. This nebulous but growing scheme was then focused and expedited after Alexander Cassatt was appointed as P.R.R. president in As an annual summer vacationer in Europe, Cassatt was enthralled with the positives of its emerging suburban electrifications, though in their initial form they were small and somewhat crude, but became enraptured by this objective after he paid an anonymous, first-hand visit to the Quai d Orsay station on France s Paris-Orleans Railway in THE LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD: AN ENABLER EXTRAORDINAIRE This was also the critical point at which the Long Island Rail Road, and with it the geographic and operational advantages it would ultimately offer the Pennsylvania s New York Terminal, formally entered the picture. Thanks to its encounters with municipal leaders and certain influential parties in Brooklyn, the L.I.R.R. had been forced to relocate most of its operations to a newly-created terminal, reached by way of a freshly-built railroad, at Long Island City between 1861 and At that time this location was literally as close as it was possible to bring a set of railway tracks to Lower Manhattan and not be in any part of Brooklyn. In actuality, the corner of land where the East River meets Newtown Creek had originally been chosen as a terminal site by the New York & Flushing when it opened the first railroad in Queens County in As things fortuitously developed through time, the Long Island City terminal was also contiguous to what even then was the fastest growing area of Manhattan and, for pur- The East Wind 7 Special Issue No. 1

8 poses of the Pennsylvania Railroad, would support a terminal alternative located reasonably close to Midtown. There were other compelling reasons for the P.R.R. to set its sights on the Long Island Rail Road, though it was certainly not alone in this desire. In general, the development of Queens County from swampy farmland to residential suburb was proceeding at a much slower pace than that of Manhattan by 1900, which granted the railroad a good deal of leeway to establish needed facilities at relatively low cost. From a railroading perspective this was not a luxury but rather an operational necessity for the Pennsylvania, as it would thus be able to furnish its own servicing centers on the Queens side (relay trackage, engine and storage yards, etc., plus the power house), to which trains could proceed after they finished their runs at the New York Terminal station. This tactic reflected the Pennsylvania s many long years of generally poor experience with its own stub-end terminals around Philadelphia (including the current one at Broad Street), where the necessity to flat switch motive power and train consists at a frequent rate over the previous half-century had inhibited efficiency and commonly produced delays to service. In addition, a long-term ownership of the L.I.R.R. would put the Pennsylvania Railroad in a prime position to (literally) capitalize on the greater development that would be sure to follow the eventuality of direct, one-seat commuter train service from Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties into New York City. Finally, it would provide a means of protecting the New York Terminal and its associated assets from foreign (as in competing railroad) intrusion, and in combination with the emergent New York Connecting Railroad open the door for direct access from the Pennsylvania s own lines to points in the New England states. Even though its own clandestine plan was not yet finalized, the Pennsylvania then carried out a bidding war for control of the Long Island Rail Road Company against its arch-rival New York Central and was rewarded, for the princely sum of $6 million, with a majority interest by the end of June Like its corporate image, the L.I.R.R. represented the Pennsylvania Railroad s key ingredient in the execution of its still-covert aspiration to run trains into the bowels of Manhattan. AND, AT LAST, A PLAN AND A PROGRAM As it turned out the L.I.R.R. had capital ambitions of its own, having yielded a long-standing desire to follow through on the planned underground tunnel of 1897 from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan, and instead focused on an alternative connection from the Long Island City terminal under the East River to Grand Central on 42 nd Street. Then, after some initial engineering analysis and undisclosed meetings of mutual interest with officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad, both companies enthusiastically joined forces on the installation of a major terminal in Midtown Manhattan. It was to be situated almost directly across from the existing Long Island City terminal on the West Side, as there the tracks could attain a long, level plane between the necessarily pronounced grades for the underwater tunnels. These newly-united corporate parties then began to surreptitiously move forward in its creation (with the L.I.R.R. providing the savvy and legwork, the P.R.R. the money), first by acquiring the necessary potential properties in Manhattan, all the while trying to remain publicly noncommittal to this undisclosed project as opposed to the longproposed (and still publicly-advocated) Lindenthal bridge. The secret site selected for this new terminal was in a kind of societal netherworld known as the Tenderloin neighborhood, being bounded by Seventh Avenue to the east, West 33 rd Street to the north, Ninth Avenue to the west and West 31 st Street to the south. For support purposes, however, some of the site s associated, strategic condemnations ultimately reached even farther to the west (Eleventh Avenue) and north (a small piece of West 34 th Street), and would in some way impact just about every interceding block all the way to the East River. When P.R.R. President Alexander Cassatt finally went public with the company s intentions in December of 1901, they were decried by some in media circles as bordering on irrelevant to prevailing travel habits of the time, which were understood to be generally focused toward Manhattan s Downtown (meaning just about everything below 14 th Street). By prior happenstance, the closest existing rapid transit stations to the projected terminal site were at 33 rd and 34 th Streets of the Manhattan Railway Company s Sixth and Ninth Avenue Elevateds, respectively, though both were originally intended as destination points when installed during the 1870 s and not as major traffic generators. In addition there were trolley lines running down Seventh and Eighth Avenues, plus a busy cross-town route on 34 th Street, while an early proposal to expand the I.R.T. s yet-to-open subway system further down the West Side was already making the rounds. For whatever services could be planned, however, the natural, northward growth of Manhattan was continually and independently outdistancing such skeletal attempts at public transit accommodation, and what facilities did exist would have to suffice until such time as the larger infrastructure could be upgraded accordingly. As further proof that the Pennsylvania wasn t completely alone in its judgment that the new terminal would be in a mushrooming part of the Big Town, R.H. Macy Co. was then building a huge new department store along 34 th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, which was opened on November 8, With the terminal s locale validated, the Pennsylvania set up a distinguished Board of civil engineering consultants on January 11, 1902 to determine the specifics of creating a brand new piece of railroad through the largest city in the United States, a general plan which then led the project along as it proceeded through the design and construction stages. Its members (among several) included Rea, Lindenthal and Brit- The East Wind 8 Special Issue No. 1

9 ish tunnel specialist Charles Jacobs (who had already constructed a portion of the future Hudson & Manhattan rapid transit tubes beneath the Hudson); Col. Charles Raymond of the U.S. Army Engineers and P.R.R. Chief Engineer Alfred Noble. The Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York Railroad, a new shell company, was established on February 13 as corporate cover for the survey of potential crossing alignments beneath the Hudson River, as well as the best route to link the new tunnel and terminal with the Pennsylvania s main line into its existing Jersey City terminal. It is worthy of note that, most unlike the joint bridge proposal, a deliberate effort was made to avoid any amalgamation between the Pennsylvania s new connecting railroad and any of the competing rights-of-way it would intersect across the openness of the Hackensack Meadows. With no diamond crossings, interchange tracks or sidings the new line s sole purpose would be to access the passenger platforms of Penn Station, express and mail functions notwithstanding. It would take almost a full decade afterward for the Pennsylvania s New York Terminal to achieve reality, but as we shall see the years in between were anything but uneventful. The East Wind 9 Special Issue No. 1

10 The East Wind 10 Special Issue No. 1

11 PART 2: MOLING BENEATH MANHATTAN THE NINE-YEAR CONSTRUCTION CHRONICLE OF PENNSYLVANIA STATION THE EVENTS OF YEAR 1: 1902 Immediately from the terminal project s beginning, President Cassatt and the Pennsylvania Railroad were faced with a pair of small battles that were manifested by the two major public components of the desired end product. So began the incredible, arduous task which produced a temple of transportation that became known (and still endures in 2014) as Penn Station. First was Form: On January 14, Long Island Rail Road president William Baldwin submitted a recommendation on behalf of noted railroad and civil architect Bradford L. Gilbert to his contemporaries at the Pennsylvania for design of the terminal itself, one which Gilbert no doubt richly deserved given his tremendous body of work to date. This included several noted railway depots around the country (mostly constructed of stone), some of which remain active in 2014 and are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. He also designed the Tower Building (opened as New York s first skyscraper in 1889 with 11 stories) and Chicago s Central Station, which was completed as the major terminus of the Illinois Central Railroad in time for the World s Columbian Exposition of Having a more sophisticated vision for the final result, Cassatt balked at the Gilbert endorsement and instead prevailed upon the Beaux-Arts partnership of McKim, Mead & White, who surprisingly was not even soliciting this project, to develop not only plans for the Pennsylvania Terminal, but also a companion hotel that was being forecast by the railroad as an integral part of the venture. On April 24, Cassatt and the architects partners signed a final agreement at the railroad s offices in Philadelphia which entitled the designers to a 5% commission for all design work performed above nominal ground level. Given that the overall size of the Pennsylvania Terminal, as planned, included the entire frontage of West 32 nd Street and half of that on 31 st and 33 rd between Seventh and Ninth Avenues, this promised to be a massive sum indeed. Charles McKim in turn submitted a set of preliminary plans to Cassatt s office just five days later which incorporated a number of both gentlemen s early suggestions, and also included other aspects which ultimately were not workable and were excluded from the project before construction even began. Second was Substance: As early as January 26, 1902, just six weeks after the undertaking was officially announced in the media for the first time, and even before a legal franchise existed, Samuel Rea was forced to start negotiating through the media (so to speak). A statement was issued to the press that the company was already aware of speculative real estate buying on a fairly massive scale, largely based on others guesswork as to where the terminal might be situated. Rea plainly threw down a gauntlet aimed at suppressing such hyper-activity by stating unequivocally that the Pennsylvania Railroad would work within the guidelines of public policy insofar as its terminal site was concerned. In short, it would be better to obtain the needed properties through condemnation proceedings, even though such might slow the terminal s progress, than imperil itself financially by paying artificially heightened prices for individual lots. In actuality the P.R.R. worked its land acquisition through yet another, New Yorkincorporated subsidiary, the Stuyvesant Real Estate Co. This entity was charged with producing land for the railroad on both sides of the East River within purview of the terminal project, and to do so at a fair cost to the company. As things progressed this goal was indeed met, but 100 years after the fact it will suffice to state the few details that have survived, and we may never know the selection of means through which it was accomplished. On February 26, the Stuyvesant Co. reported internally that it had procured a total of 37 land parcels within the project zone for a total of $1.1 million, while on March 3 Manhattan real estate mogul Nathan Wise turned over 12 more in exchange for $140,000. As a comparison against contemporary land values, the Pennsylvania ultimately wound up acquiring the land where Penn Station was to be built for $32.42 per square foot in 1903, while the same plot would have garnered approximately $ per similar unit in What s more, some of the adjacent private land fronting Seventh Avenue and West 34 th Street in 2014 (note that the actual plot upon which Penn Station is situated represents public property and therefore not carried on New York City s tax rolls) can run as high as $5,000 per square foot! Bills to authorize the necessary franchise from the New York State assembly in Albany and from the City of New York were also being drafted in the background during this period, though progress was halting as the parties haggled over its perceived monetary value. Essentially, the Pennsylvania was seeking a one-time, perpetual authorization at a fixed rate for 25 years, while municipal officials were more in favor of a set time increment for renewal, with rates thus presumably (and constantly) rising as time went on. On March 24, 1902 New York City s reform Mayor Seth Low endorsed the Kelsey Bill, which would grant the railroad its controversial perpetual time frame, and would also expedite the public franchise process performed by the Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners, which was under the Mayor s control. New York Governor Benjamin Barker Odell Jr. begrudgingly codified the Kelsey agreement at the Mayor s urging on April 11, but its ultimate digestion through the city s body politic took much longer. The New York City Board of Aldermen then typified the corrupt manner in which most official matters were sanctioned through Tammany Hall for a set price as part of the The East Wind 11 Special Issue No. 1

12 cost of doing business, but Cassatt and the Pennsylvania Railroad were just as determined to see its franchise stand on its merit alone and thus ignored the not-so-subtle overtures of some politicians that it receive a plunder of several hundred thousand dollars just to grant the railroad the right to spend millions more for construction. Ultimately a vote on the city franchise rights was not forthcoming until December 16 (and at that with several unrealistic side conditions attached, such as the inclusion of a local, underground station at Fourth Avenue and authorizations pertinent solely to the unrelated Hudson & Manhattan rapid transit undertaking). By the time the complete franchise was finally, officially approved by Mayor Low on December 23, 1902 the terminal s site was not just approved, but was also legally available for construction. Meanwhile the properties involved, which were largely residential in nature, had already been vacated by early August of 1902, as evidenced by a piece in the New York Times which concerned the deserted village of abandoned homes at the site, some of which were being temporarily occupied on a rent-free basis by New York police officers at the railroad s behest. All deeds for properties on both sides of West 31 st, 32 nd and 33 rd Streets, between Seventh and Ninth Avenues, were finally transferred to the railroad on August 26. That piece of Manhattan has been dedicated to the terminal, its supplementary functions (now including Madison Square Garden and Penn Plaza) and its wealth of patrons ever since. Architectural and real estate aspects aside, Cassatt, Rea and the terminal s Board of Engineers still spent most of their time scoping out the railroad part of the project s equation from the start, with each facet placed under the responsibility of a designated committee or sub-committee, which was in turn supervised by one of the company s senior officers. First to meet was the Committee on the New York Passenger Yard on January 31, 1902, its discussion soliciting preliminary ideas regarding track layout and capacity. The input it received was then consolidated into a general plan (dated April 17) that was presented to the committee s chair emeritus, Pennsylvania General Manager William Wallace Atterbury, for comment, furtherance and (ultimately) adoption. According to a summary, the plan as submitted on that date contained some of the features which constituted the basic elements of Penn Station as it ultimately came to be: A three-part track layout designed to accommodate the Pennsylvania s premium and suburban services, plus the Long Island Rail Road; A terminal building divided into four zones and oriented transversely to West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets, which entirely eliminated West 32 nd Street between Seventh and Ninth Avenues; A long ramp which wrapped around the building s perimeter from Seventh Avenue to track level and back; An enclosed block of waiting rooms at the convergence of the building s four zones; An open train shed with boarding concourse at the same level as the waiting rooms; and (finally) A small, main Baggage Room along the Eighth Avenue side of the edifice. In addition, the Yard Committee strongly recommended that even more property be acquired west of Ninth Avenue to provide turn-around space for the Long Island Rail Road s projected electric trains, which as initially planned would be looped after discharging their passengers. On April 28, 1902 the Terminal (Yard) Committee then submitted its first formal operating plan, based on an initial analysis of the railroad s needs as measured against the terminal s projected constraints. It was this proposal which assumed that most of the Pennsylvania s local services would continue to be adequately served by the existing terminal at Jersey City once the New York Terminal was open, which was combined with the company s desired fiscal prudence to recommend a main line of two tracks from the convergence with the original route through the New Jersey Meadows to the new tunnel, feeding beneath the Hudson River into the terminal s west side, then four tracks beneath the East River to accommodate both terminating Pennsylvania traffic and the considerable needs (as projected) of the Long Island Rail Road. With these determinants enumerated, the Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island Rail Road had been incorporated on April 21 as yet another subsidiary to cover construction activities for the easterly half of the terminal project (basically everything east of Seventh Avenue in Manhattan). This would complement the Pennsylvania, New York & New Jersey affiliate on the terminal s westerly side, whose final route from the pre-existing alignment (that of the former United New Jersey Railroad & Canal Co.) through the Meadows to Bergen Hill was formally adopted on July 7. On March 10, 1902 the firm of Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co. (a construction subsidiary of Pittsburgh s Westinghouse Companies) submitted its formal proposal to President Cassatt for performing the engineering work associated with the new terminal. A resulting contract was indeed awarded on April 22, and it may have been the project s most important pact of all as it provided the point of entry for George Gibbs (civil engineer and Vice President of Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co.), who immediately set to work and elevated the Pennsylvania s terminal from mere project into more of a cause. It officially started with yet another formal proposal (dated June 10) to coordinate his firm s activities with those of designers McKim, Mead & White, but in actuality Gibbs and company had started perusing and analyzing the raft of proposals from all parties immediately upon being hired, and by this time had already undertaken some of the first engineering tasks associated with establishment of the facility. On July 9 he submitted the first formal plan for electri- The East Wind 12 Special Issue No. 1

13 fication of the terminal to Cassatt s office, calling for line speeds through the tunnels of 55 mph and average speeds of 37 mph, sufficient to maintain a rapid transit-like headway of 2½ minutes from both sides of Manhattan. Referred immediately to the Terminal Committee, this plan was approved just two days later, including a maximum weight per train of 500 tons from the New Jersey side (and presumably much less than that from the Long Island Rail Road), while also specifying that an electric locomotive (or coach) capable of such haulage be developed as soon as practicable. As previously cited, the planning assumption at the time was that one or more such units would be added to each train as it arrived at Bergen Hill, pull the entire consist (motive power and all) through the tubes, terminal and finally Sunnyside Yard as was already standard practice in Baltimore s Howard Street Tunnel, then loop back to Manhattan. A separate examination of rolling stock alternatives largely served to validate the existing belief that an all-steel coach would be required to serve the tunnels and terminal, though a model based on the I.R.T. s Composite design was considered (and rejected). On October 15, 1902 the chairman of the terminal s Mechanical & Electrical Advisory Committee, one Theodore N. Ely, heatedly recommended that the railroad begin the design of an all-steel car immediately for use in the tunnels and (coincidentally) the I.R.T. soon came along requesting same. As stated above this effort proceeded through most of 1903 under the direction of George Gibbs and ultimately produced the first all-steel rapid transit car, in turn opening the door to development of the Long Island Rail Road s electric M.U. s and the Pennsylvania s steel coaches as well as its earliest electric locomotives. THE EVENTS OF YEAR 2: 1903 During the following year, a groundswell of contracts were let for construction and support services in pursuit of the New York Terminal, starting with a January 4, 1903 arrangement between Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co. and the railroad to undertake and oversee all related mechanical and electrical aspects of the project. This placed its ultimate operational fate squarely on Gibbs shoulders, but Cassatt and Atterbury then upped the administrative stakes even more by appointing additional layers of planning committees and increasing the involvement of other officers of the railroad. A new Committee on the New York Passenger Station was formed on January 24 under the direction of Traffic and Transportation Departments, being headed by the Pennsylvania s own top civil engineer Joseph T. Richards; then on April 18 yet another New York Terminal Operating Committee, composed of senior officials from the contractors, the Pennsylvania and the Long Island Rail Road Co., began meeting jointly with the Tunnel Engineers Subcommittee to develop construction specifications (clearances), an appropriate signal system and operating practices. Finally, P.R.R. Chief Engineer Alfred Noble was directly appointed by Cassatt to supervise the mammoth amount of excavation work that the New York Terminal would entail. This was understood from the outset to be a delicate position the city then (as now) was laced with a large number of active construction projects which could expose the company to unforeseen (and usually undesired) publicity at any time. To top this growing minibureaucracy off, Cassatt had also begun holding talks with the Postmaster General in Washington (Henry Payne) on February 9 for the inclusion of a post office at the burgeoning complex, given the then-intimate relationship between the U.S. Mail service and the railroads which were so fundamental to its movement. There was no formal ground-breaking for the New York Terminal project as a whole (though a date of May 1, 1904 is most often used to mark the start of the terminal itself thanks to a commemorative plaque that was included within the station building). Nevertheless, on Wednesday, February 25, 1903 Pennsylvania Railroad officials were present, as were many members of the media including the New York Times, to witness the innocuous demolition of an unoccupied tenement at 557 West 32 nd Street. In actuality what was then the intersection of West 32 nd Street and Eleventh Avenue would soon become the site of the pilot Manhattan tunnel shaft for the Hudson River tubes, a critical, early (and mostly hand-dug) job which was taken to a depth of 55 feet and sized out at 22 x 32 feet by subcontractor George W. Jump. After United Engineering & Contracting was finally named as the lead contractor for the completion of excavation shafts on both sides of the Hudson River on June 8, 1903, they initiated work in Manhattan on June 10, then on the New Jersey side of the project at Weehawken the following day. While this effort continued for more than a year, the full Manhattan shaft was completed on December 11 and then covered to await the later start of tunneling. Meanwhile the various committees went on as before, analyzing the terminal s various aspects and coming up with refinements along the way. A July 16 recommendation from the Terminal Operating Committee called for a slight enlargement of the Hudson tubes to a maximum height of 15 feet, 4 inches from 15 feet, 2 inches, this in response to its fierce grades of nearly 2% and well before the possibility of installing overhead catenary had ever been considered. Bids were called for the six tunneling projects themselves on October 1, including the possibility of using screw piles to secure the twin bores beneath the Hudson River to bedrock. More of the project s outstanding land issues were also initiated or resolved through the balance of 1903, with Stuyvesant Real Estate focusing its attention on acquiring properties that were required both east and west of the terminal s own footprint (that is, west of Ninth Avenue and east of Seventh Avenue between 31 st and 33 rd Streets), as well as portions of the remaining farm lands on the Queens side of the East River, where the tubes would someday emerge and Sunnyside Yard would be established. With initial demolition of the various tenements, The East Wind 13 Special Issue No. 1

14 barrooms and small businesses of the former Tenderloin district well underway in the middle of 1903, Charles Jacobs participated in a ceremonial first drilling back at the (now) former 557 West 32 nd Street residence on June 24, which signified a small start to the terminal construction process. THE EVENTS OF YEAR 3: 1904 On March 11, 1904 the Pennsylvania Railroad, through its Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York and Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island subsidiaries, awarded two more important contracts, one to O Rourke Engineering Construction for actual installation of the two North (Hudson) River tunnels, the other to S. Pearson & Son, Ltd. of London (through a New York-based S. Pearson & Son, Inc. subsidiary) for the four East River tubes. These transactions were sprinkled with irony as the former firm s founder, John F. O Rourke, had been the Chief Engineer in construction of the 212-foot high Hudson River railroad bridge in Poughkeepsie, New York that opened in 1889 and was then serving as a key gateway between the Midwest and New England, while Weetman Dickson Pearson was a renowned authority on both railroading and tunneling with a background of impressive accomplishments around the world. Work started on initial tunnel excavation of the Hudson tubes from the Manhattan side on April 18 but was soon interrupted by the first in a series of labor confrontations which dogged the project for most of its life. The labor of tunneling, regardless of its merit otherwise, was a filthy, dangerous job and often a contentious one in terms of pay and assured risk to life and limb, which in turn amplified the contractors exposure to strife and disruption. This hazard wasn t to be trivialized, either, as innumerable lives were ultimately lost over the seven-year course of constructing Pennsylvania Station and its associated facilities, possibly as many as 100 (though the actual number was closely guarded by the Pennsylvania Railroad s project logs and has ultimately been lost in time). At any rate, the venture s first work stoppage resulted in the suspension of progress on the Hudson River tunnel for about a month in July and August of Nevertheless completion of the Weehawken shaft, which was much larger than that on the Manhattan side at 76 feet deep, 56 feet wide and 116 feet long at the bottom, was finally accomplished on September 1 and base excavation of the tunnel itself begun. As for the East River tubes, the advance of planning activities finally dictated several changes to the railroad s preliminary (1902) plan of operations, the most notable of which was to change the anticipated L.I.R.R. suburban service from one which would be looped beneath the West Side to a simple equipment relay, that to occupy four dedicated lines already identified at this early date (April 5, 1904) as Tracks As a result of this alteration, the layout of land that was still being procured for the projected L.I.R.R. loop was revised to include a small storage yard for its M.U. equipment (and ground broken for this purpose on July 9), an application which would evade, in part, the clumsy necessity of deadheading all trains back to Queens for their midday and overnight lay-ups. After a final alignment for the Pennsylvania s tunnel egress (but not its inclines) and yard facilities was approved in May of 1904 by the underlying Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island affiliate, Stuyvesant Real Estate transferred more of its necessary properties to the railroad (and probably re-sold some that were not going to be needed). Ground was broken for the first of four shafts right outside the Long Island Rail Road s terminal at Borden & East Avenues, Long Island City, on May 17, then on a second as June began. Excavation of the two Manhattan shafts for each of the East River tunnels was started on June 9 and completed through that summer, while the actual tunnel base was started on the Manhattan side on September 23. Shaft excavation on the Queens side had also been largely completed by the end of September and tunneling commenced in a westward direction for the first, second and fourth tubes, identified as A, B and D from north to south, while work on the third under-river passage (dubbed Tunnel C ) was to proceed in west-to-east fashion beneath the natural alignment of West 32 nd Street and finally began on December 20. Preliminary work toward the creation of Sunnyside Yard had also begun as the 1904 construction season was winding down, with several tons of spoil that had so far been gathered from early tunnel construction being dumped off of Van Alst (21 st ) St. during October. This occurred as the first round of eviction notices were issued to those occupying minor side streets off Jackson Ave. that were contained in the future construction zone, which years hence would be the site of the L.I.R.R. s North Shore classification yard and in 2014 is occupied by the dormant Arch Street support facility. As previously discussed, construction work on the terminal itself was historically said to have started on May 1, 1904, based on a commemorative plaque that was installed within the original Pennsylvania Station as opened. This may not have been an entirely accurate description of events, however, as the contract for this phase of the project was apparently enshrouded in controversy and was not awarded until June. The winning concern, New York Contracting & Trucking Company, was presided over by a Mr. James J. ( Jimmy ) Murphy, the brother of a Tammany Hall politician, and drew some added attention from the local media. In a possible move to avoid disassociation from the honorable, forthright offices of the Pennsylvania Railroad that company spun off a separate concern known as the New York Contracting Company-Pennsylvania Terminal, to do the actual excavating work, which was definitely underway by early in July Establishment of the terminal area (i.e. footprint ) required the hollowing out of a huge rectangle, planned to be 1,568 by 450 feet in size (and actually a little larger than that when finished) to a depth between 58 and 75 feet. To accomplish this herculean task, which was often compared at the time to con- The East Wind 14 Special Issue No. 1

15 struction of the Panama Canal, a standard-gauge intramural railway system was laid at the ever-changing base level of the ongoing dig, using as many as 13 former Manhattan Railway Forney steam engines (and possibly other utility locomotives) to move gondolas full of spoil to barges (i.e. scows ) on the Hudson River. A special pier was created for this purpose on the river s edge, accessed via a wooden trestle west of the Ninth Avenue project gate. Over the two years of this phase, the total area was outlined with a concrete retaining wall that was to underpin the facility against a bedrock foundation, gradually tapering outward from five feet in thickness at street level to 30 feet at its base. At this juncture it is worthy of mention that the excavation spoils (earthen output) from the New York Terminal project proved to be quite valuable to the P.R.R. for fill purposes elsewhere, not only in the creation of Ramblersville (later Howard Beach) and the in-fill of Goose Hill Channel on the Rockaway Beach Division as described previously, but also in parts of nearby New Jersey, where the New York Contracting Company supplied many tons back to the Pennsylvania Railroad in support of its creation of Greenville Yard. This facility was located near Jersey City and sat upon a two-by-one mile man-made island along the banks of the Hudson River. Yet another contract, that to transition from the Hudson River tubes to the west end of the New York Terminal was awarded to O Rourke s concern on November 1 and the underwater Pennsylvania Tunnels were clearly beginning to take their familiar form. THE EVENTS OF YEAR 4: 1905 While construction continued to gain momentum throughout the project, the New York Terminal Operating Committee submitted a revised operating plan to President Cassatt s office on May 4, 1905 which included a full study of track utilization, station layout and the facility s anticipated holding capacity. Reaffirmed was the dedication of Tracks on the northerly side of the terminal to L.I.R.R. locals, while Tracks 1-4 were assigned for local and regional Pennsylvania services with the balance (Tracks 5-17) to be shared between through services of both the Pennsylvania and Long Island Rail Roads the former quite literally from across the Northeast and Midwest, the latter from non-electrified points in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. It was at this time that the operational scheme was also changed to annul the combined passage of electric and steam power through the terminal as was being done in Baltimore. Instead, all trains entering Manhattan would stop at an isolated, specialized station in the Jersey Meadows where the original line to Jersey City and the branch to the New York Terminal converged (later coined Manhattan Transfer ). There the inbound steam power would be removed and one or more electric locomotives put in its place to haul the consist to Sunnyside Yard and back. Likewise, an electric unit would replace the locomotives on all steam-powered, Manhattan-bound Long Island Rail Road trains at the edge of Sunnyside Yard and pull them through the East River tubes to Manhattan, there to be swapped to the opposite end and returned to Queens. The top capacity of the New York Terminal itself was estimated at that time to be 145 trains per hour total, carrying upwards of 75 million passengers on an annual basis, while draft schedules being drawn up to achieve this objective were incorporating facets of observed operations, both good and bad, in Philadelphia, Jersey City, Long Island City and the busiest terminals in London. Stuyvesant Real Estate conveyed all the remaining land it had acquired for the Sunnyside Yard complex to the P.R.R. s Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island subsidiary on January 27, 1905 and so had basically fulfilled its mission as portent for the terminal within New York. If nothing else its transactions were certain, while ownership or compensation disputes between abutters and the railroad were common on the west side of the Hudson where the custody of open property in the New Jersey Meadows was sometimes relative. Another ongoing process was the progression toward new rolling stock, which during 1905 saw the separate evolution of the Long Island Rail Road s electric MP-41 multiple-unit cars. Given the limitations of that design (obviously geared toward local rapid transit operations), the effort to refine its underlying concept into a more advanced vehicle continued unabated. Nevertheless the Gibbs car laid a solid foundation for the later design and acquisition of steel electric and non-electric equipment for both railroads, and though no specifications had yet been completely devised, on October 6, 1905 the Pennsylvania announced its long-term intention to purchase some 1,500 steel cars for use on its trains systemwide. The project s first truly external mishap occurred on February 14, 1905 when tunnel blasting for the Hudson tubes caused a sizeable crater to open beneath the Erie Railroad s switching yard in Weehawken and devour several freight cars. A couple of weeks later (March 6) the Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York subsidiary awarded its final big contract to the John Shields Construction Co. for installation of the Bergen Hill Tunnels beneath the Palisades to connect from the new surface right-of-way through the Meadows to the Hudson River tubes, with actual work commencing in the month of May. On May 11 the first tunneling shield was completed at the Manhattan end of the northerly Hudson River tube. The shield was a proven apparatus consisting of a large steel cylinder which was pre-measured to the outside diameter of the tunnel. As it was driven into a pressurized chamber beneath the river bed by hydraulic jacks its sharp edge cut into the soil to form a raw tunnel. The spoils this created were then shoveled back into the completed excavation by sandhogs for removal, through any one of several return compartments within the shield. Their workspace was artificially pressurized by compressed air to prevent the water and mud outside from being pushed into the excavation by the weight of the river water above. After the shield had The East Wind 15 Special Issue No. 1

16 achieved a forward progress to its own narrow depth, it would be retracted and the crude bore then sealed in place by heavily-bolted iron rings and eventually lined with concrete. Furthermore, as the shield was retracted and re-inserted with each tunneling thrust, each of the the hydraulic jacks were reset individually so as to permit the direction of the shield to be adjusted both vertically and horizontally, enabling it to follow the tunnel profile and survey heading. As each of the six tunneling jobs began, a shield was lowered into one of the shafts that had been first constructed at the ends of each tunnel crossing, assembled underground and over time made functional in a pressurized chamber. Attendant workers in the shields chambers had to pass through compression and decompression chambers of their own every time they came and went from the site, allowing their bodies to adjust to the natural difference in pressure between ground level and beneath the river. During construction of the various Pennsylvania tubes there were numerous instances where this safety practice either would or could not be followed and the affected employees were stricken with Decompression sickness, otherwise known as the Bends, which is a potentially fatal reaction to sudden pressurization changes. All four shields used to bore the Hudson River tubes were completed through May and June of 1905, with one such mechanism being driven under the river bed from each end so as to meet in the middle. Compression systems were then installed and tested, with air pressure first being applied to the north tube at the Manhattan shield on June 25, then the New Jersey shield on June 29; while similar results were achieved at the New Jersey shield in the south tube on July 8, then at its corresponding Manhattan shield on October 6, Meanwhile, progress on the East River tubes was a little slower as prefabricated steel caisson shafts had to be lowered into the river at each end, starting April 2 on the Manhattan side and June 13 over in Long Island City. That complete, the assembly of shields began in the Manhattan air shaft of Tube B (the south tunnel off 33 rd Street) on July 6, with the other three soon following suit. Sand was soon discovered during the preliminary excavation of Tube A on September 29 and its progress then delayed for almost two months. The shield in Tube D was pressurized for the first time on October 5; Tube B on October 23; Tube C on November 6; and finally Tube A on November 30, with work suspended on both the A and C tubes by late December (the second time for Tube A) as the river bottom near Manhattan proved to be sandy, which made it difficult if not impossible for the shields to progress. In the meanwhile another explosion unrelated to the shield pressurizations occurred in one of the shafts beneath Track 6 of the Long Island City terminal on October 26, which required some minor repair at the surface. Elsewhere, the Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island subsidiary let its last big contract for the Crosstown subway tunnels from the east end of the terminal, beneath 32 nd and 33 rd Streets, to the East River tubes on April 24, selecting the United Engineering & Contracting firm (controlled by State Senator Patrick H. McCarren, a Brooklynite who was born in East Cambridge, Massachusetts) over New York Contracting & Trucking (managed by Jimmy Murphy s powerful brother, Charles F. Silent Charlie of Tammany Hall). Allegations were made that this was a form of corporate retribution for the Board of Alderman s foot-dragging with regard to a franchise for the New York Connecting Railroad, a component of the overall New York Terminal project that the Pennsylvania desired rather badly in order to physically join its railroad holdings with the New England region. This may or may not have been the case, but the smaller firm was eventually brought on board for another large excavation job covering the area from Seventh to Tenth Avenues on June 21, with work on the yard areas west of the station getting underway as of October 19. An accord was also made with the American Bridge Company (builder of many an elevated structure in New York, Brooklyn and Chicago) on June 1 to erect underground steel bridges for Manhattan s broad avenues where they crossed the terminal s trackage at various points. As for the terminal building itself little had as yet been physically accomplished aside from survey work, but on March 25, 1905 a notable contract was signed with the Norcross Brothers Company to provide the granite which would eventually mark the Pennsylvania Terminal s exterior, though by the time it was finally delivered during the next few years, this work had been reassigned to the Milford Stone Company, so-called for the location of its quarry in Eastern Massachusetts. THE EVENTS OF YEAR 5: 1906 As haphazardly as the progression of events was developing for the Pennsylvania s New York Terminal when 1906 began, the project s fifth year started with the bankruptcy of the John Shields Construction Company. This had slowed progress on the Bergen Hill Tunnels appreciably by the end of 1905, and on January 20 its receiver finally curtailed such work completely. Things were then at a standstill for several weeks, with the managing Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York entity finally canceling the original contract on February 9. It then re-designated the undertaking to the firm of William Bradley on March 2 and just four days later this part of the project was resumed. The Pennsylvania., N.J. & N.Y. also selected the firm of Henry Steers, Inc. for the necessary grading associated with what was described as its Meadows Division (the isolated transfer station) on July 21, 1906, along with the new track elevation (a fill of about 1½ miles distance) from there to the point where it would cross above the Boonton Branch of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. This piece of the project eventually included the swing bridge over the Hackensack River at Portal which was done under a separate transaction. With the Hudson River tunnels truly beginning to take form, the first half of 1906 also brought to light one of the project s most profound The East Wind 16 Special Issue No. 1

17 and ongoing concerns they were shifting slightly from day to day. This was potentially a very serious issue given the immense tonnage and stress to which the tubes would be subjected and for the next several years seemed to defy all attempts at study and understanding. In counter to this small bit of difficulty, the first true achievement of the New York Terminal project finally came about on September 11, 1906 when the shields in the northerly tube made a rendezvous beneath the Hudson River. This created the first complete pilot bore of 23 feet external diameter, and permitted a walkthrough by John O Rourke, Charles Jacobs and others from Weehawken to Manhattan. Finish excavation and installation of the iron tunnel rings then continued through October 9, by which time the shields in the south Hudson tube had also met and it too was finished over the next few weeks. At last, on November 18, 1906 the final ring was installed in the south tube under the middle of the Hudson River and the first significant part of the New York Terminal project had ascended to reality. In a final touch of irony, that concluding tunnel ring had once been exhibited at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis during 1904, affording the world a chance to see how the impossible would someday be accomplished. As construction of the actual New York terminal building drew near (but had yet to begin early in 1906), its layout plans were constantly being refined and revised. On January 9, 1906 the Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island finally drew up a contract with Milliken Brothers, Inc. of Staten Island to supply, assemble and erect the steel framing for the central part of the facility, but (true to form for many components of the project) this concern experienced one financial debacle after another and was never able to execute its duty. At around the same time, architect Charles F. McKim was forced to withdraw from the project due to waning health in the apparent form of heart and anxiety problems. He appointed the much younger William S. Richardson (no relation to master architect H.H. Richardson) to cover work on the New York Terminal in his place. The potential causes for McKim s disquiet, at least with regard to the terminal project, were endemic as he was faced with constant time and budgetary pressures on multiple fronts. Early in 1906 George Gibbs took the initiative to suggest (perhaps even demand) that a long, two-story under-passage be added to the project which would directly proceed beneath West 33 rd Street from the waiting room and exit concourses to a large entry on 34 th Street, where the crosstown trolley line (at that time one of the closest local transit routes) could be accessed. This proposal became a source of some acrimony as the project droned on, but was nevertheless appreciated as necessary because it was clear that there would be no subway line connecting directly to the station for some time after its initial completion. Indeed, improved transit connections from the Pennsylvania Terminal, in its earliest form, were also a constant point of contention which given their enriched state in 2014 may seem to have been one of the project s greatest absurdities. At any rate, the new 34 th Street Concourse was one addition to a set of station renderings published in the New York Times by artist Jules Crow on Sunday, May 20, though when built it was configured as a simple kiosk instead of one of the P.R.R. s more preferred and nominally elaborate portals. The star-crossed fortunes of Charles McKim suffered yet another crushing blow on June 25, when his firm s senior partner, the equally-famed architect Stanford White, was shot to death in a fit of jealousy by wealthy and demented playboy Harry K. Thaw during a dinner show on the rooftop court of Madison Square Garden (then at Madison Ave. & East 26 th Street). The sensational press coverage generated by this crime and subsequent Trial of the Century all proved burdensome to McKim in his weakened state, and he suffered a mental failure from which he would not truly recover. Work on Tube A had still not started again by early April 1906, while that inside Tube C had resumed at the Manhattan end on February 12, only to stumble through the next five weeks before stopping for a second time, as constant pressure breaches led to problems maintaining the air pressure needed inside the shield to prevent river water from entering the tunnel excavation. On March 22 this issue was addressed by implementing an alternate work schedule with Tube B so as to avoid the simultaneous pressurization of two boring sites. It was started yet again on April 2 but stopped on the 20 th and did not resume this time until July 27, still plagued all the while by air tightness issues, while the shield at the Long Island City end of Tube C had begun its work toward the middle of the East River on June 11. Similarly, shielding work on Tube D was suspended on March 31 so as to permit time to artificially solidify the sandy bed of the East River by injecting clay, its progress being renewed concurrent with the hiatus taken in Tube C on April 20. Soft, silty debris continued to interfere with the shields ability to perform properly, however and operations at the Manhattan end of Tube D were again delayed for about two weeks starting on September 23. A spoilage hood was added to the shield assembly during this stoppage and it appears that boring was much improved afterward, especially when tunneling crews began peppering the soft bed with mixed bags of clay and cement ahead of the shield to stabilize its boring area. This concept had first been applied to overcome serious air leaks that resulted after the Manhattan shield in Tube B was stymied by quicksand some 415 feet from the west bank of the East River on May 18, with boring activity stopped and the pilot tunnels being temporarily inflated with forced air pressure to keep river waters from flowing into them. One trapped tunnel worker was claimed by the bends as a result and two of the L.I.R.R. ferry slips at its East 34 th Street terminal were seriously damaged. Throughout that summer and early fall the overall progress of East River Tube B was painfully slow due to pressure blowouts which gushed up from the river bed and imperiled the ferry terminal on more than one occasion. The Manhattan side of Tube A was completely idle until October 23 when The East Wind 17 Special Issue No. 1

18 tunneling recommenced after a 10-month hiatus, while the driving of the Long Island City shields did proceed despite these unrelated hold-ups; that in Tube A getting underway on August 2 and the one in Tube B being driven for the first time on October 16, Other project milestones were achieved during this time frame nonetheless: The Pennsylvania signed a joint traffic agreement with the budding Hudson & Manhattan rapid transit railroad on April 18 that called for a division of revenue on through tickets between the H. & M. and all destinations on the P.R.R., from its future terminal in Lower Manhattan. When the New York Terminal was finally opened the Hudson & Manhattan would basically become its full partner in providing a direct rail connection between Manhattan Transfer and the older New York destination cluster surrounding the financial and business district of Lower Manhattan, which was also a gateway to Brooklyn and Staten Island. In addition, significant headway was being made with regard to the development of steel rolling stock for the Pennsylvania s New York Terminal, with prototype coach 1651 (designated as class P58) being rolled out of the Altoona Shops on June 11. The following day it embarked on its maiden voyage to Atlantic City for the Master Car Builders Convention a massive beast with riveted steel body, railroad-style roof line and fully-enclosed 74½-foot cabin that altogether weighed in at 110,000 pounds. On August 11, 1906 the Pennsylvania Railroad publicly stated that to eliminate the risk of fire in its New York Tunnels and Terminal, from that day forward it would only buy or build all-steel passenger cars equipped with electric lights. This was as much a commercial proclamation as a public one, for all railroads and contractors which operated cars to Jersey City over the Pennsylvania s rails (and who hoped to access the new terminal), from the Pullman (Parlor) Co. to many of its connecting roads (such as the Atlantic Coast Line, for example) were put on notice that they, also would be required to furnish all-steel cars in the future to meet this revised code of safety. Finally, the Pennsylvania revealed that it was completing designs for a whole new series of steel cars for the many types of trains it operated (long distance, regional, commuter) and the specialized purposes they served (coach, mail, baggage, dining, etc.), which could be expected to reshape the nation s rail car building industry to its core. The clearance of unoccupied homes within the Pennsylvania terminal s site got underway on May 1, 1906 as the remaining structures along what had been the south side of West 32 nd Street were leveled over the next several months, with the final contract for excavation of the West Side L.I.R.R. yard and foundations for that part of terminal being granted to Murphy s New York Contracting Company-Pennsylvania Terminal as of May 9. Geological drilling in that area started just two days later, followed by the first blasts of dynamite to expand the work zone through solid rock at the future site of the station on May 24. The moling of Manhattan then became pervasive when major excavation work spread all the way through the terminal area (Seventh to Ninth Avenues), engulfed 32 nd and 33 rd Streets for the transitional cross-town subways east of that point and finally edged into Herald Sq. by June 13. It was during this time that narrow but formidable temporary trestles were installed across the site carrying trolleys on Eighth Avenue and the el trains on Ninth. This was of particular amusement to their riders, who were treated to a bird s eye view of the Pennsylvania Terminal proceedings for two entire blocks. On May 15, 1906 the Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island affiliate finally sealed its construction contract for the New York Terminal building with the George A. Fuller Company, whose earlier works boasted the Union League Club in New York and the Opera House in Chicago. That firm had also constructed Chicago s Tacoma Building, one of the first steel-framed skyscrapers, in 1887 and was the earliest contractor to use electric hoists to move materials, practicing innovative methods of steel fastening in its creations. Despite this giant step forward, an earnest effort to put the final building complex together would have to await the completion of its underlying railway station and connecting subway tunnels, on which excavation work raged the whole year through. By December the first piles of earth were also being generated in Queens, where the Degnon Realty & Terminal Improvement Company was starting its big job of widening the westerly part of the Long Island Rail Road s Main Line right-of-way and creating open space for what was to become Sunnyside Yard. One of the more involved aspects of this particular job included leveling a 120-foot hill opposite of Thomson Ave. & Mount St. (then the site of an elementary school), which in 2014 is right about where the long Queens Blvd. viaduct comes across to Skillman Ave. Aside from the mild tunneling anomalies cited above, the Pennsylvania Terminal project also experienced a large share of serious mishaps during the year. Several involved explosions: the first was a January 15 flash fire in the Long Island City shaft caisson which trapped and asphyxiated four employees; the second a February 23 blast in the burgeoning station excavation near the intersection of Seventh Ave. & West 33 rd Street which hurled rock fragments for a one block diameter or so, shattered windows and even shot a small boulder to the base of the Horace Greeley statue on Sixth Avenue. No serious injury was reported, nor was the source of this blast ever determined. On March 21 a careless watchman was literally incinerated when he lit a cigarette next to a pressurization chamber on the Long Island City side and some dried hay nearby immediately combusted. A forgotten stick of dynamite in the headwall of Tube B was ignited by a sandhog s drill and detonated far below the East River bed on March 31, killing the driller and burning and maiming several coworkers. Another catastrophe which claimed the lives of two workers resulted from the delayed ignition of dynamite near the Manhattan chamber leading to East River Tube B on April 25, while the third involved the inadvertent detonation of 40 The East Wind 18 Special Issue No. 1

19 lbs. of dynamite on December 3. Waiting to be lowered in to the Long Island City end of Tube B, it came into contact with a clump of burning papers and resulted in the death of two bystanders, plus serious injury to 12 more. There were also occasional cave-ins of temporary cribbing once the pilot tunnels were drilled, sometimes followed by an inward rush of water: on May 21 there was a failure of the temporary woodwork that supported the roof of the pilot tunnel in Tube A far below First Avenue, killing three and injuring four, while on June 20 another collapse resulted in a serious air pressure blow-out that claimed two more workmen, whose bodies were ejected from the site into a geyser visible to passengers on one of the L.I.R.R. s East River Ferries, and seen floating in the water until they could be retrieved. One more tunnel worker was smothered by a November 7 roof collapse on the Long Island City end of Tube C, then a Sandhog of legend named Lee Stribling was claimed on November 16 when he slipped off the working face of the Manhattan shield of Tube A, was accidentally buried in spoilage then sank into the quicksand beneath the East River. There was at least one instance (October 11, 1906) when three workmen died of burns suffered when the wooden scaffolding on which they lay was ignited by electrical wiring that was chafed and became exposed as it wound its way into the various work areas for lighting. Even excavation work on dry land wasn t immune to mishap: during baseline excavation of the cross-town subway linking the New York Terminal to the East River Tunnels, a sinkhole opened up at East 33 rd Street & Fifth Avenue (present site of the Empire State Building) and consumed an unsuspecting rubbish hauler. As these incidents were ongoing, sensationalistic hearings were called by the New York County Coroner to examine the project s safety practices, which (naturally) were decried as lax for many reasons in a June 5 New York Times feature, among them the railroad s lack of independent oversight and unwillingness to retain full-time guards at the individual work sites. On June 29 a group of senior Pennsylvania Railroad officials issued a rebuttal which tried to debunk certain facets of that story as myth, refuting such niggling details as the level of air pressurization in which the employees worked (33 psi, not 42) and how many had thus far perished from the bends while laboring in the artificial atmosphere of the tunnels (14, not 26 [but neither party had an actual number at hand ed.]). The dubious public relations climate created by this spectacle then fairly exploded on its own, as one of the L.I.R.R. s 34 th Street ferry tie-downs completely disappeared into the East River on July 1 when a sinkhole developed from the work on Tube A. Reporters efforts to cover the story onsite were blocked by private security amid charges of corporate intimidation; all press access was then denied without express permission. The next day the New York City Department of Buildings declared that half of the four L.I.R.R. ferry slips at East 34 th Street had been undermined by tunnel construction and they were removed from service forthwith (until shored up the next day). As though to further highlight the hazard involved in underwater tunneling there was also a fairly major breach within the I.R.T. s new Joralemon St. Tunnel between Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn on July 2. The escaping pressure in that occurrence forced a Sandhog to be blown through the river bed and he wound up floating in the East River, eventually to be rescued by a nearby tugboat, while 30 of his co-workers scrambled to safety below (and some suffered effects of the bends as a result). For all the controversy and death embroiled in the New York Terminal project otherwise during 1906, another corporate event of importance that transpired in relative anonymity was the death of P.R.R. President Alexander Cassatt on December 28 following a prolonged illness. Though he would not live to see the terminal he had shepherded from idea to construction, it would stand as a monument to him and those predecessors to whose ideals he subscribed. His office wasn t to remain vacant long as Senior V.P. James McCrea was appointed to replace him on January 2, THE EVENTS OF YEAR 6: 1907 The last contract to be issued by the Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York subsidiary was bestowed upon H.S. Kerbaugh for grading of the balance of the Meadows Division, which consisted of a two-mile elevation on fill between the D.L. & W. overpass north of the Hackensack River and Bergen Hill, on January 15, In the city, the first large segment of the Pennsylvania s underground subway across Manhattan was substantially completed (that is, excavated from end to end) on January 4 when the two shields under East 33 rd Street, one from Fifth Avenue eastward and the other from the East River shafts of Tubes C and D westward, met beneath Third Avenue. Vendor United Engineering & Contracting then petitioned the Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners to permit a major change in the nature of its subway segments between Fifth and Seventh Avenues under West 33 rd Street, and from Madison to Seventh Avenue under West 32 nd Street, to a basic cut and cover type of construction instead of the shielding technique. This was due to continued discoveries of quicksand and a subterranean stream in the projected path of the tunneling shields, which based on the under river experience of late were seen to be dangers against such planned methodology. This change would assure steady, consistent progress though that part of the subway, but would also force closure of the affected streets, a prospect which drew the ire of area residents and businessmen in a February 11 meeting with railroad officials. Their frustration proved to be moot nonetheless, as the Board approved the requested alteration only four days later. On March 30 the Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island affiliate granted its contract for construction of the matching subway under East 32 nd Street, from Fifth Avenue to East River Tubes A and B, to the United Engineers & Contractors concern and with that, all work related to The East Wind 19 Special Issue No. 1

20 the railroad aspects of the Penn Terminal project, from the East River tubes to the Meadows station in New Jersey, had at last been dispensed. On the Queens side of the East River, serious construction got underway at the Sunnyside coach yards in February of 1907, but an overall land use agreement with the city was not in effect until June 21. This specified that the new facilities, which were to cover 208 acres with 53 miles of track, be used expressly for the servicing of Pennsylvania and Long Island Rail Road trains into and out of the New York Terminal. Meanwhile the Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island granted its final contract in May covering the installation of extensive approaches to the four East River tubes through Sunnyside and Long Island City. Work was begun on June 4 between Thomson and East Avenues, after which the Degnon Realty & Terminal Company, builders of the Steinway Tunnels, acquired the overall contract to excavate and grade the Sunnyside complex, its spoils to be used to develop 700 new residential lots along Dutch Kills Creek. Dutch Kills was a tributary of Newtown Creek that originally reached into what is now Astoria, but as part of the terminal project it was shortened to an inlet some distance away from the railroad. The associated area of new development to be fashioned was roughly bounded by Nott (47 th ), Meadow (Skillman) and Harold Avenues (39 th Street) and actually became more industrial than residential in nature. The Union Switch & Signal Company was designated for the installation of a signal system along the entire distance of the new railroad on April 11, 1907 between Sunnyside Yard and the New Jersey Meadows. On June 3, the Pennsylvania s Subcommittee on Signals & Interlockings specified a three-color aspect system (green, amber, red), with all moves to be overseen by four main interlockings at either end of the new station: Tower A, located at the main throat near Ninth Ave.; Tower B, at the west end of the L.I.R.R. platforms near Eighth Ave.; Tower C, at the west end of the subway under 33 rd Street; and Tower D at the west end of the tunnel beneath 32 nd Street. Towers E through H (at least in concept) were to be located through the Sunnyside complex in Queens and also oversee specific functions. With their intended mutual purposes having been largely accomplished, affiliated subsidiaries Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York and Pennsylvania, New York & Long Island were merged to create the Pennsylvania Tunnel & Terminal Railroad (P.T. & T.) on June 26. This enterprise would maintain a shell existence and cover issues related to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in New York over the longer term, one of which evolved into the addition of the planned postal facility (known in 2014 as the Farley ) immediately across Eighth Avenue from the main railway depot. Air rights over the Pennsylvania s terminal had been granted to the Post Office Department for its inclusion on January 25, 1907 along with fixed facilities beneath the postal structure to the tracks beneath. After experiencing a great deal of difficulty gathering the necessary materials, Milliken Brothers was able to erect the first structural steel column for the Pennsylvania Terminal building on May 27, but within days the concern had entered bankruptcy and was declared to be in default of its duties on July 10. This left construction of the terminal in abeyance, with site clearance being finalized in the meanwhile by August 27. The New York Contracting Company-Pennsylvania Terminal secured additional work to excavate for the P.R.R. coach yard off Ninth Avenue & West 31 st Street on October 2. At that time they were also able to retrieve (and perhaps pay for) the structural steel that had been held away from the Milliken Bros. concern so work on the terminal building could finally proceed. It appears that this may have been related to an overall souring economy later epitomized by the Panic of 1907 which on November 1 precipitated new P.R.R. President McCrea to opine that some parts of the terminal effort might have to be scaled back or slowed down as he and his staff had their first on-the-scene look at its progress. In marked contrast to the previous year, there were just two notable mishaps associated with the New York Terminal project chronicled during One was in Homestead, New Jersey (now part of North Bergen) where a contractor s store of explosives intended for the tunnel under the Palisades was accidentally discharged late on the night of March 2. Initially it was feared that several homes had been destroyed and as many as 30 people killed when the facts arrived there was significant damage and 12 injuries but no deaths. Another inadvertent explosion (caused by some misplaced dynamite) befell the Penn Station site near the intersection of Eighth Avenue & West 33 rd Street on May 25 which knocked pedestrians and horses off their feet and showered the surrounding streets and buildings with rock fragments, but again there was no death or serious injury. As the drumbeat of construction was continuing, so was the evolution of rolling stock appropriate to the new operating environment of Penn Station. As described above there were extensive tests performed with prototype electric motive power late in the year, but in addition the first all-steel RPO (Railway Post Office) car was out shopped at Altoona on February 4, 1907 while the prototype P-70 all-steel coach emerged in December. This ultimately became the most ubiquitous of the Pennsylvania s passengercarrying equipment and actively survived in some quarters (specifically Boston s MBTA Commuter Rail operation) as late as THE EVENTS OF YEAR 7: 1908 The most significant developments with regard to the Pennsylvania Terminal project through the first half of 1908 involved the gradual completion (more or less) of the six under river tunnels, especially after the soft, quicksand-rich East River bed near Manhattan gave way to firmer clay over toward Queens and greatly expedited the boring process. The The East Wind 20 Special Issue No. 1

21 first pair of tunneling shields to meet, one east from Manhattan and the other west from Long Island City, were in Tube D on February 20, that being the southerly tunnel that led into the cross-town subway under East 33 rd Street. In a rather creative celebration of the first train through tunnel, a toy replica marked Congressional Limited was moved through an 8-inch pipe between the headings by compressed air from the shielding apparatus. This occasion did not mark the tunnel s true completion; the pilot bore then had to be shored up with wood, the excavation enlarged to full size and then iron rings installed before it would finally be thickly lined with concrete. One week later (February 28) the holing through of Tube B was similarly accomplished, though on that occasion a rag doll was passed through the pipe to mark the first person through tunnel, followed by the union of shields in Tube C five days later. Piercing of the last of the four East River tunnels, Tube A, occurred at 8:00 on the evening of March 18, 1908 and when it did, the crew (the same which had been deployed since the project started) was given two paid days off to rest. On July 4 the air pressure was finally removed in Tubes C and D, which signifies that they were sealed with iron, and employees of S. Pearson & Son were invited to walk through and inspect them between Manhattan and Long Island City, no artificial pressurizations required. Air pressure was likewise eliminated in East River Tubes A and B on July 21, but finishing work in each of the overall tunnels continued for many months more. In New Jersey the New Year started with yet another accidental explosion that cost three more lives on January 26, but final blasting for the south tube of the Bergen Hill Tunnel was performed on April 11, It was holed through to the shielded under river tunnel two days later, then on May 7 the connection from the northerly Hudson River tube to the northerly bore of the Bergen Hill Tunnel was accomplished by one last detonation at 1:35 p.m. To mark the occasion, a dinner in honor of Chief Engineer Charles Jacobs and his staff was hosted that night by Pennsylvania officials at Sherry s, the posh Manhattan restaurant on Fifth Avenue at 44 th Street that served New York aristocrats and social climbers of the time (it was established in 1881 and lasted until the start of Prohibition in 1919). Finishing work on the Hudson tubes then also proceeded for the next several months, with arching and stonework (including their famous façade) all being essentially completed by October 31, along with full grading of the Meadows Division that connected them to the original alignment at Manhattan Transfer. Except for their railroad paraphernalia (that is track, power facilities and signals) the Bergen Hill Tunnels were complete as per contract by December 31, 1908 and it was finally possible to walk the nine or so miles, if an authorized person so desired, from Harrison, New Jersey to Queens, New York. On the east side of the project, the Sunnyside Yard complex gradually assumed its familiar form through most of 1908, as did the new Long Island Rail Road Main Line built with it that would forever destroy many a residence and what historic farm property remained, as well as isolate the core of Long Island City from Queens subsequent development as a borough of homes. All L.I.R.R. operations were relocated to the new right-of-way which passed right through the middle of the Sunnyside complex, and varied between 4 and 8 tracks in width, on September 12, by which time the new bridge at Hunters Point Ave. was complete and the other temporary grade crossings relocated where appropriate. The Diagonal Street (née Queens Blvd.) viaduct was then opened on December 19, with several others coming on-line over the next several months, though even some of these were already bearing general traffic in a partially-complete state. Transformation of the L.I.R.R. s Glendale cut-off from a power transmission corridor to an actual railway line connecting the rebuilt Main Line and the Rockaway Beach Division was begun on August 22, 1908 using excavation spoils from Sunnyside Yard. Grading for the project from Remsen Lane on the Main Line (63 rd Drive) was quickly completed to Glendale Junction by year s end, including a completely new overpass at White Pot Blvd. (now Fleet St.) and a newly-leveled rightof-way (partly under, partly intersecting the streetscape) as far as Woodhaven Junction. Likewise underway in the latter portion of 1908 was the construction of an overpass at Metropolitan Ave. which was associated with the Maple Grove Relocation. That project was started in September to reshape, expand and straighten the Main Line from Ascan Ave. (just east of Forest Hills station) to Metropolitan Ave., through a stretch of private land that was at the time identified as being in Richmond Hill but is more familiar in 2014 as Kew Gardens. By the middle of 1908 there was clearly a large railroad station taking shape in the excavations long-since bounded by Tenth Ave. to the west, West 33 rd Street to the north, Seventh Ave. to the east and West 31 st Street to the south. The steel skeleton of the New York Terminal was emerging, with 650 steel columns starting to rise toward the surface by this time as plans for the building were at last being finalized. Also present and visible from above on June 15 was the granite base of the main header wall in what would, as things progressed, become the lower level concourse. On August 10 a cornerstone for the edifice was unceremoniously laid at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue & West 33 rd Street, being a hollow time capsule filled with contemporary newspapers, reports and plans about the Penn Terminal project over the years, all secured in a copper crypt. By fall the majestic Seventh Avenue colonnade comprised of 35-foot tall Doric columns (which would become the station s trademark) was erected and as it developed through the next two years, the New York Terminal could be seen acquiring many of the features for which it had been projected since first envisioned by Charles McKim in 1902, with but minute revisions. One change which did alter its virgin standing was the pedestrian passageway up to West 34 th Street that had first been pro- The East Wind 21 Special Issue No. 1

22 posed by George Gibbs back in This had caused a slight amount of internal friction as it was factored into the ultimate design, then brought about an additional round of property acquisition by the railroad under cover of the City Real Estate Company. On August 18 the entire collection of lots that had been assembled for this purpose was transferred to the Stuyvesant Real Estate company and made ready for construction, evolving into a wide, underground passageway directly in the middle of the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues which led to the connecting cross-town streetcar line (still in existence in 2014 as the M34 bus of MTA New York City Transit). While the economic damage done to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company by the Panic of 1907 was noteworthy but not cataclysmic, the declining stature of the Penn Terminal project as it sailed toward completion brought an inevitable trend toward the consolidation of functions and the optimization of resources being expended upon it. In recognition of his unique skills with electrification as well as an overall savvy in negotiating the sometimes fickle universe of new technology as applied to the practical realities of railroading, George Gibbs was promoted to Chief Engineer of Terminal Station Construction, as well as retaining his former duties as Chief Engineer of Electric Traction, on January 13. This was the final stage for the overall mission to which Gibbs had been appointed by Alexander Cassatt so many years before, when he was assigned to carry out bellwether tasks on behalf of the Interborough Rapid Transit Co. and the Long Island Rail Road, an indisputable and unmatched body of accomplishment from which the Pennsylvania would now reap an ultimate gain. Though already a foregone conclusion based on the long years of first-hand experience he had accumulated, Gibbs submitted a draft report to President McCrea on May 8 which favored the application of a Direct Current (that is, d.c. third rail-powered) electrical system as opposed to Alternating Current (a.c., catenary-powered) for propulsion in the New York Terminal zone. Despite Gibbs own bias in this vein, an extensive comparison was made between the two types, but a clear influence were the persistent problems encountered by the New Haven in getting its a.c. electrification up to par with its expectations. As disclosed above even more intense demonstrations of each system were performed on the Central Railroad of Long Island that fall, but were used more to establish a baseline specification for the as-yet-unidentified motive power which would guide the Pennsylvania s trains through its new terminal than to make a true judgment as to which system of electric traction should be employed in the overall project. It is telling that the Pennsylvania Tunnel & Terminal Board of Directors (which was then the contemporary version of the 1902 Board of Engineers ) granted the full electrification contract for the project to Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing, the entity from which Gibbs presence had originated, on November 2, Though that company could provide for either electrification method the preference of Gibbs, and by extension the Pennsylvania, was already clear as noted in Gibbs final report on electrification of the terminal zone when it was circulated on November 21. In its final analysis the D.C. system, as distributed by fixed third rail, was steadfastly endorsed not only by Gibbs but with the concurrence of other long-time officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad, albeit tempered by recognition that a.c. remained a promising application for the future, one which would probably prove superior for longer-distance railroad electrification in time. On December 2, 1908 this matter was at last resolved by the full P.R.R. Board in Philadelphia, as it formally adopted the system of 650-volt third rail electrification for the New York Terminal and the die in this regard permanently cast ( at least for the next 25 years ). On February 24 the Committee on the Memorial to A.J. Cassatt (note that despite the age of this undertaking there were still plenty of committees) issued a report stating that the subject had been thoroughly discussed with parties from McKim, Mead & White and sculptor A.A. Weinmann. A decision had been made on this basis to commission a full-size bronze statue of Cassatt for permanent display at the New York Terminal (in an alcove of the Grand Stairway serving the Main Waiting Room) at a cost of $12,000. Weinmann was an artisan of some note who was employed by McKim, Mead & White for most such tasks associated with its projects, but who also gained a higher fame later on as designer of the Mercury Dime and Liberty Half-Dollar U.S. coins that were so commonplace through the 1940 s, as well as a variety of the commendation medals awarded by the American military forces in those years. He was also delegated the task (for a separate fee) of creating 22 large granite eagles and four fullsize sets of figurines that were to decorate various points on the terminal s colonnades. In each set one figure was to represent Day and the other Night to denote the perpetual nature of passenger transportation by railroad. Despite such apparent lavishness the railroad projected an unquestionable tone of penuriousness in its overall approach to the terminal s finer points as the project s end came into view at last. An October 9 plan of determination from McCrea allocated many thousands of scarce capital dollars for a signal system (that albeit an unquestioned necessity), but also adopted the recommendations of General Manager W.W. Atterbury that there be no inclusion of escalators or exterior time pieces in the facility, and that all parcel operations be consolidated in a single office. The marching orders in general were clear: do nothing more as a nod to opulence than was already committed. This attitude can be seen playing its way through other facets of the quickly-maturing project as well, as on June 9, 1908 the final decision was made to exclude costly screw piles in anchorage of the Hudson tubes after a series of engineering studies regarding their constant, perplexing shifts proved inconclusive but engendered the theory that they were related to natural tides and largely inconsequential in nature. Also coming into play was a corporate intimacy being ever more The East Wind 22 Special Issue No. 1

23 finely cultivated with the Post Office Department regarding the add-on facility in New York immediately adjacent to the terminal. At a joint meeting on November 27 an initial agreement was reached on the configuration of a system of chutes and conveyors that would serve dedicated mail tracks below the facility between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, and associated sorting racks above. By that time McKim, Mead & White had already been named as the design firm for the new post office, its exterior to be of a similar style to that employed on the New York Terminal itself right down to use of the same Milford Granite facing. In this regard it was patently clear that future postal service income was seen as an integral part of the railroad s effort to maximize its financial return from the project. THE EVENTS OF YEAR 8: 1909 As the last round of tasks was beginning to consume the Bergen Hill Tunnel at the very end of 1908, municipal authorities approached the railroad about adding a station in its passage beneath the Palisades (a location referred to as West Hoboken ), but the proposal was quietly dismissed on January 13, This should not be surprising when one considers the depth (and probable associated expense) of such a venture, along with the relatively small number of passengers it would attract and the probable disruption of stopping and starting trains on the Hudson tube approach. The Meadows Division received track from the Bergen Hill portals to the isolated exchange station in the marshes at Harrison (where a system of sidings was added for power storage and swaps) at the hand of Henry Steers, Inc. who was awarded a contract for this service on April 26. A final, comprehensive inspection of the Hudson River Tunnels was performed by Pennsylvania management in late May and identified few open items. On June 21 a Lozier touring automobile was lowered into the Weehawken shaft by crane and used by V.P. Samuel Rea, Chief Engineer Jacobs and others to ride through both tubes to Manhattan and back, hardly matching the grandeur of the company president s tour by train five months later (as described below), but serving to mark the first passage under the river in a non-pressurized environment. At any rate, last minute details and a final site clean-up were all complete by July 15 and then track, power and signals installed over the next few months with total completion of the Hudson River Tunnels achieved by early November. With the exception of the building itself, other outstanding construction issues related to the New York side of the Terminal project were virtually completed through Milestones included a last bit of excavation and the start of track laying under the small West Side mail facility in January, while the first display of completed masonry was accomplished on February 20 all around the Main Entrance on the Seventh Avenue side. In March the United Engineering & Construction concern finished its work in the cross-town subways between the Pennsylvania Terminal and the East River tubes (both under 32 nd and 33 rd Streets), by which time the overall facility had been officially named (The) Pennsylvania Station by vote of the P.R.R. Board. The work of lining the East River underwater tubes with up to two feet of concrete was finally finished in April 1909, and on May 17 they were turned over to the P.T. & T. which marked their completion but for railroad-related facilities. This apparently did not include their connection from the banks of the East River into Sunnyside Yard though, as grading work on the final approaches for all four tubes and the finishing of concrete headers (retaining walls and portal façades) proceeded through July and August. One apparent reason for this small setback had been a prolonged lack of determination as to where the actual exit portals from the four East River tubes should be located. Given the complex grade transitions as they emerged from their climbs, which included a secondary underground swap of alignments between Tubes B and C, they were originally to be positioned evenly (akin to the manner used at Bergen Hill), behind the Queens County Courthouse (in 2014 the Long Island City Criminal Division), a situation which drew the city s opposition early on. Ultimately, by excavating the west end of the Sunnyside Yard easement a bit more deeply, the four tunnels were able to emerge to the surface near Hunters Point Ave., and three simple, almost individual concrete portals of a more abrupt nature were finally constructed there. As Pennsylvania Station physically continued to take shape, side issues outside of its nominal form and function also advanced across a broad spectrum of associated activity. Another joint meeting between the Pennsylvania and the Post Office Department on March 24 resulted in definitive lines of responsibility regarding the facility to be added as an adjunct to the terminal. In particular the railroad was able to alter the arrangements for mail storage on the Ninth Avenue end of the site that would otherwise have inhibited interlocking Tower A. The P.R.R. also agreed to install, at no charge, chutes and elevators necessitated by the post office but for which the proposed locations were in conflict, and to absorb the whole cost of moving the mails into place at track level. In the area of continued rolling stock development, the Pennsylvania announced an intention to procure 132 all-steel Pullman (Sleeper) cars after four prototypes were successfully tested, with the expectation that all would be delivered in time for the projected opening of Penn Station in June In this vein a new contract was also signed on April 14, 1909 with the Pullman Car Co. (management firm of the nation s sleeping car services) that called upon it to use steel cars exclusively when servicing Penn Station. At the same time, the railroad also indicated that by the time the New York Terminal was activated, all passenger trains be they commuter, regional or national in nature would only include cars with enclosed vestibules of some type. By then some of the P-70 coaches had already been delivered and were in service around the Pennsylvania The East Wind 23 Special Issue No. 1

24 Railroad system, being joined by the earliest batch of electrified steel MP-54 motor cars on the Long Island Rail Road, which were the forerunners of its large fleet that acquired a celebrated reputation over time as the flagship M.U. of the world s busiest commuter railroad. The last of the railroad s labors inside the East River tubes were completed across the summer and autumn of 1909, this activity being complemented by the installation of track, power and (in conclusion) signals in the cross-town subway as well as Tubes A and B, which were sufficiently whole to support a maiden test train into and out of Penn Station on September 21. The nature of the equipment used on this jaunt was not recorded, but it was most probably pushed by a small steam engine allowing for the incomplete state of electrical facilities. Railroad work in Tube D was finished on August 2, 1909 and in Tube C (also) on September 21, with the first clearance train of work cars passing all the way from the New Jersey Meadows to Long Island City on November 15. This was followed three days later by an inaugural President s Special consisting of a diner and observation car from Philadelphia that were handed off to a work engine (again very likely a utility steam locomotive, possibly a former Manhattan elevated unit) at the Meadows (Manhattan Transfer), then pushed delicately along the length of the new railroad. Lunch was served on the dining car inside Penn Station, where a walking tour of the site was conducted before the special train continued through the East River tunnel (probably Tube B), paused for lengthy views of Sunnyside Yard in its final stages of construction and then was pushed to Jamaica, likely to change ends in the coach yard. From there the same train was reversed to the L.I.R.R. terminal at Long Island City, where a tugboat waited to return the official party to Jersey City and the V.I.P. s boarded even more private varnish for the trip back to Philadelphia. The final bits of approach work were done by Thanksgiving, and all four tunnels completely ready for initial testing by December 10, when railroad facilities were completed inside Tube A. An exhausted Alfred Noble thus submitted his resignation as Chief Engineer of P.T. & T. s East River Division at year s end, his responsibilities to the Penn Terminal project having been fulfilled. Final oversight of its tunnels was then delegated to Resident P.R.R. Engineer George C. Clarke, with George Gibbs assuming even greater responsibility for development of the Sunnyside complex. On August 20 the pilot DD-1 class locomotive (3999, later categorized by the P.R.R. as a DD-odd ) arrived in New York after its final construction at the Altoona Shops. It was comprised of two component units which were arranged back-to-back to operate in tandem, articulated fashion, drawing electric power from the 650-volt D.C. third rail. More accurately described, the DD-1 essentially consisted of a pair of steam locomotive frames, each affixed with a huge Westinghouse 315-A traction motor that yielded 2,310 horsepower. The DD-1 s starting tractive effort was an incredible 65,500 lbs, while at full tilt their authorized speed was 80 mph. However, depending on the load and the grade they could top out at 100, which was almost unheard of at the time. Having been outfitted with a Westinghouse-made control group (probably AB ) at that company s facility in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the duplex units individual bodies were each formed by a stout, square steel box covering the framed traction motor, with four windows on each side and an operating cab at the pilot end. As completed with 72-inch driving wheels, the units weighed in at 313,000 total pounds, 199,000 of that concentrated in the middle of the duplex toward the drivers. As a comparison, Amtrak s newest ACS-64 Cities Sprinter electric locomotives measure 66 feet, 8 inches long by 10 feet wide and weigh in at 216,000 lbs. Their four Siemens traction motors produce a total of 8,580 horsepower and their starting tractive effort is 72,000 lbs. On portions of today s Northeast Corridor they have a maximum authorized speed of 125 mph, but are capable of reaching 135 when and if required. The second DD-1 electric locomotive (3998) was finished in September and forwarded to Long Island City, or more accurately the nearly-complete site of Sunnyside engine terminal, on October 28 via barge, there to commence 15,000 miles of dynamometer (stationary) testing and be road operated on the Long Island Rail Road s electric lines for overall evaluation. These tasks were satisfactorily completed under the ever-watchful eye of George Gibbs by early December 1909 and 25 similar production DD-1 locomotives were hastily ordered from Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing (with bodies to be constructed at Altoona) on the 19 th. Delivery of these was specified for July 1, 1910 but that target date was probably already elusive, as hope that sufficient motive power would be on hand for a mid-year opening faded. While formulation of the terminal s Seventh Avenue façade established it as a uniquely recognizable landmark among Manhattan s many, another of Penn Station s unseen, unheralded legacies, the 34 th Street entrance, continued to bully its way through the project during this period. It was created by appending a two-level passageway off the 33 rd Street carriageway and lower (Long Island Rail Road) concourse, which would bring pedestrians directly to the southerly curb of West 34 th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. On September 30, 1909 V.P. Samuel Rea acceded to the practical realities of this situation and okayed the installation of Penn Station s one and only escalator (then dubbed moving stairs ), inside the connecting passageway from the lower level concourse to the temporary street-level kiosk that was to be created on West 34 th Street. Finally, on November 15 the P.T. & T. Board contracted with the Levenson Wrecking Co. to clear the necessary properties from 33 rd to 34 th Street, going north in a line from the Main Waiting Room, and with that one of the last pieces of Penn Station s puzzle was set in place. As things also developed, the Pennsylvania had to allow for The East Wind 24 Special Issue No. 1

25 broader architectural needs and in due course installed large 7-foot diameter clocks at the four axis points around the terminal s exterior. By the end of 1909 the main building was fairly complete, its last panels of external granite having been put in place in late July while the Main Concourse, whose intricate, riveted steel framework evolved into Penn Station s most unique, if not revered, trait was finished in September. What was emerging from this enormous effort was, quite literally, projected to be the world s fourth largest building in addition to its biggest railway terminal. Before leaving the year 1909, we must also note the realization of two Long Island Rail Road ventures that were originated due to its forthcoming service from the Pennsylvania terminal. The Glendale cut-off was completed on March 1, a project which consisted of widening and elevating the Main Line for the eventual installation of four main irons from Remsen Lane (63 rd Drive) to about Herrick [70 th ] Ave., with two new outer tracks to be added that would solely diverge to the Rockaway Beach Division through a grade-separated junction (subsequently dubbed White Pot for the adjacent boulevard). At that time though, just the new inbound iron that passed under the widened Main Line was actually installed, along with three of the four intended Main Line tracks and a temporary Rockaway-bound connection. When fully completed at the opening of Pennsylvania Station, the Glendale cut-off would originate from a six-track Main Line alignment east of Remsen Lane and form a southeastward extension of the original New York, Woodhaven & Rockaway mainline that reached Glendale Jct. There it intersected the Montauk Division (former Southern) main line on a modest wooden trestle, with an additional turnout to the east for alternative access to Jamaica station, the Morris Park facility and (for freight) Holban Yard. The lightly-used, somewhat desolate station at Brooklyn Hills, which had brought suburban pioneers from its bucolic surroundings to the L.I.R.R. since 1888 was closed in May Its eventual replacement would later be sited about ⅔ of a mile away at the new overpass of Jamaica Avenue. This improvement was made in concert with the Main Line s Maple Grove Relocation, which was completed on September 4, 1909 when all L.I.R.R. trains were relocated from the original, grade-level survey of 1861 (albeit triple-tracked since 1907). Starting immediately east of Forest Hills station, the Maple Grove Relocation was sufficiently wide for future occupation by four completely grade-separated tracks (of which three were then laid) and largely depressed against the intervening landscape, being built for instant electrification. The previous right-of-way was abandoned between Ascan and Metropolitan Aves. as a result, its existing stop at Maple Grove being replaced by a new local station called Hillside that was located at the Union Ave. overpass (later Union Tpke. and now Lefferts Blvd.) as part of the overall realignment. This location, which after a series of later name changes is known in 2014 as Kew Gardens, thus became the first modern and now readily-recognizable stop on the Long Island Rail Road Main Line, with high platforms for the convenience of passengers as well as solidly-constructed shelters on both sides. In addition, the Maple Grove Relocation provided for an expansion of the existing (1861) L.I.R.R. right-of-way to support four tracks from Metropolitan Ave. as far as Brighton Junction, just short of its union with the Atlantic Division at AC Tower, but new ties and rails were not actually installed, nor was the expanded 4-track Main Line in service, until its electrification at the opening of Pennsylvania Station. Another important series of events which were spread across 1909 was the conclusion of overpass construction in the Sunnyside Yard area, a phenomenon which progressed from west to east with each provisional grade crossing eliminated as its corresponding overpass was opened in full. As such, Honeywell (35 th ) St. was the first to be completed, being followed in succession by Harold Ave. (39 th Street), Laurel Hill Ave. (43 rd Street) and 6 th (48 th ) Street, which became the final Main Line grade crossing in Long Island City. Also opened to traffic on March 30 was the Queensborough Bridge (alternatively known as the Blackwell s [Roosevelt] Island or 59 th Street Bridge, as in East 59 th Street, Manhattan), which had a bevy of pedestrian and trolley lanes on two levels. To accommodate its penetration across the Sunnyside Yard property toward the heart of Queens, an entirely new road simply called Diagonal Street (as on its official blueprints) was laid out between Thomson Ave. and Honeywell St., and required yet another huge overpass to be added above the new railroad. Installation was well underway by September of 1908, but even as 1909 ended construction was still ongoing with the job finally finished during During the meanwhile, the Queensborough Bridge roadway was temporarily truncated at Jackson Ave, and fed onto the new but narrower Honeywell St. overpass. A TUNNEL OPENS TO NEW YORK CITY-THE PRELUDE EVENTS OF 1910 As the construction phase of the New York Terminal project wound down, a series of official tours and employee familiarization sessions were coupled with media pronouncements that signified a scattered public expectation of the Pennsylvania Terminal s imminent grand opening, but in reality there were still several unexpected or unrecognized issues to be resolved before New Yorkers would be able to enjoy their hard-fought and very expensive new station. In the end it came down to a matter of having sufficient steel rolling stock and electric motive power available to both the Pennsylvania and Long Island Rail Roads, a situation which was late in developing across the overall depth of the project and was adversely affected by labor unrest (of a kind that was all too endemic of those times) at the new American Car & Foundry plant in Berwick, Pennsylvania, which was to assume the task of mass-producing a share of the Pennsy s badly-needed roll- The East Wind 25 Special Issue No. 1

26 ing stock from the older and smaller former Jackson & Sharp works at Wilmington, Delaware. Nevertheless a February 13 P.R.R. press release showed a total of 324 steel cars already in system-wide service: 245 coaches (including the L.I.R.R. s MP-54 s), 21 combines, 10 diners, 29 baggage cars, 18 RPO s and one Business Car. On June 22 it was also revealed that the Pennsylvania had some 1,988 steel passenger cars in the pipeline or already in use, not only including those previously indicated in February but also the first 80 of 600 anticipated Pullman and parlor cars. This latter missive was in all probability an attempt by the P.R.R. to make the best of a compromised position that summer, as not one but two projected and publicly-announced opening dates for Pennsylvania Station (May 15 and June 1, both for the start of L.I.R.R. service) were let to slip as passenger car and motive power deliveries lagged. Also with construction very nearly complete, there were more preliminary house excursions through the first half of Included among these were the very first electricpowered Pennsylvania construction train from Manhattan Transfer to Sunnyside Yard on April 13, and another President s Special on May 2, this time consisting of MP-54 s partly under their own power, partly as pushed by steam engine, and then as propelled by a neophyte DD-1 unit to convey L.I.R.R. chief executive Ralph Peters and his party of guests from (old) Jamaica to Penn Station and back. Another trip on May 20 was operated on behalf of the Association of Transportation Officers that started at Broad Street Station in Philadelphia and was pulled from the Bergen Hill Portal into Penn Station by a DD-1 locomotive, where it paused for a luncheon on the platform serving stub tracks 1 and 2 beneath West 31 st Street. The special was then tugged through the East River tubes and became the first train to use the loop at Sunnyside, though it had to be pulled around by a utility steam locomotive as the third rail in that part of the facility was not yet active. Finally on June 28, Pennsylvania President James McCrea hosted a major open house at Pennsylvania Station for the New York Press, which turned out to be its last tour prior to dedication a few weeks later, but the reviews were still mixed where, oh where, the scribes carped aloud, where were the trains that were supposed to join Manhattan to the rest of America, and liberate its travelers from their arduous water crossing? The answer: some still weren t ready; the Pennsylvania s first allocation of steel commuter coaches (the mp54 as designated), along with additional L.I.R.R. MP-54A s, was held back for months through the strike at the A.C.F. plant, while production deliveries of the DD-1 electrics being produced at Juniata Shops had only gotten underway in April 1910, starting with duplex unit These were forced to incorporate a small number of modifications that arose out of the testing of odd-d duplexes 3998 and 3999 between October 1909 and February 1910, most notably including a revised equalization system with counterweighted driving wheels for improved tractive effort, but as yet there were still not enough of them considered to be roadworthy. By May 1 there were eight DD-1 s either ready for service or undergoing acceptance trials (being conducted on the Atlantic Division main line or in the Rockaway Flats alongside the L.I.R.R. MP-54 s); a number that was increased to 14 as of June 1 and 17 by the first of July, which was the contract time limit. One more DD- 1, actually delayed production pilot unit 3977, was on hand by the end of July and only then did service simulations commence using management and supervisory personnel. The actual operating employees began developing their new routine in August and as the New York heat sizzled, the end of the line (so to speak) for the installation of the Pennsylvania Station finally came into view. Now, before the expected, swarming throngs of humanity made function more of a focal point than form, was the time to see and appreciate what eight years of difficult labor had wrought. The East Wind 26 Special Issue No. 1

27 The East Wind 27 Special Issue No. 1

28 PART 3: PENNSYLVANIA STATION COMES TO LIFE (A Detailed Description, As Built) PENN STATION IN PERSPECTIVE TODAY AND YESTERDAY Let us reflect on a life routine in 2013: You walk (or perhaps more accurately, hustle) along West 32 nd Street toward Penn Station, your senses being assaulted in a way they could only be in contemporary Midtown: the afternoon sun partly shines on the north sidewalk; you stay in the cooler shade of the south as you glance to, then ignore the ads facing out of the Manhattan Mall (Strawberry, J.C. Penney); MTA buses adorned with small billboards; big, intimidating luxury coaches; stubby yellow taxis marked by their trademark roof ads and the circular T (TLC) logo on their doors; a plethora of anonymous, darkly tinted and mystifying vans; all stream your way along this narrow street off Seventh Avenue, charging across the cracked pavement toward Broadway, Herald Square and ultimately freedom on the East Side. Others are parked on both sides at the curbs, some with preoccupied, device-absorbed, passengers aboard. Your nose picks up the meaty odor of sausages or shaved steak from a sidewalk vendor; you contemplate the pizza window at Café 32 while fellow pedestrians and perhaps a bicycle messenger or two weave in and out. Police whistles (still) blow somewhere ahead on Seventh Avenue (just like in those old movies); horns honk; staccato music becomes discernible against the ever-constant background din of New York City; a few small crowds are gathered on the sidewalks, everybody wearing sneakers; some sporting Yankees caps or Knicks jerseys (are they in town tonight?...), or plain old tee shirts with cartoon figures or numbers or merchandising logos on them; just about all clutch stuffed plastic shopping bags and many are working even more electronic gadgets in some way. As making that early 4:15 train to Oceanside on this pleasant spring Friday afternoon is your objective, you pass the scene by without notice, a bizarre caricature of Manhattan as it has become, to make it across Seventh Avenue, hurl yourself into the same low, square kiosk that you ve known your whole life (the one marked Penn Station in front and Madison Square Garden on its sides), then obediently drop into the compact, equally rushed and passionately unsympathetic line of erect human bodies riding the escalator down to the train station. Your pace quickens as you hop off the moving stairs and sprint past the shops and ATM s in the dim Seventh Avenue Concourse, hang a right and try to rush down the Long Island Rail Road stairs to the quite spacious, yet eternally cramped, waiting area without stumbling. Its 4:09 and you see your train posted for Track 18 on the high-definition screen above the gates. Checking the board turns out to be a waste of seconds anyway, as you just follow a conveyor belt of distracted but somewhat familiar people to an opening right in front of you (the one your train seems to be at most nights), duck into it and scurry down a wide set of two stairs to the platform. There you find your typical chariot, a standard and still-gleaming M-7 electric train that seems to be breathing as it takes a brake test, the red LED side signs winking Long Beach, as it waits to take you home. You stride quickly to an open door somewhere in the middle of the train and enter; easy to tell it s a Friday because there s a person or two in just about every seat already (the cars nearest the stairs even have standees), so you push in from the aisle, grab your New York Post out of your bag, drop it onto the unoccupied middle cushion and dig out your pass (the one you bought online) to stick in the ticket holder on the seat in front. There, you made it the weekend awaits! You ll just get your reading started when the train slowly begins to move east back beneath Midtown, as has been the case for 100+ years now, aims to descend beneath the East River and begins its progression to suburban Nassau County on a rather routine trip. From somewhere above comes an electronically-generated chime, then a voice which cheerfully enunciates the current version of a century-old refrain, and you know you re on your way again: This is the train to Long Beach. The next station is Woodside! As odd as it may seem today, in the perfect world of endless potential that was America in 1902, the culmination of Charles McKim s professional vision and Alexander Cassatt s extraordinary enterprise was intended to pull you along West 32 nd Street not in passivity but rather in a passion generated through sheer grandeur and magnetism, inspired with delight in affirmation of the great city to which the railroad had long aspired to enter; not jaded, bored and stressed while enduring yet another insipid commute. Outside circumstance had served to erode such hope almost from the outset, as the railroad chose not to gain control of Penn Station s surrounding properties (or at least enough of them) when it had the opportunity, which by the time its neighborhood had been transformed into a business district after The Great War precluded a widening of both West 32 nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Such would have opened into a spectacular plaza at the threshold of the railway terminal and made it far more visually magnificent, an effect that was common not only in European cities but had also been successfully executed at Union Station in Washington, D.C in 1907, where (its) Columbus Circle was created to open up the terminal s frontage. And so Penn Station remained through its time of 56 years a collection of slivers; abbreviated peeks at an ever-blackening, Roman colonnade caught in glimpses from the mainstream hurly-burly of Broadway and Sixth Avenue, hinting of a worthy gateway to the world s finest railroad, but a place actually lost in the magnificence of the very city it had sought so much to honor. Better put, Pennsylvania Station in New York was easily dismissed as an impregnable constant, a horizontal The East Wind 28 Special Issue No. 1

29 monument to the routine and the practical that was forever out of phase with the always-changing and very demanding vertical world all around it. PENNSYLVANIA STATION AT FIRST SIGHT: THE SEVENTH AVENUE FAÇADE By whatever means one chose to get there, and at the time there were at least three trolley lines and two elevateds within any two blocks, the front door of Penn Station was rather suddenly found among the streets stretching along Seventh Avenue and marked by an impressive colonnade of 32 Doric pillars, each thirty-five feet high and 4½ feet in diameter. Upon a more careful examination one determined that there were three openings to the interior, while the colonnade hid the actual east wall that was set about six feet back from the façade itself. This wall similarly consisted of 16 full-height granite pilasters, each placed directly behind the free-standing pillar in front, alternating with a two-story upper and lower window placement topped by a small third story casement separated by a granite spandrel. The station s attic on its Seventh Avenue side was actually at the top room level and behind the balustrade. Carriageways were positioned at each side of the Seventh Avenue façade (31 st Street to the left, 33 rd Street to the right) which would constantly inhale and emit taxicabs and delivery wagons (both horse and motor-powered) as well as the small, crude and clumsy automobiles of the day. And then there was the elaborate main entry, soon to be marked by an equally frantic exchange of people directly across from West 32 nd Street. Most of the Seventh Avenue side s frontage was also graced with five low steps that stretched along its two-block distance, a feature which would come in handy during rain or snow when they could provide a quick escape from the elements, behind the columns and under the façade. Looking at things even more closely, the Seventh Avenue face assumed three distinct personalities across five sections: the two sharply-carved carriageways, each 31½ feet in width, that were capped by low, unadorned pediments and a bit Grecian in nature; the balustraded attic level which carried most of the huge columns across their flanks to the main entrance (and whose top ever so slightly evoked the roof line of thenpresident William Howard Taft s White House); and lastly the fortified entrance from Seventh Avenue itself, hidden behind its own shield of eight columns. All were grouped beneath a sculpted pavilion reminiscent of Berlin s Brandenburg Gate, one of four such portals around the building that corresponded to each main axis point, all of which intersected at the centerline of West 32 nd Street (i.e. outdoors, representing city ) and the middle of the Main Waiting Room (i.e. indoors, representing railroad ). Perched 61 feet atop the entry colonnade was one of the four self-illuminated, 7-foot clocks to which Pennsylvania General Manager W.W. Atterbury had initially objected, draped on either side by Adolph Weinmann s timeless stone icons representing Day and Night. They, too were guarded by six of the sculptor s famous eagles (three on each side, stepped upward toward the clock), which peered out from beneath a grand, ornately-trimmed balcony that served to mark the Arcade s immense height within. THE SEVENTH AVENUE ARCADE Under a single, glass-globed, hanging light, a cluster of standard doors with brass handrails and arm buffers outwardly marked pull were grouped squarely in the middle of the main (Seventh Avenue) vestibule, whose lofty space one might enter with dread in the heat of summer or (often) gratitude in the cold of winter through the years. Large gratings immediately inside the swing doors could whoosh with a delightful blast of warmth, generated via the hot water heating system when needed, but from spring through fall the air circulated within was purely natural, being abetted by a system of electric vent fans when indoor temperatures exceeded (approximately) 75 F. Such high readings were generally hard to attain though, given the lofty dimensions of the terminal building which innately functioned as a heat escape system. This was in marked contrast to the platform level beneath, whose compressed, semi-enclosed environment could easily hold the fusty, hot air of summer well into the fall or equally serve to exaggerate the intense chill of wintertime. A second set of doors led to the Seventh Avenue Arcade (and to avoid confusion there was no Eighth Avenue Arcade at Penn Station), which occupied the survey line of West 32 nd Street and measured 225 feet in walking distance from the entrance vestibule at the east end to the westerly loggia at the top of the Grand Stairway, a nominal (unobstructed) 45 feet in width and a graceful 68½ feet in height. Its floor and wall bases were laid with travertine marble imported from Tivoli in Italy, but the Ionic pilasters along its doublecolonnade and upper surfaces used a hardened synthetic mix which mimicked the stone, but was cheaper to install and wore almost as well, while the upper walls and ceiling were painted complimentary beige. The Arcade was modeled after similar examples in Milan and Naples, a pavilion which formed into a clerestory of seven vaults, each adorned with an arched, 3-piece lunette window on the north and south sides measuring 10 feet high with a 20-foot radius. These were intended to bathe the vending hall in an ever-changing mixture of natural light and shadow as daylight progressed, with the only artificial illumination being provided by 14 iron sconcetype Nernst lamps mounted on the pilasters. As originally designed this transitional area was Penn Station s gilded, bronze-encased retail row, and over time it boasted as many as eight of the finest shops to purvey items of value to the traveling public: the Penn Drug Store; candy; flowers; perfumes and gifts; millinery, seamstress and haberdashery; newsstand and bookstore; delicatessen; and tobacconist. While proceeding west, away from Seventh Avenue, the last spaces to be encountered inside the Arcade were service rooms for the Dining Room (31 st Street side) and Lunch Coun- The East Wind 29 Special Issue No. 1

30 ter (33 rd Street side). Each was approximately double in depth to the linear row of retail spaces, which in turn fronted the skylighted, north and south baggage courtyards that were otherwise concealed from view. The Arcade ended at a stand of four more Doric columns emulating those of the Seventh Avenue façade in size. These marked transition into the Loggia at the head of the Grand Stairway to the Main Waiting Room, an area of 30 by 30 feet which was four steps (about three feet) down from the Loggia and minimally lit by four more Nernst lamps. It contained the station s Lunch Room (up four steps to the right, facing West 33 rd Street) and its Dining Room (up four steps to the left, facing West 31 st Street). Both eateries were two stories in height with small kitchens occupying the space above the attached service rooms and the entry foyers, each sending their culinary creations to the lower floor and tableside via a system of dumbwaiters. These restaurant facilities spanned the building s horizontal distance of 192½ feet between each side of the Arcade vestibule and the external facades, being proportionately ornate in décor to the overall Roman theme of construction, but squared in presentation with coffered ceilings. They were also staffed and supplied in common with the Pennsylvania s trains to provide all comers with the same sense of style and delight for which one was otherwise required to purchase a ticket. THE GRAND STAIRWAY, MAIN WAITING ROOMS AND CARRIAGEWAYS A great arch completed the small but important vestibule outside the dining room and Lunch Room, an arch which reflected the outline of the Seventh Avenue Arcade in full and through which one entered the Grand Stairway, which was also constructed of travertine marble and squarely measured at 39½ feet by 39½ feet. At this position, acuity was distorted by the abrupt hugeness of the Main Waiting Room as it came into full view for the first time. Quite possibly it was a matter of adjusting the senses from the uncontrolled madhouse of Manhattan to the specialized environs within a place ostensibly as common as a railway terminal. The nose was filled with conflicting yet pleasant and rather recognizable odors from the two eateries (fresh coffee, fresh bread and broiled steak); the eyes were attracted to light that varied from bright to muted to completely artificial, while a smog (cause unknown) might hang like a cloud toward the barely-visible and quite artificial heavens. The ears, as they moved away from the muffled clatter of china, gradually focused on a soft, rolling undertone, almost like a tide that consisted of one or many conversations drifting about the wide open spaces, public announcements being made by megaphone and curt employee communications; each varying in volume, disjointed in specific content and yet as cohesive and as constant in cadence as a Gregorian Chant. All three elements conjoined as background to finalize the all-encompassing majesty that was Penn Station as seen from above. Each created a distraction of their own which snapped one to a level of attention on the task ahead, whatever it might be. At the top of the Grand Stairway, one s eyes were invariably drawn to a sweep of the Main Waiting Room below, but usually not above it would take some degree of bravery even just to slow, let alone stop, for a prolonged look around without being struck from behind by the onward rush of humanity a certain level of fortitude and confidence was required to simply descend the stairs and not stumble. Even then we were not alone: to the left (south) of the Grand Stairway stood a larger-than-life statue of Alexander Cassatt, the Pennsylvania s designated American pioneer, humbly posed in an open, arched niche (as if a saintly icon in one of the world s great cathedrals) to eternally preside over the constant procession between the nation s largest city and his former railroad. Having reached the floor of the Main Waiting Room some 12 feet below the Arcade, its size of 314 feet, 4 inches from left to right (that is, occupying almost two city blocks from south to north) and 108 feet, 8 inches from back to front including the ticketing, baggage, express and information enclosures (that is, west to east), while derived from the Nave of St. Peter s Cathedral in Rome, is dramatized all the more as each human form becomes Lilliputian in relation to its immense height. Even more of the station s Roman trappings were evident and meant from the outset as a climax to the aura (or illusion) of grandeur past by suggesting a frigidarium in the Baths of Caracalla. This was a place only of legend but no longer of substance in 1910 (or even 1902, when it was conceived), and in this instance perhaps represented an artificial monument to the arrival of American civilization and enterprise on the high plane of world history, much as one of the Pennsylvania s many trains would arrive in the basement of Penn Station from points across the land. Here again the lowest trimmings (floor, lower walls, the various doorways and service windows) were fabricated from travertine marble, with the surrounding pilasters, upper wall sections and ceilings consisting of the same synthetic mixture that was applied in the Arcade, with beige paint utilized as a finish. The openended sides of the Main Waiting Room (north, or West 33 rd Street and south, or West 31 st Street) were sized at 134½ by 108 feet with an equally unencumbered strip of 45 feet in between. Each side was defined by four equidistant Corinthian columns of 59½ feet in height and seven feet in diameter (for a total of eight) that supported the area s groin-vaulted, coffered apex of 135 feet, as measured in the north-south oriented clerestory (150 feet including the exterior roof). In a manner similar to the Seventh Avenue Arcade but in expanded form, the three equal clerestory vaults of the Main Waiting Room were accented by a total of eight 66-foot diameter, 5-panel lunette windows; three each on the east and west sides, above the Grand Stairway and the passageway to the Main Concourse opposite; one each on the north and south ends. These were also the chief source of internal illumination, which was fluid in character during daylight hours through the year, while in darkness the Main Waiting Room relied on eight floor- The East Wind 30 Special Issue No. 1

31 mounted electric cluster lamps, four on each side, that were 25 feet high, held nine globes each (for a total of 72 bulbs) and had an upward discharge. All were supplemented by twelve sconce-type Nernst lamps (six in each quarter, 24 globes overall) that were similar to those in the Arcade but mounted on the lower wall panels between the pilasters. Taking particular note of the upper wall panels (that is, below the lunette windows and above the pilastered lower wall), one would observe four splendid murals created by the artist Jules Guerin, which included The World (facing West 33 rd Street), The U.S.A. (facing West 31 st Street), the Pennsylvania Railroad System and the Long Island Rail Road (both facing Seventh Avenue). As incredible as it may now seem, there was never a provision for seating in the Main Waiting Room, as its true purpose was not stationary but rather to give patrons an opportunity to organize for or from the task of travel. Designed as a common focal point, it was a place of assembly stripped bare of distraction for clarity and utility. The amenities were comprised of four enclosed, elongated faux marble blockhouses that were spread at identical intervals about the perimeter and in 1910 arranged thusly: Baggage check-in and Pullman Ticketing to the Southeast; Information, Wire Services and Public Telephones to the Southwest; Coach and Local Ticketing to the Northwest; and (also) Information, Railway Express and Parcel Services to the Northeast. Each side of the Main Waiting Room was a focal point of its own, sporting entirely separate and direct access to their respective streets. From within, each was framed by six Ionic columns of 31 feet a piece, these being divided by single 22-foot wide stairways that graduated 22 vertical feet back to the entrance doors. An internally-illuminated impulse clock, timed by the U.S. Naval Observatory, was hung above each main landing, which in turn led through a group of five push doors (corresponding to an arched window above) and onto granite bridges that passed over the north or south carriageways, en route to the sidewalks of West 31 st or West 33 rd Street. The Ionic columns also framed colonnaded galleries at the top of the stairways that allowed direct access from the side street entrances to both the dining areas toward the Seventh Avenue end and the service rooms toward the Eighth. There were also six floor-level push-door passages at either end (three on each side of their respective stairways) which led to the two carriageways, but the northerly (33 rd Street) side also led to the West 34 th Street passageway that was appended to the terminal s original design, using a brick walk around the west end of the 33 rd Street carriageway to exit the premises. Each of the two carriageways was of utilitarian design, yet captivating to the casual observer as they originated at full, almost secretive pediments through the Seventh Avenue façade, located on the corners of West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets, then dramatically slid down some 14 feet to meet the floor level of the Main Waiting Room, a 279-foot slope which greatly exceeded the paralleling horizontal length of the Seventh Avenue Arcade. Vehicles in both the North (33 rd Street) and South (31 st Street) Carriageways operated in counterclockwise fashion, such that the passenger side doors would always be facing the station s curb; the 31 st Street side to be used for departures and the 33 rd Street side by arrivals, with vehicles in the latter making a loop before berthing. Neither carriageway extended any farther west than the parallel area in the Main Waiting Room, as the floor of the Main Concourse stretched past the visible foundations of the terminal on both sides, under the sidewalks and above the Exit Concourse to enclose tracks 1 and 21 on the very periphery. In the only notable difference between the two, it was also possible to bring a vehicle from the 33 rd Street Carriageway next to the main Baggage Room and out again as part of one continuous, counter-clockwise move (which expedited Parcel and Express functions). The open area within this inner loop on the 33 rd Street side was sky-lit above and open to the tracks below, being dubbed the North Courtyard. At ground level, it was actually the rectangle formed by the inside perimeters of the Seventh Avenue and West 33 rd Street façades, the northern edge of the Arcade and the eastern side of the Lunch Room. On the 31 st Street side, the Carriageway did not connect with the Baggage Room through a loop arrangement but was more like a loading dock, which required vehicles to make a threepoint maneuver. Nevertheless this area mirrored its 33 rd Street counterpart from a superficial standpoint and was known as the South Courtyard, being sky-lit above and formed by the inner perimeters of the Arcade, the Dining Room and the West 31 st Street and Seventh Avenue façades. The setting of the Main Waiting Room was complemented by the Mens and Womens individual ( sub ) Waiting Rooms, located on its westerly side. These were separated by a high, vaulted passageway which led to the Main Concourse and matched the ceiling of the Seventh Avenue Arcade to the floor level of the Main Waiting Room, being 80 feet high at is zenith. The west wall featured another arch, highlighted by a huge 3-piece arched window 35 feet in total height above the floor which looked out onto the Main Concourse. It was topped by a 15-foot motor-driven analog clock mounted directly to the wall above the arch window and beneath the ceiling vault (that is, facing inward toward the Grand Stairway). This passageway also closely copied the Grand Stairway in material (travertine marble) and width (40 feet) but not in length (60 feet), was dotted with twin wall-mounted Nernst lamps for artificial illumination and even had water bubblers. Facing west toward the Main Concourse, which was visible under the huge west window behind an array of twelve outward swinging ( push ) doors, the Men s Waiting Room was to the right and the Women s to the left, with both similarly accessed by sets of push doors located beneath, and correspondent to, large 3-piece arched windows which reached 30 feet above floor level. The two Waiting Rooms were composed of the usual mix of travertine marble and synthetic The East Wind 31 Special Issue No. 1

32 blend and measured 95 feet long by 60 feet wide, but were only 45 feet high, having décor which closely matched that of the Dining Room with coffered ceiling panels, walls adorned with Ionic pilasters and circular-shaped Nernst Rings hanging from the ceilings for artificial lighting. Inside each waiting room the west-facing walls had five 6-piece arched windows, each 25 feet in total height and facing out to the airy Main Concourse so as to share in its illumination, while also having outward-opening triple swing doors centered beneath each one. From the beginning the Waiting Rooms were generously equipped with heavy, wooden benches arranged in traditional, straight-line fashion, and also led to general restrooms. They also contained a smattering of vending devices (which varied in number and sophistication over time), though for much of their life the most functional areas of Penn Station avoided direct concession emplacement to emphasize its utilitarian, transitory nature. The Mens side also included a Smoking Room, Barbershop and Bootblack, while offering rented, staffed Pay Toilets (actually Changing Rooms). Across the vaulted passageway, the Ladies waiting area incorporated a Retiring Room (basically a Lounge) that was staffed by a full-time Matron. THE WEST 31 ST AND WEST 33 RD STREET FAÇADES OF PENN STATION The external architecture of the West 31 st and West 33 rd Street facades of Penn Station were identical, each one being composed of a 784-foot assortment of classical Roman styling. Both originated at the carriageway enclosure off Seventh Avenue in a portico adorned with four pilasters that was intended to resemble and complement the Doric columns of the grand carriageway pediment facing Seventh Avenue. These porticos gave way to a very plain granite wall measuring 225 feet in length to match the Seventh Avenue Arcade, which was very slightly embellished by 12 austere, squared-off pilasters. Between each pilaster there was an opening to the carriageway to mark its descent to the Main Waiting Room level. There was also a row of simple recessed panels above the openings and under the cornice to mark where the third floor would be and to complement the real third floor windows on the Eighth Avenue end of the façade. Transition to the station s north-south axis point began with four Doric pilasters grouped in two pairs as the carriageway enclosures ended, which then gave way to a run of 20 real Doric columns across the entire width of the Main Waiting Room: four on either side of the major entrances on West 31 st and 33 rd Streets (corresponding to the flight of the Grand Stairway on one side and the passageway to the Main Concourse on the other) and twelve to indicate the entries located on the actual north-south axis (6 leading and 6 recessed), at the center line of the Main Waiting Room, with all stretching another 230 feet in length across the general façade. Access from the West 31 st and West 33 rd Street sidewalks could be gained by passing through these entries under one of the Brandenburg Gate-like colonnades identical to those on Seventh Avenue. Each of these sported a similar cluster of Weinmann-sculpted figurines atop (the Day and Night statues encircling the 7-foot illuminated clock, in turn guarded by six eagles), but with the eagles seated on a level plain as opposed to their graduated ascension on the Seventh Avenue end. These two major side entries (which were actually openings to the foot bridges over the carriageways) were illuminated at night by large, hanging electric lamps, and there were auxiliary fixtures applied directly to the terminal s face by the five doors, which opened outward as at the Seventh Avenue end. The west (Eighth Avenue) end of the side facades was decidedly more compressed than the east, again starting with four Doric pilasters grouped in two pairs, then with a grouping of six rectangular windows mounted in two columns of three, with a lone Doric pilaster between them across an expanse of 24½ feet. A 40-foot portico of four more Doric columns marked the minor entrances from West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets into the Main Concourse area, but in actual function these were of greater utility than the so-called major entrance points as they provided direct access from the surrounding streets into the station s lower level, where the Pennsylvania s exiting passengers and Long Island Rail Road users actually passed. The final stretch to the Eighth Avenue façade was represented by a 200-foot, architecturally plain wall that ended in a portico similar to the one at the Seventh Avenue end. This wall was punctuated by eight vertical rows of three windows, with a Doric pilaster between each. The portico end continued this window pattern with three additional vertical sets of windows placed between four somewhat more pronounced pilasters. The windows of the attic level, a sort of open area that was used for any number of purposes including records and material storage, were above the cornice and set behind the balustrade, except at the two end porticos and the major entrance colonnade, where they were set into the parapet above the cornice and were visible from the street. THE EIGHTH AVENUE FAÇADE The Eighth Avenue façade of Pennsylvania Station served as a visual continuation of the west ends of the West 31 st and West 33 rd Street façades. It was mostly a plain granite wall whose prominent architectural feature was the three rows of windows grouped in 24 vertical sets (72 windows overall), with 12 sets positioned on either side of the entry colonnade situated on the former centerline of West 32 nd Street. The Eighth Avenue façade began from either end with a portico that jutted out from the wall panels, and was identical to those immediately adjacent on the West 31 st and West 33 rd Street sides. Each portico contained three vertical sets of windows set between four Doric pilasters. There were eight vertical sets of windows along the Eighth Avenue façade between the end porticos and the entry colonnade, with a shallow Doric pilaster between each set. The transition to the 44½-foot wide entry colonnade started with one more pronounced Doric pi- The East Wind 32 Special Issue No. 1

33 laster and one more vertical set of windows. This was followed by a Brandenburg Gate-like colonnade of four Doric columns astride the entry way, which incorporated elements of the major entrances at West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets, including another 7-foot clock bracketed by the two Weinmann Day and Night sculptures, guarded this time by only four eagles seated on a level plane. Finally, the windows of the attic level of this façade were also hidden behind the balustrade, except at the two end porticos and the entrance colonnade, where they were set into the parapet above the cornice. THE MAIN CONCOURSE With some merit, it has been written that passing from the Main Waiting Room to the Main Concourse at Pennsylvania Station was effectively like making a trip from the Roman past into the American present (or perhaps the future); one from the sculpted stone of ancient times into the firm brightness of the modern industrial age. Either way, the starkness in contrast was breathtaking while striding through those connecting push doors beneath the big bronze clock, where after enduring an extended walk from Seventh Avenue that strongly suggested the Roman period and the Baths of Caracalla, one was suddenly inside (of all things) a busy, modern railway depot! For while the Roman theme of stone and arched windows was continued about its four outer walls in a more superficial manner (akin to many of the federal buildings of the era), the rest of the Main Concourse was marked by lattice steel and light bulbs, which materialized out of a virtual forest of support columns, all tied into a grid-oriented symphony of sky-lit barrel vaults that climbed as high as 82 feet (and up to 110 feet over the track bed). Viewed at some angles they seemed to have neither rhyme nor reason, but at others they coalesced into complete logic and functionality. The Concourse was where the station s most basic function of providing a gateway was performed, and as such bore most of the burden for the terminal with practicality as its most obvious feature. First to attract attention (after passing through the connecting doors from the Main Waiting Room) was the 13-foot tall, iron East Gate of Tracks 11 and 12, located as it was smack in the middle of the terminal and immediately in front of the passageway. Its fancy red indicator panels provided a small touch of color in what was a generally grayscale visual environment of granite and rivets, steeped in a sort of perpetual haze. Next to catch the eye was underfoot glass blocking in the Concourse s floor, which appeared almost polka-dot in nature as it wove among the convoluted shadows generated through the high, sky-lit ceiling. In actuality these plainly-visible black specks occupied the Concourse floor s overall width of 101 feet, as well as the pathway to the Eighth Avenue entrance. This was the area directly over the lower Exit and Long Island Rail Road Concourse, and was (successfully) intended to relay daytime illumination through the Main Concourse from the broad sky lights above to the ultracompact, completely enclosed level below. As in the Main Waiting Room, there was neither permanent seating nor concession in the vast Main Concourse; it was strictly meant as a transitional space to move to and from the train platforms (though it did soon become a prized sales area for newsboys). The array of high, iron East Gates and red indicators, which started from the 31 st Street side and included Tracks 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14, and to the 33 rd Street side (seven platforms total), were set 25 feet in front of the lofty, impressive header wall on the easterly side (that which was shared with the Main Waiting Room). The westerly edge of the Main Concourse floor was marked by the northsouth arrangement of the West Gates, whose track indicators were mirror images of their opposite numbers across the concourse, with the sole exception that only Track 18 was shown in place of due to an alignment nuance at platform level. The finishing touch was a 7-foot, longitudinal iron fence that protected an open area of 75 feet beyond the end of the Concourse floor, which extended to the stone interior wall of Eighth Avenue and made it possible to observe the railroad activity below. As for the terminal s other tracks, East and West stairs down to Tracks 1-2 and 3-4 also existed where the Main Concourse reached beneath the sidewalk of West 31 st Street, while hidden stairways could be used for access to Tracks 18 through 21 via the lower level. Wherever their origin, each of the main stairways between the upper concourse and the train platforms (Tracks excepted) reigned an impressive (if not exhausting) 42 steps, grouped in three sets of 14 to reach an eventual 45 feet in length. That escalators were not initially employed, as provided for, was a rare Pennsylvania Railroad concession to cost and an issue ultimately not addressed for a couple of decades or so. The Main Concourse was naturally brightened in daylight hours by its massive sky-lit roof above, but was illuminated otherwise by large Nernst Rings that were suspended about 50 feet from the roof on massive chains, supplemented by electric candelabra fixtures attached to the support columns. The signature feature of Penn Station s Main Concourse was its glazed umbrella roof of steel and glass, which covered one of the largest indoor open spaces then in existence. As built the inside concourse measured 279 feet in length between the walls facing West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets and 101 feet in width from the east wall of granite (that separating the Main Waiting Room and Main Concourse) to the longitudinal iron fence along the edge of the Concourse floor, a total reach which extended over the tracks to 174 feet at the interior wall on the Eighth Avenue end. The roof structure was basically a steel cage designed as a joint effort of McKim, Mead & White- Architects and Westinghouse, Church, Kerr-Engineers; and constructed by the firm of Purdy & Henderson, based on a pre-calculated grid that was quite scientific in nature but finished in a manner more typical of a cathedral. This was accomplished by configuring the sky-lit frames and panels as a series of colliding barrel vaults, three oriented east-to-west along its length (that is, between West 31 st and West 33 rd The East Wind 33 Special Issue No. 1

34 Streets) and one north-to-south indicating the concourse s center line between the boarding gates, which denoted the main focal point of the open floor. These were complementary to the groined vaults of the Main Waiting Room, being aligned to them but executing their Roman-themed architecture in a modern, steel and glass vernacular. The three transverse vaults were composed of three overall roof sections using two different sets of dimensions, each in turn comprised of scores of individual, honeycombed sky lights, with the three portions closest to the Main Waiting Room (i.e., Seventh Avenue or easterly side) and the six toward Eighth Avenue (west side) all being sized at 76 x 25 feet. In the middle, where the transverse and longitudinal vaults intersected, the three steel skeletons framing the Concourse s distinctive skylight roof measured 76 x 76 feet each. The artistic cross-truss pieces more accurately shaped each of the three sections forming the middle (longitudinal) vault as four convergent right triangles. The composite glazed glass panels covering each of these triangleshaped components (12 in all, forming three points of intersection in mid-air above the middle of the concourse) had legs of 53 feet, 10 inches and lengths of 107½ feet combined across the end sections, visually configured as a steel-framed X suspended in the heavens. Along its periphery, the concourse s ceiling was comprised entirely of 23 smaller vaults that were also framed by an even more intricate pattern of intersecting vertical steel members. Each of these contained its own, fixed sky light that was either oval in shape (as along the Eighth Avenue edge) or circular (with but one exception each, along the West 31 st and West 33 rd Street edges), being surrounded by a surface of glazed tile. The entire concourse roof and floor structure was borne on 20 steel lattice (riveted) columns that stoutly stretched like tree trunks, 80 feet from the base of the track bed to 55 feet above the concourse floor, then diverged ( burst, if you will) into graceful, even more intricately-latticed arcs that in turn framed the upper vaults. These four sets of five main columns were aligned in east-west fashion, the easterly pair set hard against the wall shared with the Main Waiting Room while helping to support each of the two floor levels beneath, the westerly set of three separated by the 101-foot width of the open concourse floor. The first of these marked the westerly edge of the Main Concourse floor while the westernmost pair of lattice columns were located in the open area beyond (known as the North Well and South Well ) and were completely exposed from top to bottom. All 20 of these large support columns also skillfully and/or discretely pierced the train platforms to minimize obstruction, with all five in each row spread across the overall concourse area to line up with Tracks 6, 9, 14 and 17. In addition to the main network of 20 support columns, 10 auxiliary steel lattice columns were distributed along the periphery to lend vertical definition, as well as assist in bearing the heavier stone and steel structures along the Main Concourse s three edges (West 31 st Street, Eighth Avenue and West 33 rd Street). There were two each of these secondary columns astride the minor entrances at West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets (which did not penetrate to the Exit Concourse beneath); two more straddling the Eighth Avenue entrance hall and yet two more within each of the 95-foot transverse sections on either side of the Eighth Avenue entrance. Cumulatively, the auxiliary supports created the 23 peripheral vaults alluded to above, which surrounded the outer perimeter of the Main Concourse on three sides and subscribed to four different sizes. Those at the two corners (West 31 st Street & Eighth Ave., West 33 rd Street & Eighth Ave.) measured 22 feet by 22 feet; those directly above each of the three entries to the Main Concourse (West 31 st Street, West 33 rd Street and Eighth Avenue) and two more in the center of the north and south transverse vaults were 37 feet wide and 22 feet deep (toward the exterior). The other ten vaults along the 31 st and 33 rd Streets sides each measured 25½ x 22 feet, while the remaining six along the Eighth Avenue perimeter were sized at 19½ x 22 feet. When added together all 23 peripheral vaults yielded an overhead dimension of 186½ by 272 feet around the Main Concourse area, with about 40 feet of longitudinal (north-south) and 50 feet of transverse (eastwest) roof extension on top of the attic level. The east wall of the Main Concourse functioned jointly as the west wall of the waiting room area, and was adorned with ten 25-foot high, 6-piece arched windows across its fullyexposed length of 279 feet; five positioned on either side of the lofty archway that led to the Main Waiting Room. Each of these 25-foot windows had fifteen sections with two panes each, plus 12 panes along the outside arch at the top and two on the inside arch which added to 44 total pieces. The archway protruded into the concourse by perhaps 3 feet around its exaggerated edges and was denoted by the 3-piece arched window 40 feet in height that was described above, containing 18 sections with 3 panes each (54 pieces overall), and topped prominently by a keystone. There was a cluster of twelve doors beneath this large middle window which swung inward to the Main Concourse, while each of the five smaller windows on either side had a set of pull-out doors beneath that led directly from the Main Concourse to the individual Mens and Womens Waiting Rooms. At both the northerly and southerly extremes the east wall had one more archshaped window that was of similar dimension to those grouped toward its center, but contained 15 sections of glass having two panes each (30 total) and a horizontal 4-foot iron divider built in. The window on the 33 rd Street side also had a single set of pull-out doors beneath which led to one of the amenities spaces associated with the Mens Waiting Room. At its base the west wall of the Main Concourse was laid on 3- foot thick granite blocks all the way across, which had actually been set as a guide soon after terminal construction began and were plainly visible to onlookers from a distance in the summer of The East Wind 34 Special Issue No. 1

35 The West 33 rd and West 31 st Street side walls inside the Main Concourse were similar in construction to those in the Main Waiting Room, but abstained from their exaggerated Roman styling in favor of a Beaux-Arts or Capitol appearance more reminiscent of the official buildings and monuments that were proliferating Washington D.C. and the nation s various state capitols early in the 20 th century. Constructed of granite, they were sectionalized into the seven vaults dictated by the steel structural cage of the outer roof above the Main Concourse, and also in marked contrast to those in the Main Waiting Room were off-set toward the east, being centered in the middle of the concourse floor. Both ends mirrored each other exactly, with the first three wall sections working away from the Eighth Avenue end featuring one 25-foot, 15-section arched window, mounted at the same elevation as those on the east wall. The next three sections on each side (two of 25 feet on either side of one measuring 37 feet) were clustered beneath the umbrella-like, 76-foot circumferential vault that framed the minor entries from West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets, these in turn being bracketed by passageways to the northern and southern extremes of the concourse floor. The execution of both minor entries differed greatly from those in the Main Waiting Room, with enclosed porticos accessed by three sets of outward-swinging ( pull ) doors, located within the four Doric columns spread across the 31 st and 33 rd Street façades. These porticos preserved an overall width of 37 feet to the top of the stairways down to concourse level, whereupon each in turn narrowed to a width of 11 feet, with pedestrian traffic for the upper and lower levels (so-called) separated inside the portico before entering to the terminal building. Like other entrances around the terminal, the concourse foyers were illuminated inside and out by bulky globes hung from the ceiling, while the tops of the stair sets (from which dramatic overviews of the concourse below could be obtained) were each punctuated by large clocks hung from the ceiling frame, adjacent to a tight arch which enclosed the middle stair, while the stairs on each side were entered through a plain rectangular opening in the granite facing. From both the 31 st and 33 rd Street foyers, the two outer stairways led directly to the floor of the Main Concourse, while the single stairways in the middle fed straight into the Exit and Long Island Rail Road Concourse underneath. All three stairways were separated from each other by stone headers and brass railings along their entire length to enforce the builtin partitioning of foot traffic designed into them, with the middle stair continuing through an opening in the concourse floor to the lower level. At floor level, three open, rectangular passageways were located on either side of the triple stair sets at both ends (two on the easterly side and one on the west) which led into the extreme north and south ends of the concourse,. The concourse floor at the south (West 31 st Street) side accessed the East and West Gates for Tracks 3-4 and 1-2 before ending at a base wall against the baggage transport corridor, while that at the north (West 33 rd Street) side concealed a stairway to Tracks 18 and 19 on its west side, while also reaching the back side of the 33 rd Street carriageway and ultimately the upper level of the 34 th Street exit. What were intended as auxiliary stairways from the Main Concourse level down to the Exit and Long Island Rail Road Concourse were also located on these extensions, hidden behind the main stairways as viewed from the middle of the concourse floor (and therefore not visible in typical photographs). Access to West 34 th Street could be achieved by turning left (north) into a narrow passageway that extended off the Concourse s northeasterly corner at the end of the carriageway, which made a right turn, eastward under West 33 rd Street and proceeded 115 feet to the center line of the Main Waiting Room. There it joined alignment with the passageway coming out of the Exit Concourse beneath and turned left (north) to exit the main foundation wall, thereby reaching a 5- foot wide set of stairs that marched upward to street level. Alternatively, as the 34th Street passageway turned away to ultimately head for its access kiosk, another pedestrian pathway of 15-foot width continued from that point eastward beneath West 33 rd Street, some 210 feet to a set of stairs alongside the Carriageway that fed onto the sidewalk above. Immediately beyond that upward stair were two others headed down. That to the right led to L.I.R.R. Platform 10 (Tracks 18 and 19), while the one on the left went down to Platform 11 (Tracks 20 and 21). The Eighth Avenue side of the Main Concourse was also somewhat concealed in its original state, being set 75 feet away from the westerly edge of the concourse floor and fairly poking out from beneath a 30-foot deep vaulted overhang. It also represented a composite of the features exhibited around the other three sides of the concourse, with a main access point similar to the minor entries on West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets, from the portico off the sidewalk of Eighth Avenue (also highlighted by hanging electric light globes inside and out as well as a large clock), to three 11-foot stairways that emerged out of the west wall through a prominent archway and two side passages. Once again users were separated at the top of these stairs, but opposite to those entries on 31 st and 33 rd Streets, they were steered to the outside pair for access to the Exit and Long Island Rail Road concourse and to the middle stair for entry to the Main Concourse itself. All three Eighth Avenue stairways in turn were joined to the concourse floor by a fenced, double-level passageway located above Tracks 11 and 12, its upper portion utilizing glass block flooring for secondary illumination, its lower level being pierced by the west (departure) stairway that passed directly from the Main Concourse to Tracks 11 and 12. On either side of the Eighth Avenue entrance, the west wall of the Main Concourse was lined with the same five 25-foot, 15-section arched windows applied to the 31 st and 33 rd Street ends, their elevation again being consistent with those of the other three walls. Be- The East Wind 35 Special Issue No. 1

36 neath three of the surrounding rows of interior windows (stretching from the 33 rd Street entrance around Eighth Avenue to the 31 st Street side) were oblong openings in the granite, dictated by the intervening structural members almost like a pillbox. These concealed an open space at the 33 rd Street side (actually provision for a future subway connection), the main outbound baggage room on the Eighth Avenue end and the baggage transport corridor alongside 31 st Street. Within the windows lining the outer three sides of the Main Concourse as well as the perimeter of the terminal, with a narrow corridor between, were located a variety of private rooms and offices, notably including facilities for Dining car and Pullman Services, the Stationmaster, the Trainmaster, a discreet, staffed hospital for those stricken at the depot and a private waiting room the bereaved, along with station police, lost property, administration and even the Travelers Aid Society. There were general offices for both the Pennsylvania and Long Island Railroads as well, with the P.R.R. establishing a Y.M.C.A. for billeting employees on the third and fourth (attic) floors. This premium facility contained a gym, bowling alley, billiard room, library and assembly rooms for various purposes (including railroad club meetings as time progressed). Completing what was then a thoroughly-modern work environment for the railroads staff, all space on the upper floors could be reached by a pair of small, manuallyoperated electric elevators that were contained in the West 31 st and West 33 rd Street entries. Authors Note: This space at the Pennsy s Y.M.C.A. was one of the original meeting locations for the Electric Railroaders Association. Its function was assumed by the nearby Sloane House YMCA sometime in the 1970 s and provided perfunctory lodging for a number of visiting railfans into the early 1990 s your humble correspondent included! Nowadays (2014), train crews in need of rest in New York stay at a nearby hotel. THE LOWER LEVEL OF PENN STATION (EXIT AND LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD CONCOURSE) Though in 2014 it is the most integral and now actually the largest portion of Penn Station to be used as a railroad facility, the lower level was designed to be an afterthought in the terminal s (perceived) main function as gateway to America s greatest city. As such it was borne out of a desire to avoid unnecessary interplay between the Pennsylvania s nationallyoriented customer base (New Jersey Local patrons not withstanding) and suburbanite New Yorkers scurrying to and fro. By design its users were deflected, but not excluded, from such distractions as the Seventh Avenue Arcade s shops and restaurants, the majestic Main Waiting Room and the chaotic Main Concourse. To some degree, such can still be applicable in the present day, as many habitual users who routinely access trains at Penn Station move strictly between the two subway lines and the lower level rarely, if ever, having cause to pass through the upper lobby (that now of Amtrak), much less the surrounding streets. Whatever the case, the Exit Concourse that awaited its first riders in August of 1910 was but a fraction of the one we know in 2014, being crowded entirely within the basement of the western third of the terminal building (that is, toward the Eighth Avenue end) but still entirely in conformity to the floor of the Main Concourse above. Passing downward into the Exit Concourse via one of the stairs and companion passageway from the Eighth Avenue entry, what was most keenly and immediately observed was the claustrophobic nature it exhibited in comparison with the high, airy and open space above. As described previously, the lower concourse nominally received illumination through the glass blocks (more like specks) embedded in the floor of the upper concourse, a concept which worked very well until nighttime, then not so well as the Main Concourse became awash in humanity through time and finally almost not at all after the upper level was heavily developed by the 1950 s. This natural method was at least initially supplemented by one of the first known applications of amplified electric lighting (that is, plain incandescent bulbs being reflected off a shroud painted in white enamel, a system that soon became a standard in transportation facilities nationwide). The miniaturized dimensions of the Exit Concourse yielded a strangely oblong floor size of 57½ feet wide by 465 feet long, arranged much as the Main Concourse was above, with East and West Gates serving Tracks 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14, and 17 from south (West 31 st Street) to north (West 33 rd Street). There was also one more stairway provided on the easterly side to access Tracks 18 and 19, with only an elevator in evidence to mark the presence of Tracks 20 and 21. Even more remarkable (or perhaps compressive) was the constricted vertical height within the entire Exit/Long Island Railroad Concourse, which was (and in part still is) just 8 feet! All exit stair sets from Track 1 to Track 17 were 21 feet long, served by two sets of 14 stairs each and positioned within, but parallel to, those intended for boarding passengers between the Main Concourse and platform level, a juxtaposition referred to as a clamshell which was applied elsewhere to that time at well-planned rapid transit and railway facilities. Every train platform, including Number 11 for L.I.R.R. Tracks 20 and 21, was also connected to the Exit Concourse through a 5- by 8-foot electric passenger elevator, located exactly between the East and West Gates (which the two northerly platforms did not have). At its north (West 33 rd Street) side, the Exit/Long Island Rail Road Concourse came to a wide, intersecting corridor. To the left (west) this led into a dead-end enclosure, which in a future time would connect with the Eighth Avenue Subway; to the right it continued eastward beneath 33 rd Street as a fully-enclosed, 45-foot wide passageway containing three stairways down to Tracks at about the midway point along its right-hand (south) wall. To the left (north) at the same location (which was actually mid-point of the terminal, beneath the center line of the Main Waiting The East Wind 36 Special Issue No. 1

37 Room) was the entrance to the lower level of the pedestrian tunnel leading toward West 34 th Street, which contained a 4 x 80-foot escalator to the left (installed by the Otis Elevator Co.) and a conventional set of 5-foot wide stairs to the right. These met with the single stairway rising from the Main Concourse level and all three conveyances were deposited through a simple, open kiosk to a private street of 15 feet in width that continued as far as the south sidewalk of West 34 th Street, midblock between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The original concourse under 33 rd Street was about 590 feet in overall length between its extremes shy of both Seventh and Eighth Avenues, but just 460 feet of this distance was actually in use, eastward from its point of intersection with the main Exit Concourse. At the far east (Seventh Avenue) end there was a passageway which then ended at a wall blocking further access to the stairs from the Main Concourse level to Tracks 18 and 19. These facilities later provided one of Penn Station s first means of expansion to meet the crush of demand that was instantly generated as well as its initial, direct subway connection a few years hence. In 1910, however, there were as yet no subway lines along Seventh or Eighth Avenues (or anywhere else nearby) to connect with, so the spaces beneath the terminal s northwest and northeast corners remained fallow. The Exit Concourse was an area installed mainly to serve as a place of orientation and debarkation for arriving passengers, while those bound for points on the Long Island Rail Road were minimally accommodated, strictly in a transient sense. As a result there was (again) no seating provided at the various track gateways, while those suburbanites who did require personal space (meaning those whose timing did not meet the L.I.R.R. s exacting schedules) were condensed into separate, squat Mens and Womens Waiting Rooms that were hidden through narrow passageways above Tracks 11 and 12. Each measured 120 long (exclusive of the restrooms attached at their north and south ends) by 57½ feet wide and was 10 feet in height, but held far fewer bench seats than their P.R.R. counterparts immediately above and had partitions that were notorious for creating cramped conditions almost instantly upon the terminal s opening. The twin level waiting rooms were also able to share electrical and plumbing facilities thanks to their positioning, while on the Men s side there was also a stairway between the upper and lower levels. Both L.I.R.R. waiting rooms were separated by a smallish ticketing and stationmasters office, all artificially illuminated by overhead sky-light glass panels that actually contained banks of electric bulbs. As for the remainder of its vast expanse, this lowest level of Penn Station was as yet open to the tracks and undeveloped. This began to change as soon as 1911 though, and one hundred years later the evolution of the Long Island Rail Road Concourse(s) remains an ongoing saga. PENNSYLVANIA STATION S HIDDEN FEATURES Cleverly concealed from those who the Pennsylvania Station was intended to serve was its extensive baggage sorting and mobility system, almost as much an integral part of railway operations as the locomotives and coaches themselves. Penn Station s baggage processing was to be conducted in a medium-sized lobby located immediately underneath the Seventh Avenue Arcade. Measuring 230 by 90 feet overall and set at the same 12-foot depth as the Main Waiting Room and carriageways, it was intended as the center of action for every piece of luggage and each shipment that passed through the facility, being filled with processing bins, racks and desks as well as several means for internal and external communication, most noticeably telephones. For movement around the terminal, the corps of baggage handlers most useful apparatus was a fleet of electric trucks which were controlled through a power lever and steering yoke by a perilously-balanced operator. These diminutive, bicycle-tired vehicles were made up of motors powered by a 25-volt battery underneath (as designed and built at the P.R.R. s Altoona Shops), and trailers with a lowered floor to expedite cargo movement. This collection also included a small number of specially-sized cars, slightly taller to haul mail bags or longer and reinforced for coffins. When loaded, they would be formed into electric baggage trains that would head from the main baggage lobby into a 30-foot wide relay corridor extending 450 feet under the sidewalk of Seventh Avenue. They were then to proceed around the base of Penn Station and west under West 31 st Street to the Eighth Avenue end, where they would turn north under the offices and the Eighth Avenue façade to reach the outbound Baggage Room. This part of the facility was equipped with eight 7- by 15-foot hydraulic elevators that would move baggage and/or freight to and from the platform level, one each serving Tracks 3 through 17 (no lifts were supplied for Tracks 1-2 or 18-21). To further expedite operations, hand-powered baggage carts were provided for the train platforms to assist the little electric motors in the movement of baggage and cargo along a given train consist, while transfers between platforms, when necessary, could be accomplished through the use of a connecting subway under all platforms connecting Tracks 1-18 that was also united with each of the baggage elevator shafts at the Eighth Avenue end. The consolidation of various tracks into the tunnels beneath West 32 nd and West 33 rd Streets forced inbound baggage elevators to be staggered about in conformance with the platforms. This constraint placed the lifts serving Tracks 3-4 and in the baggage conveyance corridor along the Seventh Avenue end, while around the edges of the main Baggage Room the elevators for Tracks 5-6 and 7-8 (Continued on page 46) The East Wind 37 Special Issue No. 1

38 The East Wind 38 Special Issue No. 1

39 Penn Station, Floor Plan 1: STREET LEVEL (circa 1910) Explanatory A B C1 C2 D E F G1 G2 H1 H2 I J K1 K2 L M N O1 O2 P1 P2 Seventh Avenue Main Entry. Seventh Avenue Foyer. Seventh Avenue Office Lobby-south. Seventh Avenue Office Lobby-north. Bank (accessed from Seventh Avenue). Stair up to Vault Room. Vault & Safe Deposit Room. Entry to 31 st Street Carriageway. Entry to 33 rd Street Carriageway. Service center for Dining Room. Service center for Lunch Room. Loggia. Grand Stairway down to Main Waiting Room (Alexander Cassatt statue in south alcove). West 31 st Street Main Entry & bridge over Carriageway. West 33 rd Street Main Entry & bridge over Carriageway. Back access from West 31 st Street to Dining Room. Stairways up to Nursery (right). Back access from West 33 rd Street to Lunch Room. Left stair up to Changing Rooms Right stair down to Barbershop & Bootblack. Main 31 st Street entry stairway. Main 33 rd Street entry stairway. Q1 Q2 R S T U V1 V2 W X Y1 Y2 Z AA BB Constants Secondary West 31 st Street Entry (to Main & Lower Concourse). Secondary West 33 rd Street Entry (to Main & Lower Concourse). West 31 st Street Vendor & Office Space-east (stairs up). West 31 st Street Office Lobby-west (stairs up). West 33 rd Street Office Lobby-west (stairs up). West 33 rd Street Office Lobby-east. Secondary 31 st Street Stairways (Left & Right to Main Concourse, Middle to Lower Concourse). Secondary 33 rd Street Stairways (Left & Right to Main Concourse, Middle to Lower Concourse). Eighth Avenue Main Entry. Eighth Avenue Main Stairways (Left & Right to Lower Concourse, Middle to Main Concourse). South Stairs from Eighth Avenue to Lower Concourse. North Stairs from Eighth Avenue to Lower Concourse. Eighth Avenue Office Lobby-south (stairs up). Eighth Avenue Office Lobby-north (stairs up). Outside stairs from West 33 rd Street down to Main Level (Tracks 18-21). v Seventh Avenue Arcade Vendor Establishments (8). e Passenger elevators (6). f Freight and baggage elevators (1). The East Wind 39 Special Issue No. 1

40 The East Wind 40 Special Issue No. 1

41 Penn Station, Floor Plan 2: MAIN LEVEL (circa 1910) Explanatory J O2 P1 P2 V1 V2 X Y1 Y2 BB CC DD EE FF GG Grand Stairway down to Main Waiting Room (Alexander Cassatt statue in south alcove). Stair from 33 rd Street Main Entry down to Barbershop & Bootblack. Main 31 st Street entry stairway. Main 33 rd Street entry stairway. Secondary 31 st Street Stairways (Left & Right to Main Concourse, Middle to Lower Concourse). Secondary 33 rd Street Stairways (Left & Right to Main Concourse, Middle to Lower Concourse). Eighth Avenue Main Stairways (Left & Right to Lower Concourse, Middle to Main Concourse). South Stairs from Eighth Avenue to Lower Concourse. North Stairs from Eighth Avenue to Lower Concourse. Outside stairs from West 33 rd Street down to Main Level (Tracks 18-21). Upper half, direct stairway from Main Level down to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). Lower half, direct stairway from Main Level down to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). Direct stairs from Main Level down to Tracks 20 & 21 (Platform 11). 33 rd Street Passageway, Main Level. Passageway from Main (upper) Level to 34 th Street Entry/exit kiosk. HH II1 II2 JJ (Upper) stairs from Main Level up to 34 th Street Entry/exit kiosk. Back stairs from Main Concourse down to Lower Concourse-north. Back stairs from Main Concourse down to Lower Concourse-south. West stairs from Main Level down to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). KK* Crew Locker Rooms (*-No Public Access). LL MM NN OO PP Stairway down from PRR Men s Waiting Room to LIRR Men s Waiting Room. Information, Telephones, Wire Services. Coach & Local Ticketing. Baggage & Pullman Services. Information, Railway Express Agency, Parcel Services. QQ1 Passage between Main Waiting Room and 31 st Street Carriageway. QQ2 Passage between Main Waiting Room and 33 rd Street Carriageway. UU VV Constants Escalator from Lower Level to 34 th Street Entry/exit kiosk. Stairs up from Lower Level to 34 th Street Entry/exit kiosk. e Passenger elevators (4). f Freight and baggage elevators (18). The East Wind 41 Special Issue No. 1

42 The East Wind 42 Special Issue No. 1

43 Penn Station, Floor Plan 3: LOWER LEVEL (circa 1910) Explanatory V1 V2 X Y1 Y2 CC DD EE HH II1 II2 JJ Secondary 31 st Street Stairway (to Lower Concourse). Secondary 33 rd Street Stairways (to Lower Concourse). Eighth Avenue Main Stairways (Left & Right to Lower Concourse, Middle to Main Concourse). South Stairs from Eighth Avenue to Lower Concourse. North Stairs from Eighth Avenue to Lower Concourse. Upper half, direct stairway from Main Level down to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). Lower half, direct stairway from Main Level down to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). Direct stairs from Main Level down to Tracks 20 & 21 (Platform 11). (Upper) stairs from Main Level up to 34 th Street Entry/exit kiosk. Back stairs from Main Concourse down to Lower Concourse-north. Back stairs from Main Concourse down to Lower Concourse-south. West stairs from Main Level down to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). LL RR SS Stairway down from PRR Men s Waiting Room to LIRR Men s Waiting Room. East stairs from Lower Level to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). 33 rd Street Passageway, Lower Level. TT1 Direct stairs down from Lower Level to Tracks 20 & 21 (Platform 11). TT2 Direct stairs down from Lower Level to Tracks 20 & 21 (Platform 11). TT3 Direct stairs down from Lower Level to Tracks 20 & 21 (Platform 11). UU VV Constants Escalator from Lower Level to 34 th Street Entry/exit kiosk. Stairs up from Lower Level to 34 th Street Entry/exit kiosk. e Passenger elevators (15). f Freight and baggage elevators (18). m Stairs from Main Level down to Platforms (18). The East Wind 43 Special Issue No. 1

44 The East Wind 44 Special Issue No. 1

45 Penn Station, Floor Plan 4: PLATFORM LEVEL (circa 1910) Explanatory DD EE JJ RR Lower half, direct stairway from Main Level down to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). Direct stairs from Main Level down to Tracks 20 & 21 (Platform 11). West stairs from Main Level down to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). East stairs from Lower Level to Tracks 18 & 19 (Platform 10). TT1 Direct stairs down from Lower Level to Tracks 20 & 21 (Platform 11). TT2 Direct stairs down from Lower Level to Tracks 20 & 21 (Platform 11). TT3 Direct stairs down from Lower Level to Tracks 20 & 21 (Platform 11). Constants e Passenger elevators (15). f Freight and baggage elevators (18). m Stairs from Main Level down to Platforms (18). l Stairs from Lower Level down to Platforms (18). The East Wind 45 Special Issue No. 1

46 were under the Dining Room; Tracks and were beneath the Lunch Room; and Tracks 9-10, and were at the back (Seventh Avenue end) of the Baggage Room itself. It should also be noted that there were two small portions of the main baggage handling area which were double-decked. One was a small room parallel to but apart from the Exit Concourse, located under the Railway Express Agency office and two levels beneath the Lunch Room. The other was a long mezzanine suspended underneath the main baggage room and above easterly end of Tracks 11 and 12, two floors below the Seventh Avenue Arcade. Today (2014) it survives in part as Penn Station s venerable Hilton Passageway. As Pennsylvania Station s construction concluded in mid-1910, that of the long-negotiated Post Office across Eighth Avenue was also well underway, but it would be more than three years before the Pennsylvania Mail Terminal facility truly came to be. One final gem contained in the basement of Penn Station (suspended between the Exit Concourse and the train platforms) was an internal messaging system of pneumatic tubes connecting the railroad s general, ticket and baggage offices, the telegraphers station and Tower A out toward Ninth Avenue, which housed the Dispatcher. A similar messaging system was placed around the Sunnyside Yard complex, but (obviously) was not connected to that at Penn Station. The East Wind 46 Special Issue No. 1

47 PART 4: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED MANHATTAN MEETS MAIN STREET (A Detailed Description of the Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal Project, As Built) THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD S NEW YORK EXTENSION The open wilderness of the New Jersey Meadows, at a point so very close to the incredible density of Manhattan, has remained the most enduring of characteristics on the Northeast Corridor between New York and Newark, even 180 years after the railroad was first established. That it served as a launching pad of sorts for the first (and still only) line from the west into the heart of the nation s largest city might therefore seem surprising to the casual observer, but to anyone with knowledge of how American railroads developed and (still) operate it might only seem customary. From their beginning, railroads were often and quite intentionally laid along the flattest terrain possible between origin and destination, this being necessitated by the physical requirements engendered through their kinetic mix of tonnage and momentum. As instinctive circumstance would often dictate, these level assemblages were hard against rivers, streams and other waterways which had managed to break through otherwise impenetrable natural barriers to clear-cut land navigation, and with so many American cities having otherwise developed as a basis for vessel-bound commerce along some sort of waterway, the railroads that courted them would often be located in what had been nearby tidal basins, swamps or bogs. The reasoning was both economic, as large amounts of such property could be obtained relatively cheaply, and operational as the massive needs of a large-scale railway would best be managed in a large, open area that was as close to its point of execution as possible. Manhattan and its surrounding natural swamps aside, other significant examples of this type of railway development were implemented, and largely still exist (to some degree) in such cities as Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans, while several other installations of this type have seen their original fringe lands made over by urban development so as to become unrecognizable. Harking back to the earliest operational plans for the New York Terminal in 1902, one of its widely-known characteristics was a need for motive power substitution through the underriver tunnels (that is, steam to electric and back), but there was initially a limited base of knowledge as to how this should be accomplished. The example witnessed by Alexander Cassatt at Paris Quai d Orsay station in 1901 was helpful, but not strictly applicable to the realities of American passenger railroading that then prevailed in terms of weight and speed capabilities, which in turn determined its scheduling parameters. In short, the Pennsylvania was hard-pressed to find a technology suitable to the high-speed movement (i.e. 45 miles an hour or faster) of trains that weighed hundreds of tons and operated at intervals of but a few minutes apart, particularly in that it was aimed at the nation s most concentrated point of demand. Again reviewing the real-world alternatives available in the early stages of the project, its most familiar model was the Baltimore & Ohio s Howard Street Tunnel, and so was made an initial running assumption that similar methods would be employed to make the projected New York Terminal work. To this was added the geography of the undertaking as it had developed: an east-west axis along the 32 nd Street corridor as dictated by proximity to the Long Island Rail Road s terminal in Queens and best available lands across the East River (again, these in part being an assortment of waterlogged flats); and an absolute requirement that the new railroad s run (that is, its longest, straightest segment as designed around its desired point of destination) be as long and grade-free as possible, just as any other well-designed railroad would have been. Altogether, the optimal projection of alignment called for the terminal s platforms to be placed on Manhattan s West Side (rather unfortunately, as things turned out), owing to the multiple-tube nature of its East River crossing and the very scientific calculation that underwater grades could not exceed 2% for the facility to be able to meet the operational constraints that the Pennsylvania Railroad would require, this despite the fact that the technology to make such a terminal an absolute success (as at that time only conceived) did not yet exist. When extrapolated across the North River from Manhattan, these specifications dictated that the tunnel s earliest and best available point of emergence would be on the North Bergen side of the Palisades. This was about 3 miles west of the terminal itself, the tunnel exit being deliberately engineered to occur behind Northern New Jersey s largest rock formation for continuity. From a construction standpoint this forced the division of tasks into two distinctive sub-projects, each employing its own tunneling method under the river and beneath its associated mountain barrier. The first was of a subaqueous nature and required the deployment of Great Head shields, extending approximately 1½ miles west of Penn Station to the Weehawken shore of the North (Hudson) River. The second was an equal distance of about 1½ miles, burrowed deep under the Palisades in more of a conventional blast and dig style which gradually rose to emerge from the natural hillside along the westerly embankment of Paterson Plank Road. The exact coordinates of this portal had to be carefully engineered so as to maintain a slow, steady upgrade from the bottom of the river crossing to the base of the hillside, and still be considerate of the existing, combined main lines of the Northern Railroad of New Jersey and the New York, Susquehanna & Western (both Erie holdings), over which the new Pennsylvania Railroad would pass while maintaining sufficient vertical clearances for their needs. The open and relatively level area in the immediate vicinity of emergence (west of the Erie overpass) was dubbed The East Wind 47 Special Issue No. 1

48 Bergen Hill, and under the 1902 operating plan was expected to contain a set of sidings and a reversing loop to provide for the addition and subtraction of electric motor units which would power trains through the New York Terminal area, more or less as was the existing practice in Baltimore s Howard Street Tunnel. After due consideration, it was determined that the projected maximum operating speed of 45 miles per hour which was to be provided through this scheme was insufficient to meet the formidable train tonnages and operating schedule requirements that the Pennsylvania Railroad desired, so in 1905 a much revised operating plan was adopted which called for greater operating speeds through the area (although no existing electric locomotive was as yet capable of generating such) and established a point of outright motive power change over five miles farther into the Hackensack (River) Meadows. This was opposed to adoption of the B. & O. s method, under which a given consist s idle steam locomotive would be pulled with its train through the New York Terminal to Sunnyside Yard and back. In the end it was this alteration in methodology which brought about the baseline locomotive specification for an attainable speed of 80 mph on level track and under a load of 500 tons, a requirement which George Gibbs and the Westinghouse Electric group ultimately met through the development of DD-odd and DD-1 locomotives by From Bergen Hill the Pennsylvania s new railroad curved steadily from a west to southwesterly heading and followed a straight-line survey across undeveloped swamp lands (again, in typical railroading style of the times) to the most immediate point of interception at the existing main line (that of the original New Jersey Rail Road Co.) between Jersey City, Newark and points beyond. The geographic profile of this new railroad incorporated two underlying and unquestioned assumptions which shaped both its relatively high vertical elevation and a reasonable installation cost. The first was that it would be used exclusively by the Pennsylvania Railroad as a means of reaching from the existing main line to the New York Terminal, and there would therefore be no interchange of any kind with existing, intersecting railroads, and the second was that it would be used solely by scheduled services from the system s farthest extremities, while the Exchange Place terminal would be maintained (and after a 1906 agreement supplemented by the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad) for servicing of the Pennsylvania s local ridership and the tenant through trains. This latter aspect made it possible to justify the use of but two tracks on the New Jersey side of the New York extension, as compared to the four employed on the Long Island side where the sharing of Manhattan facilities had been implicit from the start to engender maximum cooperation between the two railroads. In the latter half of the New York Terminal construction phase this second assumption was reconsidered by both Alexander Cassatt and successor James McCrea under great trepidation. As a result the West Side Yard portion of Pennsylvania Station was actually re-engineered by the time of its completion to provide for the future addition of two more tubes beneath the North River, and an ability to add two tracks alongside those of the Meadows Division. So far as is known, however, and certainly based on financial considerations if no other as time progressed, the execution of such an undertaking was never seriously put forward. Also along the Pennsylvania Railroad s extension as surveyed between Bergen Hill and its convergence with the existing alignment from Jersey City, there was (and really still is) little wayside development of any kind before its lengthy embankment was installed, though surrounding lands had been penetrated to varying degrees by six railroads in previous decades, along with one of Public Service Co. s trolley lines and various country roads. In fact, the only property on maps of that time shown as active was the Snake Hill Asylum (identified as a County Farm ), located within a prominent bend of the Hackensack River in Secaucus, and next to what would soon become the Portal swing bridge. The Snake Hill mental institution and Devils nickname of its latter-day professional hockey team notwithstanding (though the latter actually has a mystic, zoological origin), those vast New Jersey Meadows have long been renowned in legend as a hotbed of supernatural and possibly even demonic activity going back to early Colonial times, whether deserved or not. As late as the 1920 s, native Gerzé (a French Canadian term describing a breed of nomadic gypsies and pronounced Zher-zay) would meander as far away as Nova Scotia to peddle cheap house wares, tell fortunes and perform spiritual healing for a proverbial two bits. In 1906 though, superstition was of no interest to the Pennsy as it forged a pioneering, high-speed railroad through those same enchanted marshlands to physically join Manhattan with its version of Main Street, U.S.A. In such an open, untamed environment the process of identifying formal land ownership was often confusing and sometimes contentious. To approach this dilemma the Pennsylvania was forced to work many of the necessary property transactions through an Erie-operated subsidiary called the Newark Meadows Improvement Company in a manner similar to its wholly-owned Stuyvesant Real Estate concern in New York City. Nevertheless, its chances of achieving a fair and absolute closure in all acquisitions proved elusive, as some court-administered judgments relating to the long-completed project were rendered at least through 1917 and probably later. MANHATTAN TRANSFER DEFINED The labyrinth of trackage that became Manhattan Transfer occupied about ½ of a linear mile along the existing Jersey City main line, roughly between milepost marks 6.2 and 6.7 (per employee timetable) at the easterly end of Harrison. Originally shown as Kearny Junction which was actually the name of the existing interlocking at its projected location, The East Wind 48 Special Issue No. 1

49 the installation s design was completed by late 1905 after the revised New York Terminal operating plan was adopted. Other than an anonymous title of Engine Change Point the station didn t receive its official designation until the Pennsylvania s board of directors formally endorsed an otherwisecommonly-used moniker of uncertain origin at its meeting of September 19, 1910, as the facility was about to open for service. Not only was Manhattan Transfer to be used in its best remembered role as the secluded location for motive power change-outs and transfers between Pennsylvania Railroad and Hudson & Manhattan rapid transit trains, but it was also a critical maneuvering and staging point for the many switching freights that almost constantly worked various heavy industries located in Harrison (Crucible Steel and Worthington Hydraulic, for example) and plied the Center Street Branch over to Newark. During construction, its most prominent feature (and that most obvious to the public) was a long, curving and quite graceful viaduct of about one-third of a mile in length, which rose from the meadow floor on the south side of the Jersey City main line and was to eventually carry the 2-track New York Extension over all four of the Pennsy s existing main tracks and the adjacent, 4-track alignment of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (now NJ Transit s Morris & Essex Lines ). By the middle of 1910 significant track realignment had already occurred on the original main line while the New York-bound side of the station took shape quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Detour trackage was added south of the four pre-existing irons and used to get around construction of the a-building flyover, in turn permitting two of the original tracks to be partly or completely removed and thus provide space for the facility s Newark-bound platform. Entirely new approaches were fabricated at both ends of the station area as the project progressed, while overall some 6 running tracks, 2 gauntlets, 7 sidings, 11 crossovers and one double crossover were installed, being spread across an operating plane that was expanded from four to a total of eight tracks overall, two of which were to be assigned for future use by the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad. As repositioned after construction of the facility was complete, the passenger main lines had new freightdedicated running tracks on either side as they approached the Pennsylvania Tunnel & Terminal flyover from Jersey City, with the westbound (Track 4) cubby-holing beneath the divergent, Manhattan-bound mainline in company with the reconfigured and extended Center Street Branch, and Track 1 coming out of the newly-expanded right-of-way through Manhattan Transfer. Both then continued on the previous alignment toward Kearny interlocking and proceeded beneath the Passaic & Harsimus Cove line, which had even more substantial leads and escape switches added to encourage fluidity around busy Meadows Yard. As realigned the two freight tracks which entered the Manhattan Transfer complex from the Jersey City end were on either side of the two surviving passenger mains that on the south side being laid on entirely new right-of-way that passed under the Jersey City main line at the east end of Meadows Yard, and that on the north side occupying the previous alignment of Track 4 with the original Track 3 being eliminated entirely. The two elongated, rectangular platforms at Manhattan Transfer each measured 1,414½ feet in length (able to berth 17 cars, as were the two longest at Penn Station) and 28 feet in width, being separated by an intervening alignment of four tracks. They had absolutely no access from any point outside the railroad but were connected to each other by an attended underground passageway. Again in general practice (and with crossovers available for operational alternatives) the outer tracks through each platform were used by Pennsylvania Local trains that also passed through the station at Harrison and served Exchange Place, but not by its shuttles between Jersey City and Park Place in Newark, as the Centre Street Branch followed a separate alignment around the complex. Meanwhile, the inner tracks were the province of through trains to and from Pennsylvania Station in New York, which generally followed Tracks 2 and 3 through Harrison (as they still do in 2014). Beyond the east end of the New York-bound platform, companion twin sidings held DD electric locomotives waiting for the next trip to Penn Station and Sunnyside Yard, which would be switched into arriving trains after its original steam power had been cut away and was retired to Meadows Yard for servicing. In the opposite direction, similar sidings were located at the west end of the Newark-bound side and yielded various (but appropriate) types of steam locomotives for all outbound trains, from the lowliest Local to the greatest and most premium of Private Varnish as they strode for points near and far, any time of the day or night. In between, local freight jobs would duck and dodge a continuous stream of passenger trains through the well-thought-out complex (which was even provided with a built-in passing siding) all the while navigating between Newark, Harrison, Meadows Yard and (perhaps) the Passaic & Harsimus Cove line. As opened in late 1910 Manhattan Transfer had ample (and growing) provision for the H. & M. s rapid transit trains, but their operation was not to commence for several months more. Its looming presence complicated the track layout quite considerably, as the various line-ups granted by S Tower (east end, later renamed Hudson ) and N Tower at the west end had to factor in special requirements for third rail, gauntlet tracks to accommodate their narrow loading gauge at the outer platforms and dedicated tracks which reached both the Hudson & Manhattan s adjacent storage yard and its steel elevated structure toward Newark. ACROSS THE MEADOWS As they rose away from the platforms of Manhattan Transfer to pass over the Newark-bound side of the Jersey The East Wind 49 Special Issue No. 1

50 City main line, new Tracks 3 and 2 began a slow curl to the northeast and eventually assumed a level height of 32 feet above the tidal floor of the Meadows. Aside from the thenexotic presence of third rail, the first sight to be encountered as the journey to Manhattan began was the divergence of a long, non-electrified back door lead, eastward from Track 2 to the Center Street Branch as it made its way to Meadows Yard. The ramp then passed over the 4-track Delaware, Lackawanna & Western (née Morris & Essex ) main line, as it had been relocated in October 1863, at Milepost 7.8. After 1910, it would be 20 more years before the D., L. & W. was separately electrified to Montclair, Dover and Gladstone, though commuter service was then already being offered to these points, as well as all the way from Hoboken to the state line at Phillipsburg to go along with premium trains as far as Chicago by way of Scranton, Binghamton and Buffalo. After brushing past electrical Substation Number 2, the Pennsylvania began to pursue an almost completely straight line between mileposts 7.5 and 2.9, a distance measured from the geographic center of Pennsylvania Station midway between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in Manhattan. There the new main line came to the first of 14 steel bridges at milepost 7.03, which crossed above the Newark and Jersey City Turnpike (now County Road 508), a continuation of the same Newark Turnpike that had temporarily hosted the New Jersey Rail Road Company s track over the Palisades between 1834 and This of course was a much less challenging, if completely rural and wide open stretch of the road, consisting of two travel lanes paralleled by Public Service Railway Co. s 3- Newark Avenue trolley, which occupied a reserved right-ofway along its northerly edge (an easement for which still survives in 2014). Through time the Newark Turnpike grew in size and stature to four lanes, if not necessarily in development, with Public Service using its infamous all-service vehicles (a combination trackless trolley and motor bus) to supplant the fixed route streetcars in 1938, these in turn being converted outright to buses in In 2014 NJ Transit still serves the road with limited service bus route 43, one of its Northern Division lines in Hudson County. A short distance ahead of Newark Turnpike was the first of six overhead signal displays at 6970, a mileage-related coordinate that denoted a steel lattice frame across both tracks, on which were (then) fastened semaphores to indicate operating conditions. The next overpass, at milepost 6.86, carried the Tunnel & Terminal line over the Newark & Hudson Railroad, which originally dated from 1872 but by 1910 was the Newark Branch, an Erie property that connected Pavonia terminal with the Main Line in Clifton and Paterson by more or less following the west side of the Passaic River and had passenger trains as far as Waldwick until 1966, with the line being redirected into Hoboken after about Some of its remaining mileage survives for freight use in the present day, accessed via the former NJ Transit (née Norfolk Southern) Boonton Line, and is active at least as far as Clifton with service provided as part of the Conrail Shared Assets area. Next, at milepost 6.59 of the P.R.R, s New York Extension, came Belleville Turnpike (now State Highway 7 and County Road 506) which was another rural byway across the Meadows. That road still exhibits sparse development and largely serves as a by-pass for traffic out of Jersey City and environs that connects with communities in northern Essex County. There was no trolley on or parallel to this particular artery (although the Pennsylvania did provide an easement for one), but some time ago (perhaps 1923) a DeCamp bus line was begun that connected from the Journal Square Hudson & Manhattan station to Montclair (dubbed FD in its latter days) that lasted until around Next came signal bridge 6465, then the Pennsylvania s electric main line crossed above the Arlington Railroad at milepost This was another Erie holding which was then minor and is now a quite abandoned, connecting from the northward-oriented Newark & Hudson to the westward-facing New York & Greenwood Lake Railway. In its long ago life, this connection was used to avoid moves all the way into Jersey City when transmitting local traffic between those two Erie lines, and may not have survived very long past its 1960 merger with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western. An abbreviated mound of fill then gave way to the Portal swing bridge across the Hackensack River, which was (and is) plotted at exactly Milepost 6. Portal is one wayside fixture that hasn t changed much in its 100+ years of use, much to the occasional chagrin of Amtrak and NJ Transit officials, though plans for its replacement appear to be in the works as of Across the wide and fairly swift Hackensack, the Pennsylvania again made landfall in the community of Secaucus, which in 1910 was a borough of North Bergen Township. (Note: Though its original founding can be traced back as early as 1660, Secaucus was not formally incorporated until 1917). Signal bridge 5859 waited on the far side of the river, followed by a bridge over the former New York & Greenwood Lake Railway at milepost The New York & Greenwood Lake started operations in 1878, and by 1910 was yet another Erie acquisition that spanned about 50 miles from Jersey City to Sterling Forest in Orange County, New York with a short branch to the township of West Orange, New Jersey. It traveled via the northern edge of Newark and various communities in Essex and Passaic Counties such as Montclair, Great Notch, Mountain View, Wayne and Wanaque. After decades of steady operation the West Orange Branch was abandoned in 1955, while the balance of the route was consolidated with the Boonton Branch of New Jersey s Erie-Lackawanna (originally D., L. & W.) commuter service during 1963, through a union at Boonton Ave. in Wayne which formed a more contemporary version of the Boonton Line. This was part of a multi-faceted plan to release miles of ex-d., L. & W. right-ofway for re-use as Interstate 80 and eliminate street running on the ex-erie mainline through Downtown Passaic. In 2002, the surviving Boonton Line of NJ Transit (in part the Greenwood The East Wind 50 Special Issue No. 1

51 Lake Branch) was deactivated as a passenger line from Hoboken to Montclair, while the following four miles or so was integrated with the electrified Montclair Branch of the Morris & Essex lines, and its catenary so extended to create the present Montclair-Boonton line to Montclair State University. While the inner remnant of the Greenwood Lake Branch (east of Montclair) exists as a freight secondary within the Conrail Shared Assets area in 2014 and is operated by Norfolk Southern, the outward mileage beyond its 1963 union with the Boonton Line at Wayne has in most recent times been known as the Pompton Industrial Track and reached no farther than Pompton Jct. for several decades (where it joins the New York, Susquehanna & Western). After the New York & Greenwood Lake overpass, next in sight on the Tunnel & Terminal line came Signal Bridge 5051, followed at milepost 4.95 by a bridge across the 4-track Boonton Branch of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, which dated back to In 1910 the Secaucus passenger station, coach yard and roundhouse, all situated at the nearby New County Avenue crossing, were within easy view, while the Boonton Branch, as it was then known, occupied what is now NJ Transit s Main Line commuter rail corridor as far as Paterson Jct. (off Broad Street, next to the Garden State Parkway). It then followed the present-day alignments of NJ State Highway 19 and Interstate 80, looping behind Garrett Mountain and crossing the Passaic River near Laurel Grove Cemetery in Totowa, from there to continue west as far as Denville, where it merged with the D., L. & W. mainline toward Dover, Netcong, Phillipsburg, Scranton and points west. En route it crossed the Erie s New York & Greenwood Lake route just south of that line s original station at Wayne, and that was where the two lines were tied together in As indicated above, the original Boonton Branch was then abandoned from Union Blvd. in Totowa to Paterson Jct. to make way for construction of the new Interstate, and the former Erie Main Line commuter operation then shifted to occupy the Lackawanna s former Boonton Branch from Bergen Jct. to Paterson Jct. with a short, added connection to Straight Street in central Paterson. This swap enabled abandonment of the original grade-level Erie main line through Downtown Passaic between Clifton Avenue and Carlton Hill (including the Passaic River Bridge), and it was removed as a safety enhancement measure. As such, the former Lackawanna Boonton Branch that passed beneath the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1910 continued to operate until 2002 as the (Erie) Main Line, with trains running between Hoboken and Port Jervis, New York as well as points between in Passaic and Bergen Counties in New Jersey, and Rockland and Orange Counties in New York State. In September 2003 the intersection of the (by then) Northeast Corridor and NJ Transit Main Line became the site of Secaucus Transfer alternatively known as Secaucus Junction or the Frank R. Lautenburg Transportation Center. One result of this was expansion of the former Pennsylvania Tunnel & Terminal right-of-way from two tracks to three through the station area, where substantial high-level platforms were installed. Another related project was the creation of a short cut-off that enabled NJ Transit s (ex-erie) Bergen County Line to access the new station by merging with the original Lackawanna alignment through the meadowlands, thereby surrendering its own trackage through Secaucus for freight operations. The upper level at Secaucus Junction station serves Amtrak trains passing between New York and Newark, and is also used by NJ Transit s Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast and Midtown Direct services. Non-electric NJ Transit trains pause at the two platforms downstairs while traveling between Hoboken and outward points on the former Erie- Lackawanna Main and Bergen County Lines as well as the current-day Pascack Valley Line, with connection between the two levels achieved via a common mezzanine on the upper level. This has made for a 21 st century New York area commuter rail curiosity passengers changing trains at Secaucus Junction by going up one level to go down two and vice versa. Next, at milepost 4.76, the Pennsy crossed above the real Erie Main Line in 1910, and then otherwise known as the Penhorn Creek Railroad, an affiliate which charged its way across the New Jersey meadows as the Erie began its final approach to Jersey City and the banks of the Hudson River. The actual sections that were bridged by the new main line to Pennsylvania Station had two closely related histories; the first, or southernmost, right-of-way being the original 2-track passenger main line that originated as part of the Paterson & Hudson River Rail Road back in 1833, the same operation that had shared the Paulus Hook terminal with the old New Jersey Rail Road Co. between 1834 and Immediately adjacent to that at milepost 4.71 was a longer overpass, with an equally enlarged easement, at the northerly end of the Erie s Croxton Yard. This was part of the Erie s expansion that created not only this large freight and engine servicing facility, but improved access to its Pavonia terminal and also the present Bergen County Line, which was designed as a cut-off to expedite freight operations around populous areas from Rutherford to Paterson. It appears from older maps that a small part of the original Erie main line from County Road to Bergen Junction was at least temporarily abandoned following construction of the new survey by 1881, but as of 1908 and certainly by 1910 it was again active, probably as an alternative to reach the so-called Bergen Arches. This was an allpassenger alignment to Pavonia terminal that was discontinued in December 1958 as part of the phase-out of the Erie s independent terminal in Jersey City. After commuter rail service on the former Erie Main Line was shifted to the ex-lackawanna Boonton Branch in 1963, entirely separate passenger service was (and still is) maintained on the current Bergen County Line from Hoboken to Ridgewood, New Jersey via the suburban communities of The East Wind 51 Special Issue No. 1

52 Rutherford (beyond which commuter trains were retained on a remnant of the Main Line as far as Carlton Hill until 1966) and Fair Lawn, with trains generally continuing beyond to Waldwick, New Jersey or Suffern, New York. In the meanwhile, the Erie s Croxton Yard has withstood the long-term whims of corporate change in the railroad industry rather well and is still very much active in For years it was the New York area touchstone of Conrail s surviving operations on the Southern Tier, corridor along the former Erie to Buffalo, and is presently serving as a major intermodal terminal for Norfolk Southern s voluminous services along the former Lehigh, Reading and Pennsylvania mainlines between Northern New Jersey and the Midwest. In more of a contemporary context if not a point of irony, Croxton Yard basically serves as the present-day terminal for what was once a big part of the Pennsylvania Railroad s freight operations into Greater New York. As indicated above the Bergen County Line was slightly redirected through the Secaucus Junction in 2003, with trackage from the Meadowlands Parkway (former site of the Harmon Cove-Secaucus NJ Transit station) to Bergen Junction being surrendered to Norfolk Southern for freight operations through Croxton Yard and access to the former New York & Greenwood Lake (née Boonton) line. Beyond Croxton Yard the Pennsylvania s tunnel line passed above New County Road at milepost 4.61, which was just a humble, narrow (and probably rutted) country road in Sometime after 1923, presumably following some upgrading, this thoroughfare began to host a motor bus service from the Journal Square Hudson & Manhattan station to the Harmon Cove area of Secaucus, which survives in 2014 as NJ Transit Route 2 (formerly H2), another of the Northern Division lines in Hudson County. Following that on the P.R.R. was signal bridge 4445, then in quick succession came the overpasses of the north branch and sluice channels of Penhorn Creek at milepost 4.18; Milepost 4; the bridge over Secaucus Road at milepost 3.82; the boundary of North Bergen Township at milepost 3.78; the bridge across the main body of Penhorn Creek at milepost 3.75; signal bridge 3738; and finally, Substation Number 3 on the right (easterly) side of the tracks. All of these seemed compressed to the eye as the Tunnel & Terminal main line quickly approached a gentle descent and pronounced swivel to the east where it would face the Palisades. This imposing mass was at that point obscuring any view of the Manhattan skyline, which even in 1910 had a commanding presence. Rounding the long, somewhat blind curve at Bergen Hill, the Pennsylvania s electric main line was guarded by wayside block semaphores 34 and 32 (the westbound side had semaphore 31 right at the tunnel mouth), and crossed above the combined New York, Susquehanna & Western and Erie (originally Northern) rights-of-way at milepost By 1910 the New York, Susquehanna & Western was one of the many Erie-controlled or owned lines that was meandering through Northern New Jersey and Downstate New York, this particular alignment having been created in 1872 as part of its own extension from Hackensack to the Pavonia terminal (earlier it had used the original Paterson & Hudson River to join the Pennsylvania s alignment at Marion Jct.). At its outward end, the N.Y., S. & W. stretched as far as Middletown, N.Y. where it hooked into the Erie, but the line s passenger service eventually shifted its alliance from the Erie to the New York, Ontario & Western in 1940, and its trains then ran to Monticello, New York until 1957 when the latter concern failed. In time the Suzy Q managed to be reconstituted as a freight carrier which ironically salvaged some threadbare Erie-Lackawanna operations starting in 1980, and in 2014 is still a regional freight hauler that reaches Utica and Syracuse, New York with connections to CSX. The Northern Railroad of New Jersey, which narrowly abutted the N.Y., S. & W. as it passed under the Pennsylvania s Tunnel & Terminal line, was another Erie holding that originated in 1859, and by 1910 was maintaining a fairly robust passenger trade between the Pavonia terminal in Jersey City and suburban Nyack in Rockland County, New York. Its commuter trains then hung on through the Erie-Lackawanna merger until 1966, when they were discontinued and the line retained only for local freight operations. After Conrail came to be in 1976 the line fell on some hard times and was relegated to secondary status for many years. By the latter company s dissolution in 1999, the State of New Jersey s overall thrust to expand the Hudson- Bergen Light Rail operation brought about significant upgrading to the Northern s alignment and it was used as a replacement for the southerly portion of the River Line (originally the New York, West Shore & Buffalo). As a result the Northern now handles just about all of CSX s main line freight traffic through North Bergen Yard, which is a very active relay point between the former River Line (now identified as CSX Bergen Subdivision) and its operations through the (Conrail) North Jersey Shared Assets area to Philadelphia and beyond. Notable in this transformation was a massive reconstruction at the old Marion Junction, which by 2000 saw its entire geographic orientation physically reversed from an east-to-north to a west-to-north alignment, through the addition of a short but beefy steel trestle constructed under a state-sponsored project dubbed The Northern Connection. With their downward pitch noticeably accelerating 200 yards past the N.Y.S. & W. and Erie overpasses, both Pennsylvania Railroad tracks then dove into their sculpted portals and entered the Bergen Hill Tunnels beneath the Palisades, the same ones that had taken so hazardously long to dynamite. UNDER THE HUDSON The Pennsylvania s passage into the North River tubes was marked by one of the most noteworthy and finely detailed stone façades in North American railroading, a work of accomplishment unto itself that truly capped the six years of hard labor and magnificent engineering contained within. The East Wind 52 Special Issue No. 1

53 The perfectly circular twin bores presented themselves as low, almost restrained orificae as the Pennsy abruptly submerged beneath the grander natural face of the Palisades, each one surrounded by a circle of cut stone with the ever-present keystone on top. Above that, if time at such speed permitted one s gaze to wander toward Paterson Plank Road, was an equally well done block house containing ventilation and pump equipment, its facing only slightly less elaborate than the portal façade itself. This edifice had three built-in, 60- piece arch windows about ten feet high, which alluded quite well to what the eyes would experience at Pennsylvania Station. The portals were also defended by a set of tell-tales (hanging chains) above each track to warn any wayward personnel who might be standing on a train s roof of the portal ahead, and were surrounded on both sides by rising bench walls. These were a construction innovation then unique to the Penn Tunnels, which consisted of concrete floor-level walkways that lined both sides of each tunnel and were intended for use by track and maintenance personnel, as well as during emergency evacuations. As they originated from the point where ground-level right-of-way changed to the start of excavated construction, a common platform of sorts was created between the two portals but was never intended to be a passenger station (as one might judge by its appearance). The tunnels under the Palisades were thickly lined with concrete that had been poured in tubular fashion, and without prior knowledge of their whereabouts were difficult to discern from the actual underwater tubes. To the practiced eye (as best as could be judged through the dim, alternating stabs of incandescent light) were visible a series of cross-passages which ranged the length of the tunnel, and emergency telephones at fixed intervals. Also rushing upon the Engineer s cab as trains passed beneath the Hudson River were subway style threecolor block signals (green-yellow-red), which were equipped with pneumatic trip arms at distant indications from interlocking points and other key locations. This implies that the DD-1 s were also equipped with pneumatic trip valves that would place a unit in emergency should it pass one of these signals as it indicated red ( stop ). From Milepost 3, which was located directly under Paterson Plank Road where the Tunnel & Terminal line entered the earth, the Bergen Hill Tunnels pursued a straight, downward slope of 100 feet across the next 1¼ miles, much of the way granting a maximum allowable speed of 35 mph. En route they passed anonymously beneath 12 streets in North Bergen, West Hoboken and Weehawken, with Milepost 2 located approximately 215 feet under Gregory Ave. The last of the roads passing far above the Bergen Hill Tunnel was the Weehawken Branch of the Hackensack Plank Road (which adorned the easterly slope of the Palisades, across the river from Manhattan), with the line working its way from there underneath the Erie s Stock Yards before briefly entering the boxy Weehawken Shaft, which was located about 80 feet below the west bank of the Hudson at milepost 1.8 and partitioned around each track. Next to that on the surface was the Erie s Weehawken Yard, where a few freight cars had been accidentally undermined during tunnel construction in 1905, and at the river s edge came the Erie s Pier 4 warehouse, which rested on piles driven to a depth of about 125 feet that the Pennsylvania s contractor (O Rourke) had the devil s time cutting away from the projected pathways of the Great Head shielding devices. The actual North River tubes started at about milepost 1.55, at which point each right-of-way again became the equivalent of a tremendous concrete-lined pipe, but this time with bench walls that were noticeably fitted with low niches underneath, which personnel could use to evacuate the track, or encircle and inspect a potentially defective piece of rolling stock in the event of its disability. The tunnels bottomed out at milepost 1.21, some 150 feet below the nominal track level across the New Jersey meadows (or 118 feet downgrade from true ground level inside the Bergen Hill tunnel), and was appropriately located at the New York State line under the middle of the Hudson River. Legend has it that a plaque was installed at that spot to commemorate the construction and accomplishment of the Pennsylvania s New York Terminal (it may still be there in 2014), but if so it would be just a faint wayside blur on a typical ride. By the time a train reached Milepost 1 it was powered up for the climb to Manhattan and had already risen about 12 feet off the bed of the Hudson River. The tunnels passed into the City of New York some 100 feet below the 32 nd Street Pier, the same one used by the Pennsylvania during terminal construction to load its spoils, then gradually ascended toward the terminal as train momentum began to slow and a pinpoint of brightness marked a re-emergence to daylight in the distance. INTO PENNSYLVANIA STATION, NEW YORK The Tunnel & Terminal main line entered the West Side s Chelsea district as it passed under Twelfth Avenue at milepost 0.76, its depth at 80 feet, then continued under Eleventh Avenue at milepost 0.59 (its depth at 65 feet) to finally reach the partitioned Manhattan shafts on which work had started back in The sky was visible above as the tunnel tracks crossed beneath Tenth Avenue at milepost 0.42, its depth at 40 feet, and trains emerged into the terminal s vast, concretelined canyon on the former center line of West 32 nd Street, where the two main tracks from the North River tubes immediately fanned out to six across. Storage yard A, consisting of five tracks, was to the right (geographic south) and yard B, with four tracks to the left (geographic north), for a total of 15 irons across the excavation between Tenth and Ninth Avenues. All yard tracks in the terminal were stub-ended (a state referred to as blocked ) and equipped with third rail. The original construction of the new Pennsylvania Mail Terminal was visible, but obscured by the I.R.T. elevated line as Ninth Avenue crossed above the west end terminal trackage at milepost 0.25, where the nominal depth was again exaggerated by 30 feet of street elevation above the artificial baseline The East Wind 53 Special Issue No. 1

54 to reach 62 feet overall. At this point all trains approach speeds were cut to just 15 miles per hour, as also was begun the lengthy and complicated interlocking controlled by Tower (Cabin) A, located at milepost 0.22, which saw the main leads fan across to all 21 terminal tracks by the time they reached Eighth Avenue. Between Ninth and Eighth Avenues, under a future expansion of the post office, was layover yard C to the north, consisting of nine tracks, and yard D to the south, which was made up of four sidings between the south lead of the Tower A interlocking and the two tracks, with a small high platform between, that were to be dedicated to Post Office needs. Layover yard E was also present, being positioned on the far southerly side of the excavation beyond the dedicated mail facilities and consisting of six tracks which all funneled into Track 1 of the terminal itself. The two leads that were directly in line with the emergence of main tracks 2 and 3 from the North River tunnels were still centered on the former alignment of West 32 nd Street as they passed underneath the middle of Tower A, and with a high-level platform between them continued into Pennsylvania Station as Tracks 11 and 12. Tower A was essentially a large steel gondola that hung overhead just east of Ninth Avenue, its interlocking being a tight group of four diamond crossovers and about a dozen ladder tracks plus their innumerable, associated slip switches, which fed into the terminal platforms. Its most notable trait (from a general point of view) was the employment of a very unusual overhead third rail system, supported on a large and extremely heavy steel frame to assure electric power for the DD-1 s and terminal switchers as they navigated the special work. This unusual installation was based on the electric system that had been put in place through the Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore when electrified in 1895 (and was later replaced by a conventional third rail). It was made necessary by the many tightly-spaced switches and leads on the westerly throat at Pennsylvania Station, which were such that it was impossible to place ground level third rail in the lengths required to avoid gapping a lone electric locomotive. The overhead third rail through Tower A Interlocking also reflected a company desire to minimize the inevitable and potentially dangerous arcing that such a complex would create, and required that all electric locomotives working in Penn Station be equipped with a small current collection device on the roof. As seen in photos, this looked like a small pantograph. As the line passed under and around Tower A itself, the terminal s west throat had spread to eight tracks which could be accessed off the end of Platforms 5 and 7 (that is, from Tracks 9 & 10 and 13 & 14). By the time trains reached Eighth Avenue at milepost 0.08 (a total depth of 57 feet) the eight terminal leads that surrounded Tower A had spread to Penn Station s 21 tracks across, but by that point as well only nine of the eleven intervening platforms were aligned between Tracks 1 and 18 (south to north), which finalized the facilities required for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The northernmost lead from the Tower A interlocking (still designated Track 3 as extended from the North River tube) continued to divide immediately beneath Eighth Avenue through another set of crossovers and slip switches, which fanned into Tracks and was designated KN. These were overseen by the underground tower so named, positioned off the west end of Platform 11 (serving Tracks 20 & 21), between the extreme east end of main Track 3 and the westward extension of Track 21 into Yard C. KN Tower (at least in theory, and manpower) was a Long Island Rail Road installation that was responsible for expeditiously moving deadhead commuter trains into and out of adjoining Yards B and C, but was still subordinate to Tower A, meaning all but terminating moves (that is, the ones not going to the block ) had to be made with its authorization. In earlier layout plans for the New York Terminal what opened as KN Tower was actually shown as Tower B, which would have been a Pennsylvania designation. By the time of opening in 1910 the four control points contained within Pennsylvania Station (originally A, B, C and D ) were divided to two for each company, with those assigned to the Long Island Rail Road then receiving appropriate alpha codes (better known as call letters ). In turn these had begun widespread application during 1907 when the L.I.R.R. superseded its traditional system of sequentially numbered towers and block stations. At any rate, being dedicated to use by commuter trains and accessed from the northerly yards stretching to Ninth and Tenth Avenues, Long Island Rail Road Platforms 10 (Tracks 18 & 19) and 11 (Tracks 20 & 21) were squeezed of necessity into the remaining basement space the terminal occupied as far as Seventh Avenue, resulting in their abbreviated length and overall misalignment with Pennsylvania Station s other nine platform areas. In terms of a general layout (which in many ways still applies in 2014), Pennsylvania Station contained a total of 21 tracks and eleven passenger platforms. As originally conceived in 1902 these protected loading areas were to be lowlevel, a then-standard height of nine inches off the rail head, but after an appreciation of its more demanding practicalities came into play the terminal s layout was modified to include full-size high-level platforms throughout. Tracks 1-4 stubended at bumping blocks along the south side of the terminal, and were used for Pennsy local trains from the New Jersey side that were terminating their trips in New York. All were divided by Platforms 1 (which was partly beneath West 31 st Street) and 2, both measuring about 768 feet (9 cars) in length and 31 feet in width, with a train-level cross passage at the Seventh Avenue end. The West 31 st Street edifice of Pennsylvania Station itself was strung along Platform 2, but through a well-designed steel skeleton which transferred most of that burden to the adjacent concrete box of a foundation, there was little in extra structure to notice thereof. Track 5 continued through Platform 3, which held 11 cars and measured 892 by The East Wind 54 Special Issue No. 1

55 31 feet. It was divided at its easterly end to merge into the stub of Track 4, presumably for baggage and express motor storage, while also proceeding into the tunnel beneath West 32 nd Street that headed toward the East River tubes. Track 6 also passed through Platform 3 as it came out of the Number 2 main via Tower A interlocking, but at its east end was aligned solely for the West 32 nd Street tunnel. Similarly, crossovers of the Tower A interlocking all fed into station Tracks 7 through 10 one way or another, each of which were served by Platforms 4 (Tracks 7 & 8, measuring 1,138 by 29 feet to berth 14 cars) and 5 (Tracks 9 & 10, measuring 1,414½ by 31 feet for 17 cars), then continued into the tunnel under West 32 nd Street. The two main tracks from New Jersey (2 and 3) were transformed into terminal irons 11 and 12 as they passed through Tower A interlocking and were served by Platform 6 (dimensions of 1,414½ by 26 feet to hold 17 cars) on their way to the West 32 nd Street tunnel, while Track 13 originated off a slip switch at its west end and passed through one side of Platform 7 (sized at 1,414½ by 29 feet for 17 cars) as it also was gathered into the tunnel beneath West 32 nd Street. Track 14 came out of the Tower A interlocking and was also serviced from Platform 7, but in contrast to its neighbor was able to access either of the two tunnels (West 32 nd or West 33 rd Streets) on its way to the East River tubes. The same was true for Tracks 15 and 16, which were stationed around Platform 8 (measured at 14 car lengths, or 1,168 by 31 feet), and Track 17 which passed through one side of Platform 9 (measured at 1,045 by 26 feet to hold 13 cars). Given the straightforward pass-through configuration in which they were engineered, all twelve tracks between 5 and 16 were available for use by Pennsylvania Railroad trains (as governed by the Train Director in Tower A), while Tracks 11 and higher could also be used to berth trains from the Long Island Rail Road as they emerged from either tunnel out of the East River tubes. To provide greater operational flexibility with the Long Island Rail Road clustered on the north side of the facility, Tracks 18 to 21 were separately accessed off the Tower A lead at the west end through KN interlocking, as explained above, but Track 18 was distinctive in that it could be serviced by either Platform 9 or Platform 10 and then headed exclusively into the tunnel beneath West 33 rd Street. Platform 10 was also unique in size (800 feet, or 10 cars long by 51 feet across at its widest point) as its connivance not only incorporated running space for switch leads into Yard C at its west end, but absolute structural support for the West 33 rd Street edifice of the terminal building above. Track 19 then shared the unusual Platform 10 with Track 18 as it passed from KN to the tunnel beneath West 33 rd Street, while the final pair of terminal irons, 20 and 21, stretched between the same two points but were served by the more conventionally-sized Platform 11 (also sized to berth 10 cars at 800 by 31 feet). This side of the terminal possessed other unique physical characteristics in that it was situated completely under West 33 rd Street and therefore accessible only through the subterranean passageways off the upper and lower levels of the Main Concourse. PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD S MILEPOST ZERO, NEW YORK CITY, AS DEFINED IN 1910 AND 2014 As remains the case in 2014, Milepost 0.0 of the Pennsylvania Railroad s New York Extension was situated midway between Seventh and Eighth Avenues when it opened in 1910, literally centered on the platform trackage at Penn Station. Back in the beginning, there was no lower level floor above this precisely-calculated and very important location; it was actually situated beneath the building s (steam) pipe plant. Directly above that on the main floor (which might now be considered the upper level ) was the north-south center line of the majestic Main Waiting Room. This was marked at each end by the main entries from West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets, and at that point also extended vertically to the terminal s highest point in the 135-foot tall, Roman-inspired groin arch, located directly between the six corresponding 68-foot radius lunette windows which relayed natural daylight to the inside of the building. In 2014 it is still possible to make the same extrapolation, but with much different results. The location of Milepost 0.0 itself (which is not physically marked) can be found about midway along the same Platform 11 that has served Long Island Rail Road Tracks 20 and 21 since the terminal s opening, practically right next to a set of stairs that ascends to the 33 rd Street Connecting Concourse in the current Penn Station s lower level. Upon climbing said stairway one witnesses a long row of built-in eateries along the north wall with but one exception, that being a pedestrian portal marked One Penn Plaza. Well to the right of this private egress, next to the K-Mart at the present Soleman Shoe Repair shop, was the location where George Gibbs hard-fought passageway to 34 th Street departed the Exit (and L.I.R.R.) concourse level in the terminal s original state. It was in use until 1952, then removed by the late 1960 s to make way for the current office tower constructed on the same property, that appended by the Pennsylvania Railroad to the original terminal site during its latter stages of development. The temporary street-level kiosk at 34 th Street was rarely photographed; it managed to exist in relative anonymity for 25 years, during which it s only known public appearance was on page 63 of the P.R.R. s selfpublished 1912 history of the Pennsylvania Tunnel & Terminal project. The structure was ultimately subsumed by a direct passageway between Penn Station and New York s original Greyhound Bus terminal, which opened on the same plot of land in 1935, just before buses of the New York City Omnibus Corp. replaced the trolleys. Back on the lower level of today s Penn Station, almost directly across the 33 rd Street Concourse from the One Penn Plaza exit is the relatively new (1999) Central Concourse, a relief passageway whose easterly (Seventh Avenue) wall virtually straddles Milepost 0.0 The East Wind 55 Special Issue No. 1

56 Timetable 1: PRR New York Division Main Line as of August 1910 ( New York Extension Location Listing, Pennsylvania Station to Manhattan Transfer) MP Name Tracks Type Site Notes 0 PENN STATION 1 thru 21 (21) Terminal New York PRR Term.-11/27/1910; LIRR Term.-9/8/ Eighth Avenue 1 thru 21 (21) Cross street W. 8 Ave. West End of Penn Station 0.1 KN 18 thru 21 (4) Interlocking W 33 rd St. W. End of Penn Station (Tracks 8-21)-11/27/ A 8 thru 15 (8) Interlocking PSTD-9 Ave. West End of Penn Station, Yards C D & E; Postal Terminal 0.2 Ninth Avenue 9 thru 14 (6) Cross street W Ave. West End of Penn Station (Tracks 9-14) 0.4 Tenth Avenue 9 thru 14 (6) Cross street W Ave. West leads, Penn Station; Yards A & B 0.5 Eleventh Avenue 3-2 (2) Shafts W Ave. Manhattan Shaft; Begin North River Tubes 0.7 Twelfth Avenue 3-2 (2) River Tube W Ave. North River Tubes 1.5 West bank, 3-2 (2) River Tube Weehawken, NJ North River Tubes Hudson River 1.8 Weehawken 3-2 (2) Shafts Weehawken, NJ New Jersey Shaft; End North River Tubes; Begin Bergen Hill Tunnels 2.0 Gregory Ave. 3-2 (2) Cross street Weehawken Bergen Hill Tunnels 3.0 Paterson Plank Rd. 3-2 (2) Cross street North Bergen Bergen Hill Tunnels 3.0 Bergen Portal 3-2 (2) Portal Tonnelle Ave. End Bergen Hill Tunnels 3.1 Erie & NYSW RR 3-2 (2) RR overpass (CSX, NYSW) Northern RR Pavonia-Nyack; NYSW Exchange Place- Middletown 4.7 Croxton Yard 3-2 (2) RR overpass (CSAO-NS) Erie RR Croxton Freight Yard 4.7 Erie Main Line 3-2 (2) RR overpass (NJT Bergen Cnty.) Erie RR Main Line Pavonia-Buffalo 4.9 Boonton Branch 3-2 (2) RR overpass (NJT Main Line) D L & W Boonton Branch Hoboken-Denville 5.6 NY & Greenwd Lk. 3-2 (2) RR overpass (NJT Boonton Line) New York & Greenwood Lake (Erie) Pavonia-Sterling Forest, NY & West Orange, NJ 6.0 Portal 3-2 (2) Swing Bridge Hackensack River "PORTAL" Swing Bridge (Amtrak) 6.2 Arlington RR 3-2 (2) RR overpass Erie Lead Conn. Newark & Hudson and NY & Greenwood Lake (abandoned ca. 1960) 6.8 Newark & Hudson 3-2 (2) RR overpass Erie Lead Erie Pavonia-Clifton & Paterson NJ (abandoned ca. 1956) 7.8 Morris & Essex 3-2 (2) RR overpass (NJT M & E) D L & W Hoboken-Montclair, Gladstone & Dover and Scranton, Binghamton & Buffalo [8.6 S Tower 3-2 (2) Interlocking ( HUDSON ) East End Manhattan Transfer 6.2] 11/27/ Manhattan (4) Station Kearny Jct. Formerly Kearny Interlocking; Transfer Connection, Transfer to Jersey City Branch; Future Hudson & Manhattan RR to Park Place Format 2014 railroad and designation across the terminal, as it links the north (33 rd Street) and south ( Hilton ) passageways which help to provide the station s access to the Long Island Rail Road. Stairs moving to the upper level from the west end of the 33 rd Street Concourse (near the Eighth Avenue Subway entrance) lead to the present-day Amtrak (former Main) Concourse, where a left (easterly) turn along the northern perimeter (past the restrooms, T.G.I. Friday and the East Gate marked for Tracks 15 and 16) guides into another looselydefined passageway formed by the Acela Waiting Room, Riese s Restaurants (including a rare Tim Horton s) and Hudson Book Sellers. Beyond that (as of mid-2014) is Moe s Southwestern Grill, which sits two levels above the track at Milepost 0.0, but is itself depressed at the original 12 feet below street level and, incredible though it may seem, occupies the former site of the main stairway out to West 33 rd Street. Turning around and facing south, it is possible to eyeball the center line of Milepost 0.0 across the circular Amtrak rotunda (formerly the site of the once-formidable Main Waiting Room, and where once a Ford Tri-Motor was put on static display), past its intersection with the east-west center line that once signified West 32 nd Street. Matching the axis of Moe s Southwestern Grill on the south side of the present rotunda is the Amtrak Police Station and Penn Sushi, which also represents Milepost 0.0 and occupies the former location of the main stairway up to West 31 st Street. In a manner simi- The East Wind 56 Special Issue No. 1

57 lar to its predecessor, the Amtrak rotunda began life as the main ticket office of the new Penn Station, and contains a grand stairway that leads not to the Seventh Avenue Arcade, but rather to Penn Plaza Drive. This was the newer facility s taxiway, which replaced the earlier carriageways along West 31 st and 33 rd Streets and was embargoed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, The newer version of the stairway itself more or less retains the measurements of the original (approximately 40 feet by 40 feet), but is a complete replacement that opened with the rebuilt station in In actuality its floor positioning is a few feet to the east of the Grand Stairway of 1910, but its functions are imitated quite nicely, including the two escalators received by the original in Neither does its top step overlook much of a lofty, open space; the Amtrak rotunda s maximum height (as contained beneath the arena) is about 23 feet as compared to the terminal s former apex of 135. However, as an independent structure the circular edifice of Penn Station s oft-maligned successor, the new (as in 1968) Madison Square Garden does manage to reach a height of 125 feet above the same spot on the rotunda floor, 136 including its decorative rim. Outside, on either the West 33 rd or West 31 st Street sides of Penn Station, the external correspondence with Milepost 0.0 is just to the west of the former Penn Plaza Drive taxiway, and slices vertically through the Seventh Avenue End of the famed concert, show and sports venue. Specifically, this imaginary axis passes through MSG Gates A (West 31 st Street side) and D (West 33 rd Street side), then along the very back of its seating bowl. Its run then slices through the extreme tips of the Garden s brand-new (2013) Signature Level Suites and in front of the East Balcony, which overlooks one end of the arena s floor from a height of around 110 feet off the sidewalk outside. Recalling the 135-foot-high artificial heavens of Pennsylvania Station, the highest nearby seat inside Madison Square Garden is still about 25 feet short of the same, oncelofty point in the former ceiling of the Main Waiting Room. OVER TO LONG ISLAND CITY With the Pennsylvania Railroad s long-awaited and grandiose presentation to New York City completed, its Tunnel & Terminal project underwent a change of character as it progressed eastward to Long Island City. Abruptly, it was transformed from an elaborate system of elevations, tunnels, junctions and long, high platforms devoted to public use into a more utilitarian and service-oriented (if not mainly internal) series not only of tunnels but also interlockings, yards and sidings that provided terminal facilities for one of the nation s most important transportation companies and, almost incidentally, main line access for the most expansive commuter railroad in the nation, even at that time. It also opened the door for future expansion to the New York area s northerly reaches, New England and even Canada through a union with other pre-existing and long-established railroad companies. Departing Penn Station s platforms, P.R.R. Tracks 5 through 10 and 12 to 15 formed graceful arcs as they converged into the transition subway under West 32 nd Street, where they merged into Tracks 11 and 12. These two remained faithful all the way across the facility s laser-direct east-west center line, from the Hudson River tubes to the two southerly bores toward Queens. All 11 of these tracks congregated at JO Interlocking just east of Seventh Avenue, where they not only crossed all the way over each other into alignments with Track 2 (north) and 1 (south), respectively, but joined in between to form a siding beneath West 32 nd Street (known in more recent times as Kelly s ) that extended about ⅔ of the way to Sixth Avenue, which was at milepost While those 11 irons melded smoothly by design, Tracks 16 and 17 were mavericks from the Long Island Rail Road, so to speak, being designed to feed into the subway under West 33 rd Street, but alternatively appended to the Track 15 lead by a set of escape crossovers. In action, Queens-bound trains navigated through the assemblage of track at JO to reach main line Track 1 (corresponding to Tube D), or conversely were brought inbound via Track 2 (from Tube C) and fanned through the switch work at JO to reach any one of those same terminal irons between 5 and 17. JO Tower itself (denoted as Tower D in the terminal s original plans) was a squat structure located at milepost 0.08 (though its interlocking was actually spotted at 0.10), about 40 feet off the east end of Platform 6 (Tracks 11 and 12) and directly under the middle of Seventh Avenue where it intersected West 32 nd Street. When observed shortly after its opening, an eastward departure from one of Penn Station s platforms was begun with a lot of sharp rattling generated by the complex switching leads at JO. This was gradually followed by a rhythmic acceleration sequence as the train passed across a seemingly endless series of track joints. Along with this (at least near the head end, and then perhaps through an open window) came a perceptible, mechanically-punctuated whine being emitted by the electric locomotive as it glided downhill, picking up speed from 15 mph through JO Interlocking toward the East River tubes, where it would reach about 60 by the time it bottomed out under the water. As completed by United Engineering & Contracting, the 2-track subway that crossed Manhattan beneath West 32 nd Street offered little of curiosity to the eyes. It possessed none of the byzantine, riveted steel charm that could be witnessed in the early Interborough Subway, but rather consisted of a simple, concrete-lined box that contained three tracks (two mains and the middle siding) as far as Sixth Avenue, broken only by safety niches at several intervals. Continuing from that point, Tracks 1 and 2 entered their individual bores (leading into Tubes C and D) whose minimal illumination was broken only by scattered, bare incandescent bulbs and three-color block signals, though its track (then electrified only by third rail) was perfectly straight and level, again having no bumpy little hills or noisy curves as were commonplace on the I.R.T. The West 32 nd Street subway and The East Wind 57 Special Issue No. 1

58 adjacent tubes held fast to the terminal s prevailing depth of 57 feet all the way to Fifth Avenue (milepost 0.43), where the tunnels subaqueous descent began. From that point its progress closely mirrored that of the New Jersey side of the project, with grades of just under 2% on either side of the East River bottom, which was encountered about ¼-mile off the Long Island Rail Road s East 34 th Street ferry terminal. Factoring in the natural surface level machinations of Manhattan s East Side (mild hills and gullies as modified for development), the Pennsylvania s track passed 67 feet under Madison Avenue (milepost 0.54) and then 90 feet beneath the surface of Fourth Avenue (later Park Ave. South) at milepost There it was concurrently 70 feet under the 33 rd Street local station of the 6-year-old I.R.T. rapid transit subway. As the Pennsylvania steadily sloped downhill toward the East River, Manhattan s surface terrain also pitched riverward and at Lexington Avenue (milepost 0.77) there was 79 total feet in downward distance as the railroad passed beneath. The line s depth then measured 82 feet under Third Avenue (milepost 0.87); 88 feet beneath Second Avenue (Milepost 1); and, finally, 97 feet below the surface at First Avenue (milepost 1.11), where the subway portion ended and each track quickly passed through the Manhattan shafts of what had been built as East River tubes C and D, which then curved gently to the northeast as they shifted their aim toward Long Island City. In comparison to the tubes beneath the Hudson River, those heading to the Queens side were noticeably compact and a touch oval-shaped in profile; almost London-like in nature. Perhaps this should not be surprising given the English nature of their contractor (S. Pearson & Son), but in any case they formed an extremely tight confine of cement around the trains that passed through them, with similarly squeezed and slightly exaggerated bench walls on either side as well as the same incandescent lighting, emergency telephones and three-color block signals (with attendant trip arms in advance of home indications) as their opposite installations on the New Jersey side. Worthy of note in each of the four East River tubes were irregularities in the placement of safety niches beneath the tightly constricted bench walls, which may be reflective of the difficulties experienced during construction. At various points in each one these service openings were located only on one side of the tube or the other, while at others, in what seemed to be a random pattern, they appeared on both sides. The easterly under-river tubes started at milepost 1.22, where they passed under the 34 th Street Ferry terminal at a (true) depth of 95 feet, then bottomed out under the deepest portion of the river bed almost immediately at milepost That was only about one-third of the way across the water, where the tubes had reached a depth of exactly 100 feet beneath the surface. This mis-proportionality was perhaps an acknowledgement of the former, historic inlet known as Kip s Bay near the latter-day East 32 nd Street, which had been filled as part of the earlier development of Midtown during the latter half of the 19 th century. They then rose appreciably while proceeding east-northeastward, passing through the Long Island City shafts at Front St. (milepost 1.9), at a depth of 75 feet below the flat landscape surrounding the Long Island City terminal. West of Hunters Point Ave. at Milepost 2.55, Track 2 (inside Tube C) crossed above Track 3 (inside Tube B) to set the alignments for their emergence at two of the three portals, by which point the tunnels had ascended to an exaggerated depth of 45 feet. Tracks 1 and 3 (both eastbound) then burst back into the open air through joint portals B and D, a set of fairly deep and artistically enhanced porticos located on the south side of the right-of-way at milepost 2.7, between Hunters Point Avenue (where there was as yet no L.I.R.R. station) and the new freight overpass (otherwise known as the Montauk cut-off ) associated with the installation of Sunnyside Yard. The varied placement of the tunnels three portals was one result of latter-day modifications to the project s original design, which called for more digging in Long Island City to avoid the previously planned, simultaneous emergence of all four tracks near Thomson Ave., directly behind the Queens County Court House. THE END OF THE LINE: SUNNYSIDE YARD Main lines 1 and 3 finally came to level ground at about Nott (47 th ) Ave., and then passed beneath the new overpass at Thomson Ave. to enter the southerly half of F Interlocking (Milepost 3). This is where all Pennsylvania Railroad trains diverged from the outbound L.I.R.R. and into Sunnyside Yard (those bound for the Hell Gate Bridge and beyond would not appear for many more years), slowing underneath Diagonal St. (later Queens Blvd.) as they entered running tracks Loop 1 or Loop 2. Next they passed under the Honeywell St. overpass and alongside H (Harold) Tower before coming to the origin of yet a third running track ( Loop A ), with all three irons collectively descending beneath the 3-track eastbound main line of the Long Island Rail Road, then looping northward underneath it next to the overcrossing of Laurel Hill Ave. (43 rd Street). There they passed through crossovers that marked the outer limit of R Interlocking, which controlled access to the Sunnyside Pullman and Coach (a/k/a South) Yard as well as the Engine Terminal. As they entered another set of switches near the Jackson Ave. side of the Harold Ave. overpass, arriving trains either had their electric locomotive cut away and were taken to the storage yard by miniature terminal switchers (such as a prototype AA-1) to be drilled (flat-switched) and rebuilt, or remained intact and were parked in the yard to be cleaned, serviced and await another outbound assignment. Officially at this point, a typical journey from points near and far to and through the exorbitantly-expensive, long-awaited New York Terminal was at last concluded. The East Wind 58 Special Issue No. 1

59 Timetable 2: PRR New York Division Main Line as of August 1910 ( New York Extension Location Listing, Pennsylvania Station to Sunnyside) MP Name Tracks Type Site Notes 0 PENN STATION 1 thru 21 (21) Terminal New York PRR Term.-11/27/1910; LIRR Term.-9/8/ JO 5 thru 16 (12) Interlocking E 32 nd St. East End of Penn Station, 32 nd St. Subway (Lines 1 and 2) 11/27/ C 15 thru 21 (7) Interlocking E 33 rd St. East End of Penn Station, 33 rd St. Subway (Lines 3 and 4) 9/8/ Sixth Avenue 1-Siding-2 (3) Cross street W Ave. Begin 32 nd Street Tubes (Lines 1 and 2) 0.4 Fifth Avenue 1-2 (2) Cross street W Ave. 32 nd Street Tubes (Lines 1 and 2) 0.5 Madison Avenue 1-2 (2) Cross street Madison Ave. 32 nd Street Tubes (Lines 1 and 2) 0.6 Fourth Avenue 1-2 (2) Cross street Fourth Ave. 32 nd Street Tubes (Lines 1 and 2) 0.7 Lexington Avenue 1-2 (2) Cross street Lexington Ave. 32 nd Street Tubes (Lines 1 and 2) 0.8 Third Avenue 1-2 (2) Cross street W Ave. 32 nd Street Tubes (Lines 1 and 2) 1.0 Second Avenue 1-2 (2) Cross street W Ave. 32 nd Street Tubes (Lines 1 and 2) 1.1 First Avenue 1-2 (2) Cross street W Ave. 32 nd Street Tubes (Lines 1 and 2) 1.2 East River 1-2 (2) Shafts E. 34 th St. Ferry Manhattan (Kip's Bay) Shafts; Begin East River Tubes 1.9 Front Street 1-2 (2) Shafts Long Island City LIC Shafts; End East River Tubes; LIRR Terminal 2.5 Hunters Point Ave. 1-3 (2) Cross street (49 th Avenue) Overpass 2.8 LIC Portals B & D 1-3 (2) Tunnel Exit Montauk cut-off Exit from Penn Tunnels 3.0 F 2-4, Loop 1 & 2 (4) Interlocking Thomson Ave. To Sunnyside Yard or LIRR via H 9/8/ H 1-3-NS1-2-4-NS2(6) Interlocking (39 th Street)( HAROLD ) To LIRR and (future) New York Connecting RR- 9/8/1910 Format Only Tubes C and D (Lines 1 and 2) are shown. (2014 Designation) R Tower itself was a blocky-looking, 2-story brick installation about 10 feet square and 30 feet high, located just west of Harold Ave. among the northerly yard leads to Tracks 50 and 51, and was quite typical of the Pennsylvania Railroad with its alpha symbol prominently displayed in a Keystone silhouette. The third rail-electrified Sunnyside Engine Terminal was spread among five widely-spaced tracks along the northernmost edge of the Coach Yard, inward of Jackson Avenue (later Northern Blvd.), and contained a small wheel truing shed with detached wheel shop; a turntable designed for a 100-foot long steam locomotive (and often used by the fullfigured DD-1 duplexes); a medium-sized engine house with indoor and outdoor servicing pits for light repair, inspections and maintenance; and a sand house with an overhead (tower) distribution system. The Coach Yard was devoted to passenger trains in contrast to the all-freight North Yard closer to Jackson Ave., being oriented in a northeast-to-southwest fashion and stretching some 3600 feet across, or about ⅔ of a mile, between the Harold Ave. and Diagonal St. overpasses. It had 68 storage and staging tracks numbered from west to east that varied in length between (roughly) 900 and 1,200 feet, all stemming from 19 ladders (multiple track stems) accessed through R Interlocking. Along its westerly flank (between Honeywell and Diagonal Sts.) was an array of service buildings that included the Pennsy s crew and administrative offices, the boiler house, the store house and the infamous P.R.R. commissary, where the railroad s famous chefs (at the time some of the world s finest) labored on culinary creations for the hungry traveler. This function had been maintained at the original terminal in Jersey City since the railroad s earliest operations and was to be enhanced greatly with the availability of what were then state-of-the-art facilities. Once an outbound consist was properly made up, cleaned, serviced and (if applicable) provisioned, its preboarding journey was to begin at an appropriately-appointed time, leaving the yard at about one hour ahead of scheduled departure. From Sunnyside Yard, each train would first pass through the complex interlocking at Q, which collected all 68 yard tracks through 20 corresponding ladders at their southerly end. These fed into a total of five leads, all of which passed by the northerly side of Q Tower, a 50-foot long, 2- story brick structure abutting the east side of the Diagonal Street overpass. There the five leads were gathered into two sets, with the southerly pair crossing beneath the two westbound Long Island Rail Road mains (which would also be inbound from the New York Connecting Railroad at a future date), combining to one and then rising to merge with Track 2 under the divergent overpass of the Montauk cut-off. The northerly pair of yard leads meanwhile advanced into a different piece of F Interlocking by paralleling the other side of the L.I.R.R. mains (under Thomson Ave. and around Tower F ). Its southernmost iron then merged into Track 4 at the The East Wind 59 Special Issue No. 1

60 Montauk cut-off, just as it passed underneath and ramped into Portal A, while the northernmost lead passed under the Montauk cut-off and crossed over the already-submerged Track 4 to join Track 2 next to the Hunters Point Ave. bridge, where its full descent into Portal C began. Once all four tracks crossing beneath the East River were below ground, Track 2 quickly jumped over Track 3 and proceeded through what was originally built as Tube C. This tunnel was the westbound counterpart of Tube D and duplicated its path into the subway under East and West 32 nd Street. It then led to JO Interlocking, where an inbound train would rattle the switches and pull up at one of Pennsylvania Station s platforms, there to await the start of its trip back to Main Street, U.S.A. A COLLABORATOR S REWARD: THE LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD S MANHATTAN TERMINAL From its conceptual origins, the Pennsylvania Railroad s New York Terminal factored in a constant, dedicated percentage of its facilities and operations for the Long Island Rail Road. As translated through actual construction this yielded approximately ⅓ of the station s access, platform and yard space, as based on anticipated traffic levels, and a set of tubes that were semi-independent of those to be used by the Pennsylvania to reach its critical storage and servicing facilities in Queens. In sum, what evolved was the overlapping track arrangement that has now endured for more than a century. On the one hand, this prescribed the joint use of Platforms 6, 7 and 8 by both railroads, with access divided between the two sets of East River Tunnels as circumstances dictated (both P.R.R. and L.I.R.R. via the 32 nd Street subway to Tracks 11-16; L.I.R.R. via the 32 nd Street subway to Tracks 14-17). On the other, the Long Island Rail Road was granted exclusive use of the northernmost platforms (9, 10 and 11), with access again divided between the subway under 32 nd Street for Track 17 and that beneath 33 rd Street for Tracks The biggest operational advantage this strategy offered was to enable each of the suburban multiple unit trains that served Pennsylvania Station to relay at the platform where they arrived, thereby eliminating any need for switching out motive power or turning the consist. Naturally, given the geographic constraints that were faced by the terminal site, such tasks would have been difficult if not impossible to achieve without seriously compromising the terminal s throughput, or operating capacity. As can be discerned from the description of the As can be discerned from the description of the station s evolution above, Penn Station s preliminary design incorporated turning loops on its northerly side if only because the concept of an M.U. had not as yet emerged. This situation was changed dramatically during the development of George Gibbs Altoona Prototype for the I.R.T. and the steel rapid transit cars it engendered, with the terminal s planned layout altered as soon as possible to reflect this technological innovation. Tending to the switch work that fed into the L.I.R.R. platforms and provided access to Tracks from the subway beneath West 33 rd Street was Tower C, which was little more than a blockhouse attached to the east end of Platform 10, the oversized installation that sat between Tracks 18 and 19 to provide structural support for the terminal building s northerly side. At that location about a half dozen leads were gathered through a variety of single- and double-slip switches into the transitional subway which proceeded under West 33 rd Street, with trains bound for Queens and beyond assuming main Track 3 and traveling through Tube B, while those inbound from Long Island arrived through Tube A and followed Track 4 into the terminal. The subway that crossed Manhattan under 33 rd Street was quite different than its companion one block to the south, having been shielded in construction for almost its entire length (this in contrast to the cut-and-cover method employed along much of West 32 nd Street), at a substantial premium in time and capital. As a result both tracks entered their respective concrete tubes between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, well before the under river crossing, and offered only the briefest hint of their passage through the original shafts on either side of the river. As were their opposites under 32 nd Street, the 33 rd Street tunnels were rather tightly confined, oval-profiled and highlighted by bench walls on both sides (with similarly scattershot safety niches beneath), plus minimal bare incandescent lighting and emergency telephones. The same three-color block signal system as applied in the rest of the terminal area was also in place with attendant trip arms, while the new Long Island Rail Road M.U. s were originally equipped with corresponding trip devices for safe operation. As described above, while rising from bottom of the East River Track 3 (Tube B) crossed under Track 2 (Tube C) west of Hunters Point Ave., then shared a set of concrete portals with Track 4 (Tube D) before reaching ground level at Nott (47 th ) Ave. and proceeding into the southerly half of F interlocking. At switches located just east of Thomson Ave., L.I.R.R.- bound traffic on Track 3 was separated from that entering Sunnyside Yard and continued at track speed (60 mph) beneath Diagonal St. (Queens Blvd.) to the Honeywell (35 th ) Street overpass, where a 45-mph double-slip switch denoted the south side of H (Harold) Interlocking. From that point eastbound trains could be routed one of three ways. Leftward onto the eastbound North Shore main serving Port Washington and Whitestone (at that time were still under steam from Long Island City) which was also the future New York Connecting Railroad; straight ahead to the eastbound Express track; or rightward through a crossover to the eastbound Local track. Despite these specific designations, upgrades to the rest of the Long Island Rail Road Main Line in August of 1910 were far from complete and all trains destined for Jamaica were directed onto the same two irons as they reached Woodside Ave., regardless of their intended operation. The Main Line s infamous Tower H, later known as The East Wind 60 Special Issue No. 1

61 Timetable 3: PRR Sunnyside Secondary as of August 1910 (Location Listing, Sunnyside Yard) MP Name Tracks Type Site Notes 3.0 F 2-4, Interlocking Thomson Ave. To Sunnyside Yard or LIRR via Loop 1 & 2 (4) H 9/8/ R Loop 1, 2 Interlocking Sunnyside Yard To Sunnyside Coach Yard & A (3) Engine Terminal 11/27/ Q Lead 1-5 (5) Interlocking Diagonal St. Exit from Sunnyside Coach (Queens Blvd.) Yard & Engine Terminal 11/27/ F Sub 1, Sub 2 (2) Interlocking Thomson Ave. Access to Penn Tunnel Line 2 (Tube C) 11/27/1910 Format 2014 designation. Harold, was inserted between the L.I.R.R. s main local track and the Pennsylvania s Loop 2, consisting of a squat brick structure with two stories sized approximately 10 by 30 feet square and (perhaps) 25 feet high. Overall, it was similar to the other new towers at F and R, but drew great fame through time for the responsibilities it handled on the three railroads funneling to and from Penn Station. There was also a siding inserted along the south side of the Main Line between Tower H and the P.R.R. loops next to Laurel Hill Ave. (later designated as the Rip Track) which was used to stage L.I.R.R. steam locomotives for outbound through trains from Pennsylvania Station to non-electrified points in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. These particular runs (which made up a percentage of scheduled service on a number of the commuter system s branches) departed Manhattan behind electric DD- 1 s dedicated for this purpose by the Pennsylvania and paused under the Honeywell St. overpass for their change of motive power. It was the legalities of this affiliation which found the electric locomotive fleet designated not as property of the P.R.R., but of the New York Terminal from an early date. Opposite to the manner noted above, westward Long Island Rail Road trains occupied one of three main tracks after they passed Woodside Ave.: North Shore from the (nonelectrified) Port Washington and Whitestone Branches (which were at that time routed to Long Island City), or the L.I.R.R. local or express irons inbound from Jamaica. All three ducked through a grade separation at about Stone (50 th ) Street which would provide a future gateway to the New York Connecting Railroad, the Hell Gate Bridge and New England. Trains were then further sorted through a series of inverse double-slip switches (left-hand, then right-hand) on either side of the Honeywell St. Overpass, which represented the northerly side of H Interlocking. This installation set the respective courses for each train toward the L.I.R.R. terminal at Long Island City; main tracks 2 or 4 to the Penn Station tunnels; or the leads and interchange trackage to and from Sunnyside Yard. The first routing was most commonly used by inbound trains from the North Side Division (Port Washington and Whitestone Branches) and later by those running through from the non-electrified territories of Long Island, which stopped just west of the Harold Ave. overpass to exchange their steam engine for a DD-1 electric, while the original locomotive would from there proceed into the Long Island City engine terminal by way of the lead to Borden Ave. As noted above, main track 2 was generally the staging path for P.R.R. consists departing Sunnyside Yard for Penn Station in addition to accommodating the L.I.R.R. before it entered the earth at Portal C, which was almost immediately beneath the Hunters Point Ave. overpass. Once underground, Track 2 then hopped over Track 3 to follow Tube C into Manhattan via the subway under 32 nd Street and its associated terminal irons. Past H Interlocking, main track 4 continued straight through the back-door lead from F Interlocking and descended into Portal A midway between the elevated Montauk cut-off and Hunters Point Ave. From there it used Tube A under the East River and eventually the 33 rd Street subway as far as Sixth Avenue, where it shifted toward Penn Station and spread into C Interlocking for access to all tracks between 14 and 21. The East Wind 61 Special Issue No. 1

62 The East Wind 62 Special Issue No. 1

63 The East Wind 63 Special Issue No. 1

64 PART 5: PENN STATION OPENS AND A SUBURBAN COLOSSUS EMERGES (Originally published as Part Three of The Genesis of Dashing Dan ) THE LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD MAKES READY FOR THE OPENING OF PENNSYLVANIA STATION Even as the officialdom from both railroads was playing up the start of operations into Pennsylvania Station during the spring of 1910, related construction and other improvements were continuing to engulf the Long Island Railroad. Some were projects directly related to the New York Terminal that were delayed in completion; some were late-stage add-ons and just getting started; and others were natural upgrades that had no relation to the project at all. Whatever the case, each of these elements would eventually combine to create the classic suburban rapid transit railroad which came to personify the L.I.R.R., and still does a century later. Starting on June 16, 1910 electric trains from the Rockaway Beach Division began following the Glendale cut-off (that is, from both Rockaway Park and Far Rockaway to Long Island City, but excluding the Loop route through Valley Stream and Hammels) as an alternative to the Atlantic Division. These used newlyinstalled third rail past Woodhaven Junction and on the Main Line, including the newer trackage from Glendale to White Pot Junction, and from White Pot interlocking at Remsen Lane to the area of Sunnyside Yard, as far as the Hunters Point Avenue overpass. Until being rerouted to Penn Station when it opened three months hence, they were stopped before entering the large mass of grade-level switch work that preceded the Long Island City terminal near Borden Ave., all associated with Tower A interlocking, which was then so complicated as to defy any attempt at third rail installation. Electrification of the terminal and its special work was omitted as a result, lest its use result in uninterrupted gapping and hazardous arcing which could confound operations and damage equipment. This situation was very much like that at Penn Station s Tower A which led to the Pennsy s use of overhead third rail at the west end of the terminal in Manhattan, but in this more traditional setting there was no such option so the L.I.R.R. simply curtailed electric train operation short of the interlocking and conveyed the otherwise-self-propelled coaches into its terminal with steam switchers. At Glendale Junction itself, an interesting new station called Matawok (for the nearby Matawok Land Co.) was built between Trotting Course Lane and Myrtle Ave. on the grounds of the Weike Ribbon Factory. Informal use appears to have begun just after the nearby station at Brooklyn Hills was shut, with a more formal and very slim schedule of trains stopping there when service to Penn Station was started on the Rockaway Beach Division. As spring progressed into the summer of 1910 and the Penn Station opening pulled ever closer into view, other measures were being taken to meet its expected challenges to existing capacity constraints, if not in terms of ridership then certainly in terms of operational integrity. As previously mentioned, third rail was finally added to the middle track of the Far Rockaway Branch in Queens, years after its 1904 triple-tracking, in an effort to create a better operational fit with the Ocean Electric. As part of overall electrification of the L.I.R.R. Main Line, the fourth track provided for in the 1909 Maple Grove Relocation (and now extended to AC Tower) was also finally laid between Metropolitan Ave. and a point just shy of Van Wyck, which in turn obviated the presence of the Brighton Jct. lead to the Atlantic Division and direct access to Brooklyn. This process also foreshadowed a third reconfiguration of the L.I.R.R. through Jamaica, for which the first related street work commenced on the northerly perimeter July 26 to form a new alignment for Archer Avenue (previously short, narrow Archer St.) and provide a temporary right-of-way through the future work zone, while construction was also begun to reposition Beaver Street on the southerly side. Both tasks were intended to allow a massive elevation of the right-of-way through the site of the new station, whose large building foundation lines were first surveyed the following day across what was then Carlton Street, a side road that was later to become Sutphin Blvd. A newer and enlarged elevation then took shape through the area of the new Jamaica station over the following couple of years, built from sandy spoils garnered at another of the L.I.R.R. s track relocation projects in distant Cold Spring Harbor on the branch to Wading River. To provide additional capacity for the projected needs of forthcoming Rockaway Loop and Long Beach M.U. service to Pennsylvania station, a fourth electrified track was also added on the Old Southern alignment through Springfield Junction, from SM Cabin just east of Laurelton station as far as VN Cabin just west of Valley Stream. Included was a second high platform at Rosedale station for eastbound trains, located on the south side of the new track, which made the older (1906) installation in the middle a dedicated westbound stop. An entirely new gantry-style SP Tower was also built across all four tracks, replacing both the original wooden version from 1880 and the interim cabins created during the 1906 electrification, which were abolished soon after its completion. Though still relatively new to its role as a suburban branch (as opposed to the original purpose of being a seaside excursion railroad) the former New York & Long Beach was also remade into a recognizable form of the Long Island Rail Road s Long Beach Branch ahead of its start of service from Pennsylvania Station. Past VN Cabin at Valley Stream, where the branch to Far Rockaway diverged, two additional electrified main tracks were laid starting that spring along the southerly edge of the original South Side survey as far as Lynbrook station. PT Tower, which had overseen divergence of the branch to Long Beach since its beginning, was The East Wind 64 Special Issue No. 1

65 closed and removed, with the junction from then on being remotely-controlled from VA Tower at Valley Stream. The existing Lynbrook station layout with separate platforms for main line and branch to Long Beach remained, but from there a new track was added to the original New York & Long Beach right-of-way, which combined with the original single iron to create an electrified 2-track branch through South Lynbrook as far as Ocean Avenue. There the line reverted to a modified (and now electrified) version of its original singletrack state, crossed the Mill River and continued into East Rockaway, proceeding from there to Long Beach as previous. Like Penn Station itself, each of these new tracks and their associated electrical facilities were (in general) completed as of August 27, 1910 and all was in apparent readiness for the service extension to Manhattan. L.I.R.R. employee familiarization drills on each of the electrified lines that were to receive trains from Penn Station began by the middle of that month, simulating most facets of the new operation. Personnel acclimation on non-electrified routes was deferred to a later date when the rolling stock for their inclusion at the new terminal became available. With the addition of two new local stations between Penny Bridge and Bushwick Jct., lower profile changes were also accomplished in September 1910 on the existing Montauk Division (former Southern) main line that weren t directly related to the opening of Penn Station but rather a response to its own ongoing operations. One was Habermans, located at Berlin (50 th ) Street off Laurel Hill Blvd. (56 th Road) and carried the name of a historic tin mill on the banks of Newtown Creek. The original company, later succeeded by Continental Can, produced cups, plates and cutlery, among many items, for over a century and a half, its latter-day plant on 55 th Avenue being served by L.I.R.R. local freight trains into the early 1980 s. The other was the third L.I.R.R. station to be called Maspeth, this time located near the Grand Ave. underpass (which survives in 2014, albeit rebuilt) at approximately Hebbard Ave. (58 th Drive). It was also at about this time that the second track was removed from the branch to Bushwick terminal, while yet another attempt was made to institute a station stop in the industrial area which had consumed the Bushwick Branch, this time somewhat more successfully on the south side of the grade crossing at Metropolitan Ave. A pilot battery car was placed on a year-round shuttle between Bushwick and Bushwick Jct. (Fresh Pond) beginning on April 1, 1911, being succeeded by a two-car set after June of The first unit was delivered by Federal Storage Battery and carried the description Beach-Edison car, while the second was built by the Railway Storage Battery Co. (which may have been another name for the same concern), but whatever the case they looked like miniaturized trolleys or express motors, supported on a widely-spaced pair of single axles. As configured by 1914, car #1 was a Combine and #3 a coach, with each having plugs that recharged the batteries for every trip at either end of the line. This couplet provided all Bushwick Branch service until it was discontinued on May 13, ELECTRIC COMMUTER TRAINS FROM PENN STATION Starting on August 30, 1910 two daily inspection trains were officially sponsored by the Long Island Rail Road for each of the next four days. Guests were boarded by special invitation at the commuter side of Penn Station (Tracks 14-21), though each day a complementary P.R.R. Special was separately dispatched from Philadelphia to accommodate that company s participating officers. The well-polished L.I.R.R. charters (consisting of brand new MP-54 M.U. s) proceeded out of Penn Station via the as-yet-idle but complete Tower A interlocking and through the North River tubes to the westerly portals beneath Bergen Hill. From there they reversed course through Penn Station and traveled all the way to Valley Stream on the new, fully-electrified route via Beaver Street station in Jamaica, then returned to Manhattan via Far Rockaway, the Glendale cut-off, White Pot Junction and Sunnyside. Dry runs on both sides of Pennsylvania Station were going all-out by September 3, for not only were fullycrewed Long Island Rail Road trains meandering to and fro, but the Pennsylvania Railroad was by then making deadhead trips with regular consists from New Jersey to Sunnyside and back, including carefully-supervised and hand-timed changes of motive power at Manhattan Transfer. So were such skills collectively honed across the Labor Day Weekend that year, and after a final round of executive meetings, reflections, evaluations and minute adjustments, all that a full decade of enterprise had accomplished was, at long last, deemed ready for conveyance to (some of) the riding public. Almost as soon as public notice of the Pennsylvania Station s Grand opening hit the New York newspapers on Sunday, September 4 groups of people began to assemble on the sidewalks outside its locked doors. The property even then was still in its last throes of construction and secured by officers of both the Pennsylvania Railroad and city of New York, who made occasional rounds and tried valiantly to keep order among the growing legions whose curiosity could hardly be contained through so many years of anticipation. As those with true insight were aware, the terminal s first duties would be centered on its Long Island Rail Road component and therefore lack the totality of function that was expected to overwhelm the site when its true owners finally began to use it, as well as continue to conceal the magnificence held within. This is not to imply that the L.I.R.R. would simply supply passenger service out of Penn Station; as time went on there would be baggage, express and even mail to outward points but for the interim, and certainly from the Pennsylvania Railroad, connecting passengers would remain captive to the Hudson River ferries and vagaries of Manhattan s local transportation network to even reach either Penn Station or the L.I.R.R. at Long Island City. This body represented a healthy The East Wind 65 Special Issue No. 1

66 percentage of the new terminal s future potential ridership, which for the time being was denied its immediate benefit. Setting a trend for what could be eternity, the first of the terminal s doors were opened to the public at 3:01 a.m., in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, September 8, and throngs of relieved Americans poured in after growing crowds had been milling about on Eighth Avenue and West 33 rd Street for almost two full days. As intimated above, the entire gathering was shepherded through the Eighth Avenue end and minor entries on West 31 st and West 33 rd Streets into the lower Exit Concourse, glimpsing but being diverted away from the more grandiose Main Concourse, Main Waiting Room and Arcade portions which would not be available until the Pennsylvania Railroad s operations were begun. The terminal s very first revenue move took place even as the body-bunched excitement above was still novel: schedules were distributed; questions answered (or not); and in some cases tickets to ride the new trains sold through the cramped, subterranean L.I.R.R. Ticket Office for true purpose or as a lark to the holder. At 3:36 one of the L.I.R.R. s motor-baggage combinations (the actual unit lost in time, but an MP-54 coupled to one of the new MPB-54 s) escaped for Woodside station, where its cargo of New York bulldog edition newspapers would be forwarded cars and all to Port Washington by steam engine. The first outbound passenger train of still-new MP-54 M.U. s (schedule number 1702) was loaded after the manned control gates in the lower concourse were opened at 3:30, then departed from the oversized platform at Track 19 with the first passengers amid news photographers and a celebratory fever at 3:41 a.m. It followed the newspaper train to Woodside, where those bound for either Port Washington or Whitestone Landing were discharged onto the cramped low platform (a stubborn reminder of how archaic some aspects of the L.I.R.R. remained) and retrieved by a steam-powered consist that was sent from Long Island City to follow the M.U. s. The electric train then continued on to (old) Jamaica, where separate connections were made available for other outward points whose steam-powered trains also originated at Long Island City and followed either the Main Line or Montauk Division across Queens. After Penn Station s first inbound set of MP-54 s arrived (also from Jamaica) at 4:34 a.m., its second outbound train was the following M.U. interval to Jamaica seven minutes later, at 4:41 a.m., and so was set in motion a momentum of operation that has continued for more than a century. At the more conventional hour of 9:32 a.m. another official train of MP-54 s left Penn Station for Jamaica carrying railroad, city and suburban officials, who then hustled about Queens and Nassau Counties attending a variety of buntingfestooned Tunnel Day public celebrations. One of the most famous of these was held in Lynbrook to commemorate ascension of the humble New York & Long Beach to suburban rapid transit status; another late in the day at Garden City included an extended banquet in honor of L.I.R.R. President Ralph Peters. Despite extensive pre-opening preparations, the comparatively incomplete status of that initial multiple-unit trip described above was symptomatic of things as they would be in certain precincts for months and even years to come. At the new terminal itself, even the completed rail facilities were only partly activated, with all Long Island Rail Road trains kept strictly between Tracks and only passing through Tubes A and B beneath 33 rd Street (which were intended almost exclusively for L.I.R.R. use from the outset). There was only a rushed, temporary trackage rights agreement in force between the two railroads on that day to permit the station to open, but a finely-tuned and permanent accord was signed into effect by the two presidents (Peters and McCrea) on September 14. The Pennsylvania was willing only to staff Penn Station Towers A and C full-time at this juncture along with F and H on the Queens side, while those at KN and JO were held back until such time as the company s own trains started running (though they were being used on an instructional basis), as were the facilities at Sunnyside Yard. Nevertheless, there were several suburban routes which could now truthfully call Penn Station home, and in the enterprising spirit of the time this was not at the expense of service already being offered from the L.I.R.R. s existing termini. When its side of Penn Station opened, the L.I.R.R. had no less than five fully-electrified routes serving three jurisdictional Divisions, plus one temporary shuttle line. In time these would be joined by six more outward destinations in non-electrified territories that stretched as far as Greenport, almost 95 miles from the banks of the East River. Several had multiple routings available; at least a couple of them were confined to the most populous districts and did not serve their entire piece of the railroad. In sum, the L.I.R.R. s lines from Penn Station were designed from the start to be a 20 th century regional transportation tool for those needing practical, economic or leisure-time access between the outer reaches and New York City. This was wholly different in nature from the 19 th century railroads which had crisscrossed Long Island for the intended purposes of agricultural, industrial or recreational travel. On September 8, 1910, electrified service was operated on the following complete routes, in general using MP-54 type steel Multiple-Unit equipment, and with a controversial 14 cents extra tacked onto each fare to cover a per train rental fee paid to the Pennsylvania Railroad: Rockaway Beach Branch: Penn Station to Rockaway Park via White Pot Jct. and Hammels. Stops at Woodside, Winfield, Matawok, Woodhaven Junction, Ozone Park, Aqueduct, Ramblersville, Goose Creek, The Raunt, Broad Channel, Hammels, Holland, Steeplechase, Seaside and Rockaway Park. Summer Specials were operated express to Hammels starting in Far Rockaway Loop via Hammels: Penn Station to Far Rockaway via White Pot Jct. and Hammels. Re- The East Wind 66 Special Issue No. 1

67 turn via Valley Stream and Jamaica*. Stops at Woodside, Winfield, Matawok, Woodhaven Junction, Ozone Park, Aqueduct, Ramblersville, Goose Creek, The Raunt, Broad Channel, Hammels, (Olde) Arverne, Arverne (Straiton), Edgemere and Mott Ave.-Far Rockaway. Summer Specials were operated express to Hammels starting in *-May return to Flatbush Ave. Far Rockaway Loop via Jamaica: Penn Station to Far Rockaway via Jamaica and Valley Stream. Return via Hammels and White Pot Jct.* Stops at Woodside, Winfield, Forest Hills, Hillside, Jamaica (Beaver St.), Cedar Manor, Locust Avenue, Higbie Avenue, Laurelton, Rosedale, Clear Stream Rd., Valley Stream, Hewlett, Woodmere, Cedarhurst, Lawrence and Mott Ave.-Far Rockaway. *-May return to Flatbush Ave. Hempstead Branch: Penn Station to Hempstead via Jamaica and Floral Park. Stops at Woodside, Winfield, Forest Hills, Hillside, (old) Jamaica, Rockaway Junction, Hollis, Bellaire, Queens (Village), Bellerose, Floral Park, Stewart Manor, Nassau Blvd., Garden City and Hempstead. Long Beach Branch: Penn Station to Long Beach via Jamaica, Valley Stream and Lynbrook. Stops at Woodside, Winfield, Forest Hills, Hillside, Jamaica (Beaver St.), Cedar Manor, Locust Avenue, Higbie Avenue, Laurelton, Rosedale, Clear Stream Rd., Valley Stream, Lynbrook, South Lynbrook, East Rockaway, Atlantic Avenue, Jekyl Island, The Dykes, Wreck Lead, Queenswater and Long Beach. Summer Specials were operated express (probably Penn Station to Jamaica to Valley Stream) starting in Main Line Shuttle: Electric multiple-unit cars were also operated on an interim shuttle service as described above, from Penn Station to Jamaica via Main Line. This made stops at Woodside, Winfield, Forest Hills, Hillside and (old) Jamaica, connecting with steam trains from Long Island City to Whitestone Landing and Port Washington at Woodside (which in turn were cut or joined at Great Neck Jct.). It also met with steam trains from Long Island City to additional points (Oyster Bay, Hempstead via Mineola, Mineola via West Hempstead, Hicksville, Babylon and beyond) at Jamaica. On the day that those first Long Island Rail Road M.U. trains commenced revenue operation to Pennsylvania Station, the Main Line across Queens exhibited a mixed bag of rightsof-way; in part on the original road bed which included grade crossings, in part grade-separated and in part relocated. To summarize, trains escaping the East River tunnels found a 6- to 8-track right-of-way through the Pennsylvania s Sunnyside Yard complex, which sorted into four tracks for the L.I.R.R. Main Line and two for its North Side Division (Whitestone and Port Washington Branches). As it passed Laurel Hill Ave., the line arced around a long 90º curve and merged into the existing four tracks of the original line just past the opened 1 st (54 th ) Street overpass, two each for the Main Line and North Side. The Woodside Branch diverged from the latter by its namesake station, where the tracks then swung gracefully back through numerous, concentrated urban grade crossings (each individually and manually attended) in the former village (and now burgeoning neighborhood) of Woodside. Just after the two North Side tracks cut away at Winfield Jct., the Main Line still spread to 3 tracks at Maurice (51 st ) Ave., then passed onto a newly-completed 6-Track elevation at Remsen Lane (63 rd Drive), as initially rebuilt in for the Glendale cut-off. There it began pursuing its unwavering survey through what had once been the rural Queens County municipalities of Newtown and Jamaica, which by this time were transforming into such steadfast areas as Rego Park, Forest Hills, Richmond Hills and Kew Gardens. All six tracks (four for the Main Line bracketed by two for the Rockaway Beach Division) continued through a grade separated junction as far as Herrick (70 th ) Ave., from there reverting to its enhanced (1907) state of 3-track width through Forest Hills station. At Ascan Ave. it entered the 1909-opened Maple Grove realignment and followed it as far as Metropolitan Ave. (including the local station at Hillside), with the fourth iron finally being installed and electrified after it was roughed in during original construction. The four electrified tracks then continued as far as Lester Ave. (135 th Street), just one block shy of Van Wyck, before consolidating back to two for AC Tower interlocking, where they merged with the Atlantic Division and took aim at (old) Jamaica station. As aged, abrupt and messy as its end was at the time, this arrangement of the Main Line would prove to be short-lived; immense improvements to support the new Jamaica station would soon bring extensive revisions to all junctions in that entire area. Nearby on the Glendale cut-off, a temporary set of low platforms called Brooklyn Manor were also opened in November 1910 on the north side of the original Jamaica Ave. overpass, which dated from the 1880 start-up. This was intended for use by Rockaway Beach Division trains serving Penn Station (as well as those destined to and from Long Island City) and acted as a better-located replacement for the former Brooklyn Hills. The permanent station would be situated on the south side of the Jamaica Ave. overpass and consisted of high wooden platforms with substantial shelters and electric lighting. Its construction lagged into the winter of 1911, and it was finally ready for public use as of January 9. The overpass itself was effectively replaced by 1914 when it The East Wind 67 Special Issue No. 1

68 was enlarged and reinforced in part to provide improved access to the station. ISSUES WITH ROLLING STOCK As an after-effect of A.C.F. s post-strike backlog and continual post-production refinements of the otherwise capable DD-1 locomotives, overall equipment availabilities remained a problem for both of Penn Station s resident railroads through the end of the year. By December 31, 1910 the Long Island Rail Road had received a total of 150 MP-54 M.U. motors, 15 MB-62 Baggage motors and 15 MPB-54 Baggage Combinations to cover the needs of its electrified system in addition to the MP-41/T-39 and MP-41/MB-45 tandems that had been running for several years. The only steel coach also on hand was the same P-58 class prototype delivered in 1907 (1451, originally 1401), which by the end of 1910 had been converted to a Club car and was being used in company with traditional wooden equipment. There were 10 other steel production cars on the property as well ( ), but they were B- 62 class Baggage cars and of little help in expanding passenger service. Between this limitation and the Pennsylvania s own tardiness in establishing its operations into Manhattan, any hope of initiating Long Island Rail Road through service from East End points was forced to await a longer-term resolution to the equipment shortage and qualification requirements. Neither was the L.I.R.R compelled to pursue the acquisition of more steam locomotives to meet additional service needs that might be generated by the opening of Penn Station; in 1910 the company had a strong stable of approximately 154 passenger engines in 4-4-0, 4-4-2, and even 2-6-2T configurations, about one-third of which were of the Camelback type, with all between 4 and 28 years of age. The majority of this motive power collection went on to serve the L.I.R.R. into the 1930 s, by which time the second round of electrification and next generation of G-5s steam engines had taken hold. The final five 2-6-2T tank engines described above had been the last acquired from Baldwin in 1904 for latter-day steam-powered rapid transit service, and were sold to the Central Railroad of New Jersey soon after Penn Station s opening in November Renumbered to in their new home, they remained active until the end of World War II. PENN STATION S OPERATIONAL COATTAILS AND OTHER ISSUES TO BE DEALT WITH Soon after the Pennsylvania Railroad had received sufficient quantities of DD-1 electric locomotives and steel coaches, and after its personnel had continued to train for their new work routine right up to the final minutes beforehand, the remainder of Pennsylvania Station, plus all attendant facilities including Sunnyside Yard, was opened for revenue service on November 27, This included all intercity trains, most of the company s regional (i.e., Northeast Corridor) service and a healthy percentage of its commuter traffic from New Jersey points, all of which was required to undergo a motive power change at Manhattan Transfer. The new Penn Station interlockings at KN (used mainly by L.I.R.R.) and JO (used by both railroads) also commenced formal operation on that date, as did those inside the new Sunnyside Yard in Queens, which then was at least technically available for L.I.R.R. equipment servicing and storage (though in fact it was sparingly employed for such). Along with that, P.R.R. passengers were able to connect for Manhattan and Brooklyn through a pair of dedicated, hourly Annex Shuttle services (fare 30 ) that had short, 2- or 3-car M.U. consists assigned. One set was operated by the Pennsy from Manhattan Transfer to Penn Station and employed a small lot of six MP-54 s that had been specially procured for this purpose, while another was operated by the Long Island Rail Road from Penn Station to Flatbush Ave. This was a railroad version of the Pennsylvania s former Annex Ferry that navigated from Exchange Place in Jersey City to Downtown Brooklyn, which was discontinued with the start of complete operations at Penn Station. Its electric M.U. s (also nominally L.I.R.R. MP- 54 s) used the Glendale cut-off from the Main Line to the Rockaway Beach Division, passed through Woodhaven Junction and relayed at Ozone Park. To reach Brooklyn this shuttle then took the Woodhaven Junction connector at WT (formerly Tower 66), proceeded onto the Atlantic Division main line and headed west for Flatbush Avenue terminal with stops only at East New York (ex-manhattan Beach Crossing) and Nostrand Ave. As things later sorted out in that presubway era, the Annex Shuttle enjoyed very little patronage on the L.I.R.R. side compared to its maritime predecessor. Not surprisingly, it was the first line from Penn Station to be discontinued on August 31, 1911, while the P.R.R. shuttle on the New Jersey side, between Penn Station and Manhattan Transfer, survived for several years longer. Also noticeably enlarged during 1911 were several of the existing rapid transit stations on the Atlantic Division (Railroad Avenue, Union Course and Woodhaven) where platforms were broadened to accommodate the strong ridership they had attracted since the 1905 electrification, particularly in rush hours. Event crowding between L.I.R.R. trains and Jamaica Race Track was also responsible for the addition of LA Tower at Locust Avenue, which oversaw the special siding and high platform used to serve its large mass of patrons, who were guided to the train station through wooden pens. Away from the electrified zone, two other new stops were added at about this time in response to the natural, long-term growth of surrounding communities. One was on the lightlyserved ex-central Railroad of Long Island main line at Clinton Road (1911), acting as a civilian convenience stop short of the military reservation. Just as it was in 1899 this line was being used irregularly (and probably rarely, in peacetime) by special trains and/or shuttle service from Garden City, generally related to associated Army National Guard activities. A portion The East Wind 68 Special Issue No. 1

69 of the line had been modified for the Pennsylvania Railroad s a.c. Electrification Tests of 1908, which included some third rail installation as well, and over time it would regenerate in part and be expanded to serve a mixed industrial, residential and military clientele. Opened sometime in 1912, Merrillon Avenue was located in the new village of Garden City Park where that road converged with Nassau Boulevard as they crossed the Main Line between New Hyde Park and Mineola. Finally, with the newly-relocated depot at Floral Park complete, space became available and on June 3, 1912 connecting trackage from the (ex-c.r.r.l.i.) Hempstead Branch to the Main Line was doubled. This at last enabled a Hempsteadbound train to leave the Main Line when waiting for an opposing move off the single track branch, but the short suburban electric line and its growing ridership base would remain a source of operational folly for a few more years. On May 15, 1911 a replacement depot building was opened on the north side of the Main Line at 178 th Place for the Rockaway Junction local station. Most of the original 1890-built station on the south side had been moved slightly eastward in 1906 to provide space for a lead to the new Holban Yard, but subsequent access to the station then became slightly circuitous and was sometimes obstructed by freight activity on the yard lead. Its complete relocation did away with such difficulties, yet left the platforms and overhead bridge from the 1905 electrification to remain as they were, though enlarged. The following year (1912) Rockaway Junction station was rechristened Hillside, while the created Hillside station on the Main Line at Union Turnpike (now Lefferts Blvd.) was re-titled Kew to recognize the quickly-blossoming residential development in its area. This location then underwent a third name change in 1914 to finally become the present Kew Gardens. Other incremental upgrades continued on the emerging commuter rail system as the end of 1911 approached, with a depot added at South Lynbrook on the Long Beach Branch in November and yet another completely new station opened on December 3 between Lawrence and Far Rockaway to serve the southwest Nassau County village of Inwood (though not directly located within it). The improvement of additional sections of the Main Line across Queens was carried out incrementally as the establishment of Penn Station progressed, governed by the railroad s financial resources and land availabilities. As a natural result such work was prioritized to that which could be accomplished in the fastest time at the lowest cost, which in turn resulted in a somewhat haphazard sequence of implementation. Following completion of those elements most essential to the opening of Pennsylvania Station and Sunnyside Yard (the Glendale cut-off and Maple Grove Relocation in that order) attention was turned to upgrading of the balance of the original Main Line to accommodate both enhanced operations and the ongoing urban growth that was consuming areas abutting the railroad like a raging fire. In the spring of 1911 expansion was begun on the Forest Hills piece of railroad between the Glendale cut-off (Herrick Ave.) and the Maple Grove Relocation (Ascan Ave.), which at the time was laid across what remained of the once-large and private estates that had historically signified the area (some dating back to Colonial times) and were now being carved up for redevelopment. There were no grade crossings to deal with as a result and only a minimal change in footprint was necessary to match the sought-after increase in width. A new station house, built by the same company handling nearby residential development, was placed in service at Forest Hills on August 5, 1911 while the accompanying Main Line expansion to four electrified tracks was slow to progress. As a result the new highplatform station associated with this widening project, including its now-trademark Tudor style shelters, wasn t opened until January 17, 1912 by which time the whole undertaking was virtually complete. American Car & Foundry delivered 50 more MP-54A motors ( ) and five Combination motors ( ) to the Long Island Rail Road during the year 1911, which mainly served to support the operation of longer train consists for its continuously-growing body of customers. More important than the additional electrics, however, was arrival of the first 30 P-54A Steam coaches ( ) a non-electrified version of the standard all-steel MP-54 that had been designed by the Pennsylvania for use on steam-drawn medium-distance trains operated into the New York Terminal and elsewhere on its vast system, where they were to begin replacement of the enormous and aging array of wooden cars then still in use. These were accompanied by five PB-54 Combination versions of same ( ) and five BM-62 class cars. The latter were designed solely to haul both baggage and mail, which the L.I.R.R. was carrying from both Pennsylvania Railroad connections and straight out of the new Mail Terminal (now the USPS Farley Post Office) across Eighth Avenue from Penn Station. This new facility had partially opened with the Pennsy s start-up on November 27, but it would be almost three years before its construction was totally completed. While the L.I.R.R. received a total of 95 additional steel cars during 1911, it was also the first year in which its continuing practice of joint equipment acquisition with the parent Pennsylvania Railroad was almost divided almost evenly between the two organizations. P.R.R. concurrently ramped up the mass production of its own mp54 steam coaches and at the same time took delivery of 100 such units from three builders. Ongoing deliveries of the Pennsylvania s DD-1 electric locomotives were also finished by the midpoint of 1911, which not only relaxed the Pennsy s tenuous motive power needs at the new and already-incredibly-busy terminal, but at last cleared the way for through operation of certain Long Island Rail Road services from Penn Station to non-electrified territories in the suburbs of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The East Wind 69 Special Issue No. 1

70 One extremely challenging aspect of Penn Station s early success was unforeseen overcrowding in its Long Island Rail Road (Exit) Concourse and lower level Waiting Rooms, where standees were common at virtually any time of the day or night. This was a point of some contention with civil authorities for its potential drawbacks in terms of health and fire safety, and thus demanded immediate and ongoing attention. Apprised of this problem early on, the Pennsylvania Railroad acted swiftly on behalf of its partner in early 1911 to create a new passageway from the lower level on the 33 rd Street side (as then accessed via the upper level) in a southward direction, enabling it to reach two additional platforms (8 and 9) and three more tracks (15-17). This task required that a steel bridge of approximately 60 by 30 feet be extended out from that originally installed to provide alternative access to Platform 10 (Tracks 18 and 19), with new, attended gateways and stairs down to each of the platforms. This was difficult to execute from an engineering standpoint, for the off-set position of Platform 8 required that its connecting stairs be rather narrow and connected by a long walkway (illuminated by interior street lamps) to get above the cross-work of track-level switches where JO and C interlockings came together. In addition, the concourse extension was limited in reach at its southern end by a massive steel girder which supported the Baggage Room s north delivery way above. These costly capacity adjustments were complete enough to be opened to passengers by the end of May, including the usual iron fencing (as in the Main Concourse upstairs) and a continuous row of light wooden benching that stretched for about 80 feet as a supplement to the actual Waiting Room. By this time crews were also at work on a westward expansion of the original L.I.R.R. (Exit) Concourse at the Eighth Avenue end of the terminal, which would cover part of the track area as originally exposed from above, all the way to the end wall. As a result of this additional improvement, when finished in August of 1911, the iron fencing in the northwest quadrant of the Main Concourse overlooked rows of wooden benches sitting on a new travertine marble floor (and their waiting L.I.R.R. passengers) instead of open tracks and platforms. Fenced passthroughs were included in this new floor expansion to allow for the West Stairs as constructed between the Main and Exit Concourses and Platforms 7, 8 and 9 (Tracks 13-18), which made them a puzzling visual experience when viewed from a level perspective. There was also additional L.I.R.R. waiting space added off the landing of the West stairs that connected between the Main Concourse level and Platform 10, where they led to Tracks 18 and 19. THROUGH SERVICE FOR THE EAST END From the time of its earliest design (and in concept from their first days as common carriers), a major intent of both the Pennsylvania and Long Island railroads in providing Penn Station was to enable the termination of trains from any point of the compass (south, east, west and later north, too) in Manhattan itself. This was obviously its most compelling characteristic when measured against the heretofore impossible and arduous chore that the railway industry faced in physically delivering passengers between New York City and the rest of the U.S.A. But whereas the Pennsylvania was a major part of the national railway system linking farms, factories and cities that had long existed by the time Penn Station was installed, and servicing of its various elements was an inherent component of the enterprise, the Long Island Rail Road had historically grown into a more focused terminal railroad whose concentrations gravitated less on the creation and transport of goods than around the movement of people between beaches, small farms, administrative offices, industrial plants and various kinds of residential developments. Further, while the completion of Penn Station made the transportation capability of linking the L.I.R.R. s numerous lines directly with Manhattan for any purpose ineradicable, the specifics of developing a practical destination array appropriate to such an undertaking was (and still remains) a perpetually unsettled, if not quite arbitrary, matter of conjecture, contention and, ultimately, performance. A look at an August 1910 forecast document reveals that the L.I.R.R. was actively planning, at least on paper, for through service to each of its East End and some of its closer-in non-electrified routes (specifically Mineola via West Hempstead, Sag Harbor, Babylon, Wading River, Oyster Bay and Greenport), but a near-term lack of available electric motive power and steel rolling stock stymied its execution for several months. This may have been fortuitous, as the terminal s attainment of immense popularity within days, if not hours, of its grand opening in late 1910 served largely to confound more than build upon its prior years of planning and preparation. As a result, both railroad companies had a far better measure of what traffic levels the facility would or would not handle with comfort by the time delivery of the Pennsylvania s DD-1 locomotives was completed the following July, almost one full year after operations at Penn Station had been initiated. So when those first several months of revenue service were reviewed and the L.I.R.R. revised its schedules accordingly (and with the needed new rolling stock also on hand by that time), the long-implicit East End service proposal was approached more as a potential added bonus than a tacit service indulgence for its customers. So it was that a slimmer version of the through routes projected in prior years was brought to reality, being concentrated mainly (and in all probability entirely in some instances) to weekday rush hours. In practice such trips were operated as part of regularly-scheduled service from the outer reaches of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. They generally ran express to the switches at H interlocking past the Honeywell St. overpass, where their steam locomotives were cut away, directed to the Long Island City engine terminal to be turned and serviced, and replaced by a waiting Pennsylvania Railroad-owned DD-1 electric before continuing through East River Tubes A or C to Penn Station. Once at the terminal, The East Wind 70 Special Issue No. 1

71 where these trains could occupy any track between 11 and 21 (but almost always used 12-16), the DD-1 locomotive was cut away from the train s consist and forwarded to the Yard B leads west of Ninth Avenue, there to be relayed until their next outbound assignment. For eastbound trips, the Pennsylvania s DD-1 would pass through an empty platform berth at Penn Station and double back via JO or C interlockings to hitch onto its string of coaches and/or Baggage and Express cars, perhaps with a Mail Car thrown in as well. Train consists were generally pre-arranged in advance and sat powerless at the platform berth between trips, with head end cars located on the Hudson River point in front of the coaches. Conversely, this positioned them at the rear end on the return trips to Long Island, with the passenger coaches strung out toward the front. After departing Penn Station, East End through trains passed through East River Tubes B or D and were stopped under the Honeywell St. overpass in Sunnyside, where the DD-1 electric locomotive was removed and a prepositioned steam engine backed out of the siding beneath Harold Ave., coupled onto its train, did the required air and brake tests and resumed the journey to Long Island s easterly reaches. This service began soon after all 33 Pennsylvania Railroad DD-1 s, plus the two AA-1 prototypes, became jointly-owned and operated by the New York Terminal Co. as an alternative to the otherwise required practice that the L.I.R.R. pay hours to the Pennsy for the use of its motive power. By the end of the year they had all been renumbered between 8 and 42. Starting on or about August 31, 1911, Long Island Rail Road through trains were operated to the following points (excluding short-turn destinations), with distances indicated from Penn Station, New York and generic station listings: Oyster Bay Branch (34 miles): Penn Station to Oyster Bay via Jamaica and Mineola. Stops included Penn Station, (old) Jamaica, Queens (Village), Bellerose, Floral Park, New Hyde Park, Mineola, East Williston, Roslyn, North Roslyn, Greenvale, Glen Head, Sea Cliff, Glen Street, Glen Cove, Locust Valley, Mill Neck and Oyster Bay. Wading River [Port Jefferson] Branch (69 miles): Penn Station to Wading River via Jamaica, Mineola and Hicksville. Stops included Penn Station, (old) Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, Syosset, Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington, Greenlawn, Northport, Kings Park, Smithtown, St. James, Flowerfield, Stony Brook, Setauket, Port Jefferson, Miller Place, Rocky Point, Shoreham and Wading River. Main Line (95 miles): Penn Station to Greenport via Jamaica, Mineola and Hicksville. Stops included Penn Station, (old) Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville, Central Park, Farmingdale, Wyandanch, Edgewood, Deer Park, Brentwood, Central Islip, Ronkonkoma, Holbrook, Holtsville, Medford, Bellport, Yaphank, Manorville, Calverton, Riverhead, Aquebogue, Jamesport, Laurel, Mattituck, Cutchogue, Peconic, Southold and Greenport. Babylon Branch (37 miles): Penn Station to Babylon via via Jamaica, Valley Stream and Lynbrook. Stops included Penn Station, (old) Jamaica, Locust Avenue, Springfield, Rosedale, Clear Stream Rd., Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Rockville Centre, Baldwin, Freeport, Merrick, Bellmore, Wantagh, Seaford, Massapequa, Amityville, Copiague, Lindenhurst and Babylon. Montauk Branch (72 miles): Penn Station to Speonk via Jamaica, Valley Stream, Lynbrook and Babylon. Stops included Penn Station, (old) Jamaica, Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Babylon, Bayshore, Islip, Great River, Oakdale, Sayville, Bayport, Bluepoint, Patchogue, Hagerman, Bellport, Brookhaven, Mastic, Center Moriches, East Moriches, Eastport and Speonk. Once some beneficial operational experience was gained, the L.I.R.R. s East End through trains to Penn Station remained a regular aspect of its operations for several decades, being expanded by the end of that first year to include various beach specials and other dedicated trains, most notably its premium Cannonball, the exclusive summer weekend runs between New York, the Hamptons and Montauk. Contrasting the establishment of through East End service in 1911 was elimination of the dedicated M.U. shuttle service between Penn Station and Jamaica to support outward connections. As time progressed its role had gradually been subsumed by the plethora of scheduled services through both the Beaver Street and old Jamaica platforms, any of which passengers could use to perform that time-honored tradition of the Long Island Rail Road Change at Jamaica to get where they needed to go. The East Wind 71 Special Issue No. 1

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