A Century of Subways: Celebrating 100 Years of New York's Underground Railways

Chapter 4: New York’s Electrified Railroads

4 New York’s Electrified Railroads In many cities throughout the world, local mass transport involves multiple styles of railway services. There are, of course, urban-oriented electric railways, commonly operating in belowground tunnels and known as subways—or metro systems, or the underground. These services are often complimented by trains operating between a central city and its outlying suburbs using electric-powered equipment along the routes of railroad companies whose principal markets are longer and intercity in nature. Many cities in Europe feature such diverse styles of electricpowered local transport. In the United States, though, the electri- fication of intercity railroads has achieved relatively modest proportions, and while there are important suburban-oriented commuter passenger services in cities such as Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, these trains are hauled entirely by diesel locomotives and are for the most part restricted in their operation to outdoor rights-of-way. Electric-powered railroad trains, on the other hand, are able to operate through subterranean tunnels into, under, and around downtown business districts much in the manner of city subway systems. Five metropolitan areas in North America feature electric -powered suburban railways in addition to city subway services . North of the border in Canada, Montreal has long included such an operation, while in the United States, Philadelphia, Chicago , and Baltimore-Washington are members of this somewhat exclusive club.1 The most extensive network of electrified commuter railroad lines in North America, however, is in New York. Important tunnels constructed under the Hudson and East Rivers in 1910 by the Pennsylvania Railroad—six years after the city’s first subway train carried its first passengers—today funnel commuter trains of both the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey NEW YORK’S ELECTRIFIED RAILROADS 183 Transit into a midtown facility at Seventh Avenue and 32nd Street that is still known as Penn Station, while ten blocks north and four blocks to the east will be found the magnificent structure known as Grand Central Terminal, where a contemporary agency called the Metro North Railroad dispatches electrified trains into the city’s northern and northeastern suburbs over rails that some years ago were part of the New York Central Railroad and the New York, New Haven and Hartford. The stories of the two magnificent Manhattan terminals, Penn Station and Grand Central, have been told often, but typically with an emphasis on their famous long-distance trains, such as Pennsy’s ‘‘Broadway Limited’’ and New York Central’s ‘‘Empire State Express.’’2 One aspect of the New York operation of the railroads that built these two terminals has been overlooked; to continue our centenary tribute to the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, let us explore the specialized electric railway services these railroads developed for suburban operations when they electrified their Manhattan operations in the first decade of the twentieth century. The New York Central Railroad It was shortly after six o’clock on a raw and cold winter morning, before the first hint of dawn began to show in the eastern sky, when train No. 223 of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NYNH&H) pulled away from the depot in Danbury, Connecticut. It was a seven-car accommodation train—one baggage car, six coaches—under the supervision of conductor John Dyas. In the cab of the steam locomotive at the head end of the train, engineer Thomas Sweeney let out the throttle and fireman Elmer Purdy shoveled coal into the firebox as No. 223 began its trip southward down the Saugatuck Valley to Norwalk. Here it would turn to the west, join the railroad’s Boston-New York main line, and continue on to Grand Central Depot in the City of New York, where it was scheduled to arrive at 8:17 a.m. It was Wednesday, January 8, 1902. An hour or so later, at 7:30 a.m., with light snow flurries swirling through a steel-gray winter sky, engineer John Wiskar and 184 A CENTURY OF SUBWAYS fireman E. W. Fyler swung aboard a New York Central and Hudson River Railroad (NYC&HR) locomotive at White Plains, New York. Their train—No. 118, a seven-car accommodation running on what was then called the railroad’s Harlem Division—was also bound for Grand Central Depot, with arrival scheduled for 8:14 a.m., three minutes ahead of the New Haven train from Danbury . Neither train would reach...