Not one person in a thousand, I suspect,
traveling on the Bronx River Parkway, would suspect that they were driving on
the right of way of an abandoned railroad.
But here is the incredible story, just as it was published more than ten years ago
in an obscure periodical. Details of how
I came to post this follow the article.
RAILWAY
HISTORICAL JOURNAL
AERONAUTICAL
DIGEST
&
STEAMSHIP
HISTORICAL
REVIEW
Special
Issue
April 1, 2002
Forgotten Railways, number 3
GREEN STAR LINES
A Brief History of
the
N.Y. SUBURBAN TRANS’N CO.
by Martin Ricebrook III
Less than half a century after
its demise, there is little trace to remind us of this interesting system,
which played such a role in the development of Westchester County
in the first half of the twentieth century.
None of the several types of interesting and innovative cars remain; the
right-of-way is largely built over, and the stations and other structures are
almost all gone.
I. The New
York and Northern
The story began with plans, not
for a railway, but a waterway: the Port Morris and Yonkers Canal. The canal age was long past when, in 1874,
Major Duncan Ferguson, a recent immigrant from Aberdeen, arrived in New York, with a string of successful
industrial ventures behind him. For
reasons that are not now clear, he conceived of a canal, “on modern principles”
which would link the southern portion of what is now The Bronx
with Yonkers.
This project, which would have
involved several flights of locks, and major engineering works, was doomed from
the start, but the Metropolitan, Port Morris, and Yonkers Canal Company was
formed in 1877, with a capital of two million dollars, and a staff which
included Martinus van Ruysbroeck, the eccentric civil engineer, piano-maker,
amateur chemist, and enthusiast of Theosophy.
For a period of 22 months,
starting in 1879, much of the right-of-way was surveyed, and grading carried
out for two miles along the Bronx River, just north of what is now the New York
Botanical Garden.
The company’s resources were
exhausted by early 1881, and after a bitter exchange of letters in the press,
van Ruysbroeck and Ferguson parted company, the former to go on to triumph in
Edmonton, Alberta, and the latter to brood on the failure of his dream. By 1887, he had returned to Scotland,
leaving the bankrupt company in the hands of son-in-law and former chief
assistant, Thomas Hannigan.
Hannigan quietly bought up the
outstanding stock of the MPM & YCCo, which was seen as worthless, and in
1892 secured a franchise to extend the project to White Plains, with a branch
to Eastview. This highly-implausible
scheme was passed by the legislature, with the backing of Hannigan’s friends,
as an amendment to a bill dealing with bicycle regulations.
Unlike Ferguson, Hannigan had a
realistic view of the direction transportation was taking. The company might have been bankrupt, but it
still possessed a charter and a right-of-way.
Seeing the success of the elevated railroads in New York and Brooklyn,
he foresaw a role for a steam railroad connecting the northern terminal of the
Suburban Rapid Transit Company with the cities and towns of Westchester. In 1894, he incorporated the New York and Northern
Rapid Railway, to which he leased the property and rights of the canal company.
As soon as it became known what
Hannigan had done, capital began to flow into the company. After delays associated with the Panic of
1897, work began in earnest on the line, extending from the Bronx Park terminal
of the elevated (then under construction) to a terminal near Main Street in
White Plains, with intermediate stops which averaged one half mile apart.
(There is a persistent, although
unconfirmed, rumor that Alexander van der Zander, known colloquially as “the
Commander” for his early maritime interests dreamed of developing the railway
into a regional, and ultimately national, trunk line. In any event, nothing came of whatever larger
hopes were entertained).
Although conceived as a steam
line, by 1900 plans were changed to electric traction. It was at this point that the fateful
decision was made to build the line to the unusual gauge of 4’ 4 ¾”, and to
employ a side-contact third rail. These
factors, especially the unusual gauge, doomed the line to being a feeder to the
elevated, and prevented through running into Manhattan.
The White Plains line opened on June 7th, 1905. Ten large coaches, two passenger-baggage
combines, and two mail and express cars were acquired from the Jewett Car
Company. One- or two-car trains ran
hourly throughout the day, with more frequent service during the morning and
evening peaks.
In 1912, the ill-conceived
Eastview branch opened. This ran through
sparsely-settled areas, and the chief justification for the line was the
connection at its northern end with the Hudson Valley Transit line, which was
also built to the 4’ 4 ¾” gauge. From
1913 until the end of the Hudson
Valley in 1932, the
famous Sleepy Hollow Specials ran over the line.
Five steel cars, built by
Laclede, were acquired in July for the Eastview branch. They were experimentally fitted with the
Brennan Patent Brake. In September the two surviving cars were rebuilt with
conventional brakes. The resultant
lawsuits led to bankruptcy in 1915.
II. The New
York and Westchester
The second component of the Green
Star Lines had a much more conventional origin.
Incorporated in 1892, the first of the four lines, from Fordham Square to Getty Square,
opened on September 1st,
1895, followed by the line to Fleetwood, on September 17th. Both of these were conventional street
railways. The Ardsley line opened on March 23rd, 1899. All three were street-running, with
considerable sections of single track, and were operated by a fleet of
double-truck cars, 12 built by Brill in 1894, and 10 by St Louis in 1899.
The most ambitious line, which had
been planned first, opened last, on August 3rd, 1902. The Mamaroneck
line, commonly called the “Westchester Line”, was a combination of street,
side-of-road, and private-right-of-way.
Eight double-truck, four-motor cars built by Brill in 1901 provided
amenities such as leather upholstery and smoking sections, not found on the
earlier cars.
Coincident with the opening of
the New York and Northern in June 1905, the NY & W opened a new terminal
adjacent to the NY & N’s new station at the Bronx Park elevated terminal,
and abandoned the line from Fordham Square to Bedford Park Boulevard via
Webster Avenue.
In 1912, eight new steel
center-entrance cars were acquired from Cincinnati Car Co. They were equipped for multiple unit
operation, in the expectation of substantial traffic growth, and additional car
orders. As it turned out, they ran in
multiple only in heavy snow, where the heavy two-car trains were useful in
getting through drifts.
In 1917, six former Eighth and
Ninth Avenue Railway cars, built in 1888, were assigned to the Yonkers and
Fleetwood lines by the War Production Board, to transport defense workers. They were commonly known as the “Hell’s
Kitchen cars”.
III. Consolidation.
In 1916, the New York and Westchester
purchased the bankrupt NY & N. The
combined company was renamed the New York Suburban Transportation Company,
which was always oddly abbreviated “N.Y. Suburban Trans’n Co.” on the
cars. All of the NY & W cars, and the
14 original wooden and two surviving steel interurban cars, were repainted into
a new green and cream livery. The
combined operation was branded as the Green Star Lines.
In 1919, an ambitious
re-equipment program was begun. Ten new Cincinnati curve-sided
cars were bought for the standard gauge trolley lines, and eight lightweight
interurban cars for the third-rail lines.
These replaced a like-number of wood cars on both divisions.
It was hoped that the
curve-siders, on expedited schedules, would reverse the declining patronage on
the “Westchester” line to Mamaroneck, but the growing popularity of
automobiles, and the convenience of New Haven and New York, Westchester &
Boston commuter services, led to the abandonment of the line as of December 31,
1922.
Traffic remained high on the White Plains line, but
the Eastview line never paid its way.
The Hudson Valley Railway Sleepy Hollow Specials were discontinued in
November 1932, and the company considered abandoning the branch. Instead, there was a second re-equipment
program, which resulted in the revolutionary and legendary “Cincinnati
Comets”.
Dr Howard Connors, who had
successfully modernized several Midwestern lines with lightweight cars, was
employed as a consultant. In only six
months’ time, he had evaluated a number of designs, tested models in a wind tunnel,
and developed the distinctive, streamlined Comets. The Cincinnati Car Co., eager for business in
the depth of the Depression, and hoping the Comet would be the new standard
electric railway design, completed ten cars in only five months, delivering the
first one in June 1934. The sleek,
duralumin-bodied cars cut running times on expresses by more than 20%, and drew
an increase in patronage of nearly 25%.
The remaining wood cars were retired, and the older steel cars
extensively refurbished.
Although the cars proved popular,
and successful, to the disappointment of Dr Connors and the builders, only six
more were ever built. Five smaller
versions, with doors arranged for low rather than high level loading, were
built for the Schenectady, Scotia and Skaneateles Railway in 1935. (These cars
eventually went to the Humdinger Railroad in Nevada after the end of the S.S.
& S). After one of the Comets was
struck by lightning and destroyed by fire at Scarsdale in 1937, Cincinnati
built a replacement to the original design.
Having successful modernized the
third-rail lines, the company turned its attention to the trolley routes, and
in mid-1937 introduced 10 modern cars built by Clark Equipment Co. Similar in appearance to the new PCC cars
being brought into service in Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, and Boston, they were
double-ended and somewhat more angular than the St Louis and Pullman PCCs.
IV. End of the Line
The new cars stabilized, and for
a while reversed the decline in patronage, and World War Two brought increases
in ridership on all but the Eastview line.
In October 1943, service was discontinued, and the rails and other
salvageable materials went to the war effort. By 1947 patronage on the other
lines was in steep decline.
In a final attempt to attract new
business, two streamlined interurban trains, Almond City and Camp
Heartbreak, were purchased from
the recently-abandoned Missouri Terminal interurban line. The two new trains were introduced with
elaborate ceremonies on November 28, 1948.
The company had hoped for a great deal of publicity, but unfortunately a
subway extension in Queens opened the same day, and no reporters (and few
potential passengers) appeared for the inaugural runs of the second-hand
streamliners.
The White Plains line had always been slower than
the New York Central’s Harlem line service,
which ran parallel for its entire length, but lower fares on the Green Star
route attracted passengers. In 1950,
air-conditioned cars were introduced on the Central, which induced some riders
to switch.
In 1951, the final blow
fell. The New York City Board of
Transportation eliminated the Fordham
Road-Bronx Park
segment of the Third Avenue
elevated, so that Green Star passengers had a long walk from the terminal to
the 200th Street
station of the el’s Webster Avenue
route. The inconvenience and longer
travel time, combined with the attraction of the new air-conditioned cars on
the Central, eroded ridership to such a degree that service was abandoned as of
June 30, 1952.
The streetcar routes struggled on
for a few more months, but increasing auto competition, and the loss of the
economies of shared power generation with the White Plains line, led to the end of service
as of September 30, 1952.
There are few reminders of the
line now. Almost the entire
rights-of-way of the White Plains
and Eastview lines were quickly reincarnated as the Bronx River
and Spain Parkways, respectively. The White Plains terminal and
offices were substantially rebuilt, and now serve as the Westchester County
Center. Until the mid-1980s, the remains of the Bronx Park
terminal and powerhouse could be seen on the site of what are now the Rose Hill
Apartments.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
RAILWAY HISTORICAL
JOURNAL, AERONAUTICAL DIGEST
& STEAMSHIP HISTORICAL
REVIEW
Forgotten
Railways special issues:
No.
1. (April 2000) The Hudson Subway.
A pioneering tunnel line that
ultimately fell victim to the lower level of the 8th Avenue
Subway. (Out of print)
No. 2. (April
2001) The West Side Elevated
High Speed Line.
The famous “Miller Elevated”. (Out of print)
No.
3. (April 2002) The Green Star Lines.
The N. York Suburban Trans’n story.
You
never knew what surprises you might find, browsing in the second-hand
books that were sometimes available in the late, lamented Corner Scone on Webster
Avenue. When I came upon this old issue
of the “Railway Historical Journal … etc.” I conferred with a blogger I follow,
who has an exhaustive knowledge of railroad matters. As it happened, he knew the original author,
who was happy to see a scan of his
article posted. Unfortunately, he held the copyright to the text only, so the
page of photographs representing Major Ferguson, van Ruysbroeck, and the later
streamlined cars could not be scanned.
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