The New York Connecting Railroad or NYCR is a rail line in the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It links New York City and

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

by rail directly to the North American mainland.

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...

Canadian Pacific Kansas City Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited, Trade name, doing business as CPKC (known as Canadian Pacific Railway Limited until 2023), is a Canadian railway holding company. Through its primary operating railroad subsidiaries, Canadian Pacific Railw ...

Providence and Worcester Railroad The Providence and Worcester Railroad (P&W; ) is a Class II railroad operating of tracks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, as well as New York (state), New York via trackage rights. The company was founded in 1844 to build ...

and New York and Atlantic Railway (NYAR) currently use the line. It runs from the Hell Gate Bridge over the

East River The East River is a saltwater Estuary, tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island, ...

to Fresh Pond Junction yard in Glendale in Queens. It was completed in 1917. Amtrak uses the northernmost section of the line from Sunnyside Junction ( Bowery Bay) in the Woodside section of

to the Hell Gate Bridge into

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

from which it follows the line north to

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. Amtrak owns the line north of Sunnyside Junction, which forms part of the

Northeast Corridor The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston in the north to Washington, D.C., in the south, with major stops in Providence, Rhod ...

. From this point to Fresh Pond Junction CSX is the owner, with the line known as the Fremont Secondary. South of Fresh Pond, the line leads into the Bay Ridge Branch, a freight-only branch owned by the

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , or LIRR, is a Rail transport, railroad in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County on Long Islan ...

(LIRR) and operated by the New York and Atlantic Railway.

Route description

The line begins at the Hell Gate Bridge over the East River. This is a massive bridge, with a main span of and a total length of over . Continuing south, the line is on a high-level elevated viaduct over Astoria and

Interstate 278 Interstate 278 (I-278) is an List of auxiliary Interstate Highways, auxiliary Interstate Highway in New Jersey and New York (state), New York in the United States. The road runs from U.S. Route 1/9, US Route 1/9 (US 1/9) i ...

(

Grand Central Parkway The Grand Central Parkway (GCP) is a 14.61-mile (23.51 km) controlled-access parkway that stretches from the Triborough Bridge in New York City to the Queens– Nassau County line on Long Island. At the Nassau County line, it becomes t ...

). The line is then on an embankment until Sunnyside Junction, where Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line branches off. The line heads south and parallels Interstate 278 (

Brooklyn-Queens Expressway Interstate 278 (I-278) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in New Jersey and New York in the United States. The road runs from US Route 1/9 (US 1/9) in Linden, New Jersey, northeast to the Bruckner Interchange in the New Yor ...

) for a distance. This portion of the line was completely rebuilt in 2002. Now in the section of Elmhurst, the NYCR passes under several streets in a cut. An arched concrete viaduct over Queens Boulevard is followed by cuts and overpasses over streets in

Maspeth, Queens Maspeth is a residential and commercial community in the Borough (New York City), borough of Queens in New York City. It was founded in the early 17th century by Dutch and English settlers. Neighborhoods sharing borders with Maspeth are Woodside ...

. After crossing under the

Long Island Expressway Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...

( Interstate 495) and passing a few cemeteries, the line reaches Fresh Pond Junction. This is the main facility for shipping freight by rail in and out of New York City and Long Island. The New York and Atlantic Railway, which operates freights on the Long Island Rail Road under a privatized concession, has its main offices at Fresh Pond. CSX and PW also interchange freight with NYAR here. South of Fresh Pond Junction, the line continues south as the LIRR's Bay Ridge Branch to the

65th Street Yard The 65th Street Yard, also Bay Ridge Rail Yard, is a rail yard on the Upper New York Bay in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Equipped with two transfer bridges which allow rail cars to be loaded and unloaded onto car ...

. The line has three tracks to the north of Sunnyside Junction and one track to the south of this point (with two-track sections in some areas). There is a proposal to connect to the

Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad was a railroad built in what is today the West Bronx and South Bronx in New York City, United States. It ran from the junction between the West Side Line and the Hudson River Railroad near Spuyten Duyvil C ...

spur between the

at 141st Street to the

Harlem Line The Harlem Line is an commuter rail line owned and operated by the Metro-North Railroad in the U.S. state of New York. It runs north from New York City to Wassaic, in eastern Dutchess County. The lower from Grand Central Terminal to Southea ...

at 163rd Street and Melrose Avenue, as part of a

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

circumferential line called Triboro RX.

Operation

CSX serves the line with one to three daily round trips, with trains based out of

Oak Point Yard The Oak Point Yard is a freight railroad rail yard, yard located in Hunts Point, Bronx, Hunts Point, The Bronx, New York City. The yard is owned by CSX Transportation, and is a base for CSX's local deliveries in the area, including to the Hunts ...

. The CSX trains bring general freight to the interchange with the New York and Atlantic Railway at Fresh Pond Junction, in Queens, and return with empties and container loads of solid waste. Providence and Worcester runs three trains per week carrying gravel from Cedar Hill Yard in New Haven, CT, to Fresh Pond.

Origins

The New York Connecting Railroad was incorporated on April 21, 1892, and was jointly owned by the

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated principally in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

(the "New Haven") and the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

(PRR). The line opened in 1917 as a connection between the New Haven's Harlem River and Port Chester Railroad and the PRR

East River Tunnels The East River Tunnels are four single-track railroad passenger service tunnels that extend from the eastern end of Pennsylvania Station under 32nd and 33rd Streets in Manhattan and cross the East River to Long Island City in Queens. The trac ...

to Penn Station and the North River Tunnels under the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

. The line was dedicated on March 9, 1917 by PRR President Samuel Rea and engineer

Gustav Lindenthal Gustav Lindenthal (May 21, 1850 – July 31, 1935) was a civil engineer who designed the Queensboro Bridge, Queensboro and Hell Gate Bridge, Hell Gate bridges in New York City, among other bridges. Lindenthal's work was greatly affected by h ...

. A special train took the directors of the New Haven over the line on March 25, 1917, and at that time it was turned over to the New Haven for operation, though the Southern Division (freight-only) was not yet complete. Passenger service began on April 1, 1917, with the return of the ''

Federal Express FedEx Corporation, originally known as Federal Express Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company specializing in transportation, e-commerce, and business services. The company is headquartered in Memphis, Tenness ...

'' and the rerouting of two local trains. The '' Colonial'' began using it April 30, resulting in the first accident on the NYCR on August 20, 1917. Through freights to

Bay Ridge Bay Ridge is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by Sunset Park to the north, Dyker Heights to the east, the Narrows and the Belt Parkway to the west, and Fort Hamilton Army Base an ...

began January 17, 1918, and the final work was completed August 7, 1918.Netzlof, Robert (2008)
"Corporate Genealogy: New York Connecting Railroad."
Adapted from

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later Trucking industry in the United States, truc ...

Valuation Reports, July 1929.

Electrification

The New York Connecting Railroad was electrified around 1917 and last extension completed in 1927 as an extension of the New Haven's system. The NYCR system encompassed of track, and was electrified, like the New Haven, using

overhead catenary An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, Electric multiple unit, electric multiple units, trolleybuses or trams. The generic term used by the International Union ...

at 11 kV, 25 Hz. The system received power from the New Haven Cos Cob Power Station and

Consolidated Edison Consolidated Edison, Inc., commonly known as Con Edison (stylized as conEdison) or ConEd, is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues as of 2017, and over $62 ...

201st generating station via the West Farms substation. Additional power was supplied from a 5 MW, 7 kVA, 11 kV, three-phase to single-phase converter installed at East New York. This unit was also operated in synchronous condenser mode for reactive power support. (''See''

Amtrak's 25 Hz traction power system The traction power network of Amtrak uses 25 Hz for the southern portion of the Northeast Corridor (NEC), the Keystone Corridor, and several branch lines between New York City and Washington D.C. The system was constructed by the Pennsylvania Rai ...

.) Like the New Haven, the NYCR traction power was distributed using the 2 x 11 kV

autotransformer In electrical engineering, an autotransformer is an electrical transformer with only one winding. The " auto" (Greek for "self") prefix refers to the single coil acting alone. In an autotransformer, portions of the same winding act as both the p ...

topology. Two wires, the feeder and the catenary (often called the trolley wire), carried voltage of 11 kV to ground, but of opposite phase such that the feeder and catenary were 22 kV phase-to-phase. Six autotransformer stations, spaced an average of apart along the line, converted power. Each station contained oil circuit breakers for both feeder and trolley buses, bus sectioning switches, and one 3 MVA outdoor autotransformer. The LIRR portion of the system (essentially everything to the south of Bowery Bay), along with the freight catenary from West Farms over Hell Gate to Bowery Bay, was removed in 1969–1970. By 1986 Amtrak, which had inherited the Connecting Railroad, changed the traction power system over to 60 Hz operation coincident with the

Metro-North Railroad The Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company , also branded as MTA Metro-North Railroad and commonly called simply Metro-North, is a suburban commuter rail service operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a New York State publ ...

re-powering of the

New Haven Line The New Haven Line is a commuter rail line operated by the Metro-North Railroad in the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and Connecticut. Running from New Haven, Connecticut, to New York City, the New Haven Line joins the Harlem Line ...

at 60 Hz and de-activation of the Cos Cob Power Station. The autotransformer architecture was retained, but the source of power changed from the Metro-North New Haven Line system to the Con Edison-supplied Van Nest Substation ().

Notes

References

* Morton, R.B. "Arrangements of Feeders and Equipment for Electrified Railways", ''American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Transactions of the'', Vol 47, Issue 4, pp. 1297–1301, 1928. Discusses both original and 1930s vintage PRR electrification systems along with NY Connecting RR system.

External links

* * Forgotten New York
"New York Connecting Railroad"

New York Connecting Railroad Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:New York Connecting Railroad Companies affiliated with the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Companies affiliated with the Pennsylvania Railroad CSX Transportation lines Defunct New York (state) railroads Former Class I railroads in the United States Railroads transferred to Conrail Predecessors of Conrail Rail transportation in New York City Railway companies established in 1892 Railway companies disestablished in 1976