Re:(erielack) Erie in Jersey City

[Jim Guthrie <jguthrie_@_pipeline.com>]

Randy writes:

>Having seldom wandered of the "reservation"  (it was Jersey City.  One didn't go there; one >went THROUGH there) I have no idea where Pavonia was/is.  I know there is a Pavonia Avenue.

It was Pavonia 0and the Pavonia ferry) before the Erie laid an inch of track there. It reverted <g>.
>
>The Erie terminal was on the waterfront, while the Tubes were well inland to the west.  At Hoboken, they make a turn to the east to a stub end terminal beneath the Lackawanna platforms, with access to the train concourse at the north end only, as I recall.  Now it may be different.

The H&M plans called for a branch to the Erie station (not a Terminal -- it was at Milepost 1.0, after all (g>). just north of "Erie" at the junction of the Hoboken Route and the 33rd Street route (originally to go to Grand Central, with a second branch to the East Side, headers for which still house parts of the original boring machine) the switch is in a rather large space -- that's because this was to be a double crossover, with the "normal" 33rd Street route heading toward the Erie Station (it would have turned East jsut south of the double crossover).

There are original cross-section drawings showing this arrangement published at the time. If anyone is really interested, I'll see if I can find one and post it).

>On the morning inbound trips, riders for the Tubes loaded onto the rear of the train, to be >close to the stairs at the west end of the Erie platforms.  Ferry riders went to thr front, >for obvious reasons.  Upon arrival at Jersey City, it was down the stairs, through the >conourse and passageway and down more stairs to the Tube platform.

In the mists of time, we tend to forget that the platforms on the south side of the Erie station were a bit shorter than those on the north side, so on an NYS&W or Northern train, the H&M was halfway dow the platform, while it was on the west end on the southern-most tracks.
>
>Then you had to be sure to get the right train.  The Erie station on the Tubes was south of the wye to H&M's 33rd Street line, so you had to be sure to get on a Hoboken-Hudson Terminal (Manhattan) train and not a 33rd St.-Journal Square (Jersey City) one.

Even with separate platforms, sometimes challenge for slepy commuters.

I have always appreciated the westbound 33rd Street ride under the North River.When the tube was being constructed, sandhods digging from east and west calculated they should be breaking through -- but didn;t. They could even hear each other -- but then realized the sound wasn't coming from infront of them, but rather to the side. It turns out they were eight feet aweay from each other -- with the tube from the Jersey City Side to the north of the one from the Morton Street side. That mid-river S-Curve is a reminder that "misteaks are made."

>At least the Tubes were cool -- kind of -- but they smelled funny.  Still do, apparently, >according to a recent article in The Times.

NYU students in the 1950s installed a nice sign at the ataircase at Ninth Street that read: "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter In." It stayed there for years . . .

Erie (and NYS&W) always counted the Tubes in its fare structure, even though it was a separate fare. That's because there were no ferry fare controls from the railroad platforms.

Commuters who wanted the Jersey City fare had to submit a notarized affidavitt each time they purchased a 46-ride ticket to jersey City (same ticket stock as NY) that stated that they would never use the ticket in connection with a trip to Manhattan via ferry OR Hudson Tubes OR Bus or any other means (swim?).

The affidavitt went away with the move to Hoboken.

Cheers,
Jim


	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	http://EL-List.railfan.net/
	To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html

------------------------------