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LI City
Station Area |
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LIRR #261 LICity
LI City 1989
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LIRR #228 01-31-79
LIRR #263 LICity
Satellite view of this area
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LI City PRR Power House 10/31/1925
view east from 2nd Ave
Built in 1905, as part of an enormous expansion and electrification project of the Long Island Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad, which culminated with the completion of New York City’s Penn Station in 1910.
First planned as two separate power stations in Jamaica, Queens and West Side Manhattan, the project was relocated to Long Island City, as this location was central to Manhattan and Brooklyn. This original power station used steam turbines, powered by burning coal, to boil water for steam. By the time Penn Station was opened, it was providing 32,500 kW of energy to tunnels into the station.
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Wheelspur Yard |
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LI City detail of
Hunter's Point and Newton Creek area. Circa 1947-1954 as
the Pulaski Bridge is under construction on this map.
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Wheelspur Yard -1904
Collection: Art Huneke
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Wheelspur Yard - c.1948
Collection: Dave Keller
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Looking
NE towards “M” cabin and drawbridge. (Cabin at right background, Dutch Kills at far right, not visible in this shot.)
Two Pennsy H9s locomotives laying up (there were usually a total of 3, one is behind the engine at the right and not visible) to supply the yard with steam heat. Headlights have been removed. In the center of the view are the coaling gondola and derrick to feed the tenders.
In 1950 the H9’s were replaced by three Pennsy L1s (2-8-2) locomotives, so this shot precedes 1950. The yard was torn up in 1959.
Info: Dave Keller |
Montauk cutoff drawbridge at “M”
cabin, looking west.
Photo: Art Huneke 1955 |
As a point of reference, the photographer of this Wheelspur photo would have been standing approximately in front of the first or second string of passenger cars
above.
Info: Dave Keller |
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Phelps-Dodge
Copper Refining and Chemical Production Plant 1920-1983 |
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Laurel Hill Chemical Works
1881
G.H. Nichols Proprietors
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View NE
Laurel Hill Works at full build-out, circa 1933 (courtesy Allied Signal
Archives) |
"Dead Man's Curve", so named because of the many workers who were killed by oncoming trains while crossing the tracks to and from work at the
"Laurel Hill Works"
View west of 46th St./
Clifton Avenue
crossing, site of the old Laurel Hill station. Clifton Ave crossing closed 1918
Employees crossing
the tracks to get to work got hit by westbounds not making the station
stop or, after the station was discontinued, not preparing to make ANY
stop!
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Nichols started out making sulfuric acid
from the sulfur in copper ore. The acid-making side of the business
later became Allied Chemical, now merged into Allied-Signal.
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Phelps-Dodge Emery map MP2 10/1958 |
Laurel Hill - Bliss LIRR Maps 1966 Phelps- Dodge location |
1995 US topographic map |
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Phelps-Dodge cars were stored in Bliss yard where the afternoon Bliss job would bring new cars in from Yard A and make up the afternoon train, following the drill order, for the Laurel Hill job.
"...Bliss was used by LIRR freight and had an engine terminal so that steam engines did not have to run reverse all the way to Morris Park. This was also gone by 1957. In my time, Bliss yard was used to store cars for Phelps Dodge, Van Iderstine and other customers between Greenpoint Ave and PD. Also cars for Murers sidings were stored here. Crews reported at Yard A and brought cars to Bliss before making up their trains for their respectful switching areas.
The afternoon Bliss job made up the train for the crew that switched Phelps Dodge..." JJ Earl
Laurel Hill job went to work at Yard A and usually went right to Laurel Hill siding to gather all westbounds ordered out from Phelps Dodge and several other sidings in the area.
These westbounds were taken to Yard A and the crew would return to Bliss, put the engine in the west end of it’s train in the yard. The conductor rode on the rear (lead) car, using a back-up hose so that he had control of the air brake.
The move was made with hand signals. In the dark these were made using an electric lantern.
When all was ready, the crew shoved the train the mile to Laurel Hill switch and the first customer was Phelps Dodge.
Phelps Dodge had four tracks, all on a downgrade toward Newtown Creek and great care had to be taken that these heavy copper cars did not get away while shoving in. The usual drill called for about fifteen to twenty cars in and the same number out every night.
Author: JJ Earl
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Phelps-Dodge closed
Collection: Art Huneke
Phelps-Dodge 2000
Photo: Bernie Ente
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Phelps-Dodge Nichols Siding
1974
View west Photo: Richard F. Makse
Location: The private
grade crossing into the Phelps Dodge copper refinery. Nichols Siding,
named after the Nichols Copper Co In the 50's and 60's.
The lead to Phelps-Dodge is the track to the left of the train. This
landmark industrial site on Newtown Creek, was long the LIRR's best
freight customer and was so important as to justify its own freight
clerk and station designation ("Laurel Hill"), a job that
worked in one of the myriad ancient brick buildings of the complex until
the early 60's. Phelps-Dodge, a company with ancient roots in NYC and a
supply link to copper mines off the SP and the Tucson, Cornelia and
Gila Bend in far away Arizona, signaled to the world why the ancient and
fragrant colonial waterway of Newtown Creek represented the greatness of
New York at the inland port of Maspeth. Info: Richard
F. Makse
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LONG ISLAND CITY
