Stop me if you’ve heard me say this before… I found a really cool railroad ad that I absolutely love. Okay, okay, I’ve said that far too many times. One of my most recent acquisitions is this 1902 advertisement for the famous 20th Century Limited. This famous train has little to do with the Harlem Line – it ran along the New York Central’s “Water Level Route” – part of which is today’s Hudson Line. But on the rare occasion where there was a problem on the tracks, the train could be diverted to Chatham and instead run down the Harlem Division, into Grand Central.

Part of the reason why I love this ad is the history behind it. The advertisement was printed in the inaugural year of the 20th Century Limited. In 1902, trains really were the best way of transportation in the United States. Although cars did exist, they didn’t really become available to the masses until 1908. At the time the ad was printed, the Wright Brothers had not yet made their historic flight. The world did not see its first passenger “airline” running scheduled flights until 1919. And the first automobile road across the United States, the Lincoln Highway, was not completed until 1913 – though much of it was unpaved and of poor quality. The true modernization of our intercity roads did not come until 1956 with the Interstate Highway System, truly sparking America’s love affair with the car. The glamor of rail travel began to fade, and the automobile replaced the train as the preferred method of transportation in this country. But in this ad the train was still king – and the 20th Century Limited was the most grand of all.

Obviously the pricetag of an early car was nothing for the Vanderbilts’ fortune. William Kissam Vanderbilt can be seen here in his racing car in 1904. [image credit]

The one thing I do find slightly amusing about this ad (I always find something slightly amusing – I’m easily amused) is how it somewhat shows the stagnation of our train technology. While other countries developed effective high speed rail systems, we’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of fast trains. As visible in the ad, the original travel time for the 20th Century Limited was 20 hours. Over the years that time was whittled down to fifteen and a half hours. Today, Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited follows a very similar route to the 20th Century Limited, and makes the journey in 19 hours. Although the Lake Shore Limited makes more stops than the 20th Century, one would think that in over a hundred years we’d be running a whole lot faster than that.

The United States has had many “firsts” in railroad history – like the first four-track railroad in the world – but other countries have far surpassed us in railroad technology and innovation. The highest speed record for a train is 361 mph (a test train, the record for an actual passenger train is around 245 mph), but unless we build dedicated rail lines for faster trains, we’ll never see an American train going more than 150mph. Perhaps we may fly someday – on a fast train speeding across rails of glinting steel.

Hello, and welcome to planet Earth. The Earth is a planetary body that revolves around the sun… unless you are one of the many Metro-North riders that have the erroneous belief that the world actually revolves around them. Those special people are known to cause scenes on the morning train (like the woman I saw last week yelling, “for every minute we’re late I’m docked pay!”), and somehow have the strange belief that Metro-North has one train running on each line: their train. The remainder of us, however, are well aware that the busiest commuter railroad in the country certainly has more than 3 trains running at a time. But how many? And where are they?

I had a kind of silly idea – I would create a map that showed the location of every Metro-North train at an arbitrary time during the morning rush. That way people would be able to really visualize how many trains there are, and to understand that they aren’t alone on the rails – not by a long shot. The map would provide a quick snapshot of what exactly is happening on every weekday morning. Somehow along the way the map turned into a little bit more interactive of a piece – using Google maps, one can zoom in and out, pan, and click on each train placemark for more information. Then I got a little bit more crazy – I added in the Shore Line East and Amtrak trains passing over Metro-North territory, as well as the deadheads I was aware of. If anything, there could be more trains than what are currently shown, but for the most part it is fairly exact.

If you click the above image, the interactive map should open in a new window. You can click any train placemark for more information. Any train deadheading (moving from one place to another, but not carrying passengers) will be labeled “not in revenue service.” You can also toggle on and off the various lines to, for example, show only Harlem Line trains. By default all trains are turned on – and there are quite a lot of them. Did you realize there were quite that many? Perhaps the subtitle of this map should be “RTC’s are awesome and I salute them.”

I must thank Eric (@kc2hmv) for doing quite a bit to help me get this map looking awesome, as my programming skills are nonexistent (the toggle feature was all him!). Secondary thanks goes to this site, as I based the design of my map off of the clean and nicely done commuter map found there.

An older, and a bit more attractive Bridgeport station

Throughout my tour of the New Haven Line I have discovered quite a few beautiful train stations. Unfortunately, I would not include today’s featured station, Bridgeport, among them. The current station is a somewhat imposing concrete structure, amassed with people heading in all directions via Metro-North, Shore Line East, and Amtrak trains. And all of those people are a quite diverse lot, ranging from girls in rainbow fishnet stockings, to a guy with a soulpatch wearing a miniskirt and high heels. I’m totally not judging.

A literal train wreck at Bridgeport.

The current Bridgeport station was completed in 1975, though it not nearly as beautiful as the station it replaced. The previous station was built in the early 1900′s for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, but burned down in the 1970′s. The station is located alongside the water, and not far from the ferries to Long Island, as well as Harbor Yard. The station is a transfer point for folks riding the Waterbury branch, and it is approximately 55 miles from Grand Central.

Here are some photos of my visit to Bridgeport… I will state, for the record, there would be more, including a panorama of the M8 that passed by, had I not been visited by a police officer that told me picture taking was forbidden. I suppose the popo don’t realize that there are a lot of ways to secretly record things… I mean if I were a terrorist, it would be quite easy to secretly record the happenings at the train station without, you know, that big “terrorist device” known as a camera. Just sayin’.

I’ve spent the past few weeks posting some relatively boring photographs of some of the stations along the Danbury Branch of the New Haven Line… Despite what anyone seems to think about me, I really do think that I am more interested in train stations more than the actual machine that is a train. But it is undeniable that train station photography, without any actual trains present, is pretty boring. And most of the Danbury Branch stations I featured were like that. In fact, several did not even have any train service on the days I visited, as signal work was being done and buses were carrying passengers instead of trains. Today, however, the station I am featuring has a whole lot of photographs that do contain trains. At most stations that I visited on the main New Haven Line, there was at least one train going by. Here at Southport, you’ll be able to spot both Metro-North trains, and the occasional passing Amtrak train as well.

Station on the eastbound side in 1966

Not only are the trains pictured captivating – but Southport’s station has a bit of history behind it as well. The original station (on the eastbound/New Haven side) was built in 1859, but burnt down in 1884. A new station was completed in a matter of months (imagine that happening today, it would only take a matter of years!), and is still standing today. Like many of the main line stations, there are station buildings on both sides of the tracks, and they are not directly across from one another. The building on the east (Manhattan-bound) side of the track also had a fire, but much more recently (2008). The fire did not completely destroy the station, and it has since been renovated and reopened.

Southport station is located approximately 49 miles from Grand Central, and is one of two stations (soon to be three) in Fairfield, Connecticut. Although Amtrak trains can be seen passing by, they do not stop at Southport. The two station buildings are still in use – the restored station on the west-bound side operates as a waiting room, and contains restrooms. The east-bound station has been the home to the Italian restaurant Paci since 1996.

After day 1′s crappy weather, the sun on day 2 was quite pleasant. I won’t lie though, in the mountains it was pretty damn cold. My hands were seriously like cold icicles from holding the camera and taking pictures. I had a date with the alpine slide and a crazy zip line down the mountain, before heading to the summit for photos…

I also visited the train station at White River Junction for a few photos, before heading to some antiques place my dad was interested in seeing. There is a museum at the station, the New England Transportation Museum, but I knew it would be closed. They did have a restored engine outside that I was able to see. There was also a scenic train ride, but it didn’t really fit into our schedule.

Best part of the day? Vermont cheese samples everywhere. Cheese, om nom nom.

If you follow me on twitter, earlier this week I was rather bitter about being disqualified from Amtrak’s contest for no apparent reason. I’ve debated posting about this for a few days, but considering I am still a bit bitter, I will. And from this point forward, I will forget about it. For the record, if they were to give me a reason why every entry I submitted was rejected, maybe I’d be ok. It is the refusal to do so, or even to acknowledge me, that irks me. They should have just said, “our legal team said your idea was not feasible,” or, “your idea is too similar to another entrants,” (it isn’t), maybe, “your submitted image was too good, entrants using photoshop and voodoo are not permitted”, or even, “my neighbor’s daughter has entered this contest, and your idea is better than hers, so I don’t want you in the running.”

What was the contest, you ask? Incredibly lame. They couldn’t come up with what the contest should be, so therefore they decided that the contest would be for you to come up with what the contest should be. Did I want to win the contest? Of course, I wouldn’t have entered if I hadn’t. The top prize was a $3500 credit for Amtrak. And I knew exactly the first thing I would spend it on: my grandmother. She hasn’t been in the best health this year, culminating in open-heart surgery about a month or so ago. For the past few years she has wanted to go visit her 95 year-old sister-in-law (the jokes about in-laws do not apply here, they are practically best friends) in Florida. The catch is, she refuses to fly, and she doesn’t have the money to take the train. Of course, a one way Amtrak ticket is more expensive than a round-trip flight. I can remember my first Amtrak trip was with her, going down to Florida. I know that she really wants to go, but she doesn’t talk about it much because she simply doesn’t have the money to do it. But when she was in the hospital, I told her I would pay her way down to Florida when she was better, whatever method she wanted: a flight, Greyhound, or Amtrak. Had I won the contest, I would have at least been able to pay for a nice sleeper car for her, which considering the coach prices are already quite high, sleeper expenses are probably through the roof.

Nonetheless, I will be forgetting about this contest, now that I will be posting what my entry was… The entry you will not see on Amtrak’s site. If you do happen to read it, I invite you to tell me what part is plagiarized, lewd, or inappropriate, which violate the rules of the contest.

Photoshop and Voo-doo: Against the rules.

Title: Rail Pass Blogging Adventure

Description: Across the country, more and more people are creating blogs online and posting their photography and videos. My idea would be to use the power of the blogosphere to create the ultimate Amtrak rail adventure, and give viewers ideas of all the things across our nation that you can see by rail. Each entrant would create their own web site, blog, or social networking account to post their dream itinerary for a 30 day rail adventure. Possible subjects to include why they enjoy rail travel, previous trips on Amtrak, and their train photography. The bulk of the entry would be detailing their trip itinerary if they were to win a 30 day rail pass: what trains they would take, what cities they’d visit, and what activities they are interested in. At the end of the contest, the winner will get a rail pass to take the trip they suggested: and if they choose, update the blog they created detailing their journey.

Prize: A 30 day Amtrak rail pass, so the winner can actually take the trip that they proposed, and a digital camera to document the journey.

Why we should pick you: My idea is a great marketing opportunity: people can get ideas for their own trips, and follow along with the winner if they choose to continue posting to their blog while on their adventure. Instead of looking for a person skilled in a particular area (photo contest), truly anyone could enter and get the chance to live their dream. I personally write a blog about trains, and think it would be incredibly fun to do exactly what I suggested – my dream is to travel the country and world by rail.

Several months ago I was amused when I saw a blog linking to my own, and they referred to me as a “closeted rail fan.” Despite “coming out” and accepting the title I still wonder if it is really an appropriate term to call me. I certainly like riding on trains, but I know very little about the physical machine that is a train. I think my primary interest is the history, and most specifically, how technology affected places and people. And I think it is undeniable that the railroads played a big part in how New York evolved. Back when Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the land for the original Grand Central Depot, the location was considered “the boonies,” as City Hall was thought of as the northern end of the city. And what would Westchester County be like without the rail? The rail encouraged the people of the area to move north and spread out, turning the rural areas into the suburbs we know today.

I think another thing that interests me about the rail is the abandonment. I really don’t know why, but I have a fascination with abandoned places – and the rail has plenty of them. The railroad was once the primary way mail and freight was delivered, and how people got around. But cars became increasingly more popular, and with the advent of the interstate system, cars took the place of trains in getting around. And so stations were closed, rail lines cut, and railroad companies went bankrupt. I do mention it frequently on here, but the Harlem Line is no stranger to abandonment. In 1972 passenger service north of Dover Plains ceased, and around 50 miles worth of track, all the way to Chatham, was abandoned.

Old photos and postcards of Chatham, NY

In the grand scheme of things, Chatham was luckier than most. It was once a thriving area for transportation: the Harlem Division, Rutland Railway, and the Boston and Albany all made stops. Though the Harlem and Rutland’s track has been ripped out, CSX and Amtrak still use the Boston and Albany track, running through the quiet village without stopping. Quite a few of the former stations on the Harlem Division have really nothing to see… station buildings long gone and mostly forgotten. But as I said before, Chatham was luckier than most, the historical Union Station still stands, restored and used as a bank. And in 1974 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Henry Hobson Richardson was an influential architect in the 19th century, popularizing a style of architecture that was named for him: Richardsonian Romanesque. The revival style incorporated 11th and 12th century European Romaneque traits. Although Trinity Church in Boston was his most notable work, he designed several railroad stations for the Boston and Albany. Several architects trained with Richardson, including Charles McKim and Stanford White, who designed the original Pennsylvania Station, though in the Beaux-Arts style. Following Richardson’s style, however, were two others that worked for him: George Shepley and Charles Coolidge. Their firm Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, based in Boston, completed Richardson’s partially completed and pending projects, one of which was Chatham’s Union Station. In total, the firm completed 23 of B&A’s stations, including Boston’s South Station, still in use by the MBTA.

Chatham’s Union Station opened on August 31, 1887. The ticket office in the station was closed in 1960, and pieces of the inside, including the waiting benches, were sold off. Passengers used the station up until it’s final closure in March of 1972, ending the many years it served as the terminus of the Harlem Division. The station has been restored, and reopened in 1999. It is now the office for the Chatham branch of the Bank of Kinderhook. And it is still quite beautiful… one of the few remaining vestiges of the Upper Harlem Line that I can actually see.

While I was in Toronto I had the chance to visit the busiest train station in Canada, Union Station. It is a great example of the Beaux-arts style (like Grand Central) in Canada. Via Rail, Amtrak, Ontario Northland, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) all operate trains out of the station (and in the case of the TTC, Streetcars as well). Construction on Union Station was completed in 1920. It was designed by Ross and Macdonald, HG Jones and JM Lyle, and opened in 1927.

The central area of the station is called the Great Hall, and is quite beautiful. I must admit, though, I am biased… it pales in comparison to Grand Central. I would have loved to take more photos of the station, but with the G20 Summit approaching security was being heightened, and I was asked to not photograph any more. The first photo is the one that I got in trouble for. Though I think it turned out pretty nicely, so it was worth it. In hindsight, I was rather dense to start taking photos right in front of the security office.

Stretching above the streets from Union Station is a Skywalk, which extends to the convention center, and close to the CN Tower and Toronto Railway Heritage Center (which I’ll be posting pictures of soon). Other than being a pretty cool looking walk way, the Skywalk also extends over the railroad tracks, so it is a nice vantage point for photography. All in all I really enjoyed Toronto, and I’d highly recommend visiting Union Station and the Railway Heritage Center for anyone in the area. And once the Summit is over, I’m sure the cops will not be quite as strict regarding photography.

I don’t want to be an ass in saying this comment, but really, I wonder how trains function in the United States. Commuter trains and subways, like the ones in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Chicago, and other places across the country make sense to me. They are practical, and they don’t take too long. By the time I was twenty, I had been to the city a million times, all by train. We never drove. Driving took probably around the same time as the train, and you didn’t have to worry about parking, and tolls, and traffic. Taking the train is not too expensive, as well. It just makes sense. I can count the number of times I have gone to the city by car on one hand. And the first time was when I was twenty.

But how does Amtrak work? I’ve only been on Amtrak twice, going to Florida and back with my grandmother that has a minor phobia of planes. I’ve thought of taking the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, but that is only because I like trains, and I think it would be cool to ride what was once known as “The Water Level Route.” But other than having a phobia of planes, and being a railfan, why would I want to take Amtrak? Searching up prices, I can get a round trip flight to Orlando for July 4th for $193. That ride takes two and a half hours. Or, with Amtrak, I could ride for twenty-two hours, and pay a whopping $423. Why would anyone want to pay more than double for a trip that takes more than seven times as long? In Japan I took the bullet train to Kyoto, which in terms of time and price is very close to flying. Close enough to compete, anyways. But then that just goes back to the usual argument that the US wanted their Interstate System, while other countries, especially Japan, concentrated on rail.

That sort of demonstrates my mind-set when I think about trains. There are some times when I read about their history, that I am completely and utterly baffled by how important they once were. Rail was the way that products and people were transported. And during World War II, trains were an integral part of the war effort. The New York Central operated personnel trains, mail trains, equipment freight, and even hospital trains. An average of two million troops per month were transported over the NY Central system during WW2. I always love looking at old advertisements, so today I have a collection of old New York Central magazine advertisements from the war years. Each advertisement depicts a different scene or use for the wartime trains: from riding the 20th Century Limited, to troop trains, to the fully equipped surgery suite on an army hospital train.

It is interesting to note that part of the reason why we have the Interstate System today can be attributed to the war. President Eisenhower pushed for the Interstate System, especially after experiencing the German autobahn while he served in World War II. He had also been associated with the Transcontinental Motor Convoy which drove from Washington DC to San Francisco, and took sixty-two days. That sort of puts it in perspective, how roads in between cities were back then. Today if you drove non-stop and managed to avoid traffic, you could drive that in two days. Sixty-two days, no wonder why people took the train!

A few months ago, news hit the newspapers and internet that the Connecticut Department of Transportation was going to be removing the Solari split-flap departure board at Union Station in New Haven. There was a bit of a fight about it though: people didn’t want to see the sign go. People tried writing letters… even I wrote a letter to the CDOT, which of course, was never answered. A Facebook group, called Save Solari, even rounded up 600 fans that wanted the sign to stay. Unfortunately, it seems that all those attempts to convince the CDOT failed. Construction on New Haven’s Union Station begins today. And Metro-North has confirmed on Twitter that it will include the replacement of the split-flap display with an LED sign. The construction also includes upgrades to the sprinkler and fire protection systems, heating and a/c improvements, rehabilitation of the elevators, reconstruction of the pedestrian tunnel, and upgrades to the PA system. The construction will happen over the next twelve months, at which point of this the Solari will be removed has not been mentioned. But apparently, it’s days are numbered.

News of the impending construction led me to finally take a visit over to Union Station on Saturday. Saturday was also National Train Day, though I wasn’t aware that there were even going to be events happening at the train station. In fact, I had been there for at least an hour before I even noticed. I heard the people talking in the corner, though when I went to go investigate, politician Ned Lamont was speaking. His groupies practically tripped over their own legs to get to me and give me stickers and other political propaganda. Which I had to reject several times, at which point I just left.

Later on when I was investigating the paper hats people were wearing, I noticed that there was a cake for Union Station’s 90th Birthday. You know about me and hats, like a moth to a flame. Over by the cake though, there was an agenda for the National Train Day events at the station, which is the only way I figured out that was going on. Ned Lamont was one of the listed speakers on that agenda. Though I didn’t listen to what he had said (me and politicians have a relationship completely opposite than me and hats), I just kept thinking he somewhat hijacked this odd “National Train Day” to promote his gubernatorial campaign. I am almost as skeptical of that as I am of the whole idea of “National Train Day” – a delightful marketing event by Amtrak. Conceptually it is cool, but the real idea behind it… well, it just feels as bogus as if Hallmark declared tomorrow “Give cards to all your coworkers day.”

Alright, that is enough drivel from me, what you really came to see were the photos, right?

Departure board, we’ll miss you! And of course, Happy Birthday Union Station. For more information about the construction, be sure to check Metro North’s site.