Exploring the 4: Arts for Transit Glasswork in the Bronx

August 21, 2014August 31, 2014 Emily Moser 3 Comments

As has been readily established on this blog, I’m not much of a fan of subways. The subterranean lack of light has never been of much intrigue to me, though I do find some interest in the stations located above ground. Many of New York City’s above-ground subway stations feature attractive stained glass art, through the Arts for Transit program. While I thought it might be interesting to do a post featuring some of the attractive stained glass found on the subway, I ended up with a whole lot more material than I anticipated.

Though we won’t be going as in-depth as my previous tours of Metro-North stations, I did think it would be fun to tour some of the above-ground sections of the NYC subway, focusing on the glass art found at various stations. When trains went back underground – I bailed – and when the art wasn’t glass in the windows or windscreens, I skipped it.

We’ll start our exploration on the 4 Line. If you’re interested in joining up via Metro-North, board a Bronx-bound 4 train to Woodlawn from Grand Central or Harlem-125th Street. We’ll be starting at Woodlawn – the end of the line – and working our way down.

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Railroad scenes on the cover of The New Yorker

August 1, 2014August 31, 2014 Emily Moser 4 Comments

Since 1925 The New Yorker magazine has been putting out issues with the most wonderfully designed covers (and a few controversial ones). Often times the covers don’t necessarily reflect any specific article found within magazine, but sometimes they do reflect current events. Other times they show typical New York area scenes. In a city as reliant on mass transit as New York, it was inevitable that buses, trains, and subways would frequently wind up on the cover of the magazine. Even Grand Central Terminal and the original Pennsylvania Station have also been featured several times.

Because several of the illustrators contributing to the magazine lived in Connecticut, the New Haven Line and commuters from the state were depicted on The New Yorker’s cover several times. Westport’s Historical Society had an exhibit featuring some of the Connecticut artwork from the magazine. From what I’ve seen on the internet, the exhibit (which ended last month) looked quite interesting, including some preliminary sketches of the covers by some of the artists.

I figured that I’d create my own little exhibit of covers here, of course, railroad related. Below you’ll find a collection of some of my favorite covers from The New Yorker, all featuring transit in some way. Enjoy!

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Jets and Atoms – Powering Bizarre Trains

April 11, 2014September 2, 2014 Emily Moser 7 Comments

The annals of history are full of strange and intriguing bits of curiosity, providing plenty of fodder for a blog such as this one. We’ve covered plenty of odd topics on the blog before – from ghost horses to “perfunctory peck spots” – but we’ve never really mentioned any of the New York Central’s more bizarre trains, and they’ve had a few. The king of strange, however, is probably an experimental jet powered train from 1966. I present to you the “Black Beetle:”

Essentially, the M-497, better known as the “Black Beetle,” is an RDC-3 with a shovel nose to be more aerodynamic, coupled with jet engines of a B-36. Tested in Ohio, it achieved a speed of 183.85 MPH. Eventually, the jets were removed, and the RDC was returned to service, albeit much slower.

Though far more tame than the jet-powered train, it is too difficult for me not to mention the Xplorer, which has always looked a bit comical to me.
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