Sunday, March 25, 2012

Give Me Liberty

 

This is one of those mixed bag posts. If you see a section you don't like, just move on.



A few weeks ago in Liberty Enlightening the World you might recall that the back of the package said:
Remove buildings from water and it will shrink to original size.
Surprise! Not really! I gave Colored Growing a few weeks to be totally dried out, but she's still about half again original size. And she looks different.



They've got me though. The directions say to remove buildings from water. If I complain they'll ask whether I removed any buildings from water. I did not.



Spring! Click to enlarge!


Out front, the daffodils get your attention first, and then the small purple flowers everywhere of the groundcover, vinca. Some pink hyacinths are scattered around. In the lower left quadrant please notice the clumps of purple and white snow glories, from little bulbs we planted laboriously last fall.


Up the hill out back, we have a nice grouping of hellebores. Behind them are a carpet of vinca and marsh marigolds. The yellow flowers of the marsh marigolds are closed today because it's been overcast. Near the top are cherry blossoms of the last remaining stem of an old tree. We had to cut down its main trunk last year because it was dead. It never produces cherries but the flowers and bark are unmistakable.



People keep asking, "Joe, did you forget about the New Jersey Terminals project?" So I believe. But if they are asking, they don't realize that I can't hear them from here.

Anyway, I have put up the 1915 lines and stations over on the web page. This is a candidate for the peak year. I left off the base map on this one to get a cleaner image.



The colors indicate the different railroad companies, with street railways in purple.

I found the street railways poorly documented but fascinating. In this portion you can see the Hoboken Elevated and several other sections of off-street running, particularly where cars ascended the Palisades.

A surprise to me was continued Pennsylvania Railroad service at Marion for a time after the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad opened. It probably had low platforms till the end. The service is documented in a 1915 Official Guide. H&M Newark trains ran past Marion without stopping on the same tracks as the Pennsylvania trains.



More fun next time.



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4 comments:

  1. Great to see progress on the New Jersey Terminals project! (I'll have to ask louder next time.)

    How are you determining which segments to show as street-running? For example your post on the Elizabeth Loop seems to indicate that those trains ran down the middle of Broadway, but you show that with a thick line, while the West Side Line on 11th Ave has a thin line.

    Can't wait to see the rest of the maps.

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    1. The Elizabeth Loop ran in a private right of way in the middle of the street, while the Hudson line ran in the street pavement. That's the difference. For trolleys, I tried to identify any sections not actually in pavement from available sources.

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  2. I'm trying to write a short article on the 9th Avenue El's Putnam Bridge for pikiwedia, which doesn't have one at the moment. While trolling the NY Times archive for information on this bridge, I came across the following tid-bit in the City and Suburban News section for January 3, 1879, which may be of interest to you in your Terminals project:

    "The terminus of the Montclair Railroad, which was recently purchased by the Erie Road, has been changed from the Pennsylvania Railroad depot to the Erie Railway depot at Jersey City. Trains commenced running from the new depot yesterday [i.e. January 2, 1879]. Six round trips will be made over the road daily, for the present."

    Don't know if that helps you in any way, but as soon as I saw it, I thought of this page.

    (url: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D02E0DF123EE63BBC4B53DFB7668382669FDE

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  3. That does help. Thanks. I had the terminal change happening a little later, when the connecting link to the Erie's Newark Branch was built.

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