A city look for a little switcher.
Here are a couple of photos that I find interesting. The West Side Freight Line in Manhattan began at Spuyten Duyvil at the northern tip of the island and terminated at the St. Johns Park Freight Terminal in lower Manhattan. In the days before the Hi-Line, trains ran on the streets between 33rd Street and the SJP freight terminal which was located south of Canal Street. It was on the block bordered by Laight Street and Beech Street on the north and south and Varick Street and Hudson Street on the east and west. This photo is looking south on Hudson Street from the building on the north west corner of Laight Street. It seems fascinating the way the tracks entered the building and even more interesting is the shrouded 0-6-0T steam switcher, known as a "Dummy Engine" in the foreground. Ten of these locomotives were shrouded to keep them from scaring horses on the street. There were also ten shrouded 0-4-0Ts in the same kind of service.
This photo is form the NY City Historical Society.
Here is a photo taken from just outside the doorway on the lower left side of the above photo looking to the north on Hudson Street with a little 0-6-0T switcher #1902.
This photo (below) was taken by George Grantham and is looking north on 10th Avenue from 25th Street. It shows a shrouded 0-4-0T steam switcher #11 pulling backwards 4 boxcars about to cross 26th Street. Note the Cowboy on horseback warning traffic and pedestrians of the approaching train. Although the photo is labled across the top "R.R. on 11th Avenue N.Y.C." I've researched the businesses in the photo and this was definitely 10th Avenue. At the upper right, a train is coming across 30th Street and entering a siding in a building between 30th and 29th Streets and between 10th Avenue and 9th Avenue. The main route curved onto 10th Ave at 30th Street and followed 10th Avenue until 10th Avenue and 11th Avenue merged into West Street at Gansevoort Street. It followed West Street along the Hudson River to Canal Street and turned east onto Canal Street to Hudson Street where it curved south to the St. Johns Park Terminal.
I'm seriously considering turning one of these Lionel 0-6-0T's into one of these "Dummy Engines."
