North Shore Branch
The North Shore Branch is a currently partially abandoned branch of the Staten Island Railway in New York City, which operated along Staten Island's North Shore from Saint George to Port Ivory. The line started construction in 1884, and rapid transit service on the line started on February 23, 1886. Passenger service on the North Shore Branch ended on March 31, 1953, although freight service continued to run along part of the North Shore Branch until 1989. In 2001, part of the line on the east end was reactivated for a short extension to Ballpark, which was in use from 2001 to 2010. In 2005, freight service on the western portion of the line was reactivated, and there are proposals to reactivate the former passenger line for rail or bus service.
Operation
Trains on the branch used tracks 10 through 12 at the Saint George Terminal. Trains originally consisted of two and three cars during the AM and PM rush hours, and one car at other times; by the end of passenger service, trains used only one car.The fares on the branch were collected by the conductor on the train, who had to pull a cord, similar to how it was done with trolleys. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which owned the branch, wanted to reduce service on the branch, and eventually abandon it. They purposely looked the other way when conductors skimmed money from the collected fares, allowing them to show a lower ridership to the Interstate Commerce Commission, and in return improve their chances for abandoning the branch.
Route description
The North Shore branch of the SIRT began at Saint George Terminal, using the northernmost platform and tracks of the terminal. After running through the St. George Freight Yard, the line ran on the shore of the Kill Van Kull from New Brighton to West Brighton. The line ran on land between St. George and New Brighton, and on a ballast-filled wood trestle supported by a wood retaining wall through Livingston and West Brighton. Though the right-of-way is distinguishable, little evidence of this portion of the line exists today, except for abandoned tracks and supports, much of which has eroded into the kill.Beyond West Brighton near a NYCDEP water pollution control facility, the line rose onto a reinforced concrete trestle known as the Port Richmond Viaduct, crossing Bodine Creek and running for about a mile through the Port Richmond neighborhood. West of Nicholas Avenue near Port Richmond High School, the line entered an open cut, crossing under the Bayonne Bridge approach and continued west to the Arlington Yard and station at South Avenue. Rapid transit service continued via a northern spur to Port Ivory; freight service passed the current Howland Hook Marine Terminal and crossed the Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge to Cranford Junction in New Jersey. The right-of-way from the Port Richmond Viaduct to Arlington Yard has remained intact and in good condition, though the former station sites and infrastructure are dilapidated and need rehabilitation or replacement should passenger service be reactivated.
History
Opening
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, operators of the SIRT until 1971, began construction on the line in 1884. In order to build the North Shore Branch, property needed to be acquired along the North Shore of Staten Island. About of rock fill along the Kill Van Kull needed to be built to deal with opposition from property owners in Sailor's Snug Harbor. In order to get property for the line to pass over the cove at Palmer's run, the company had to undergo a contest in litigation. In Port Richmond, some property was acquired, displacing businesses and homes. On the northwestern corner of Staten Island, the B&O purchased a farm and renamed it "Arlington"; the B&O built a freight yard on the farm by 1886.The SIR was leased to the B&O for 99 years in 1885. The proceeds of the sale were used to complete the terminal facilities at St. George, pay for of waterfront property, complete the Rapid Transit Railroad, build a bridge over the Kill Van Kull at Elizabethport, and build other terminal facilities. The North Shore Branch opened for service on February 23, 1886, up to Elm Park cutting travel times to 39 minutes from an hour and a half via the ferry system. The Saint George Terminal opened on March 7, 1886, and all SIR lines were extended to this station. On March 8, 1886, the South Beach Branch opened for passenger service to Arrochar. The remainder of the North Shore Branch to its terminus at Erastina was opened in the summer of 1886. The new lines opened by the B&O railroad were called the Staten Island Rapid Transit Railway, while the original line from Clifton to Tottenville was called the Staten Island Railway. In 1889–1890 a station was put up at the South Avenue grade crossing at Arlington in 1889–1890, where trains were turned on their way back to St. George.
Various proposals were made by the B&O for a railroad between Staten Island and New Jersey. The accepted proposal consisted of a line from the Arthur Kill to meet the Jersey Central at Cranford, through Union County and the communities of Roselle Park and Linden. Construction on this road started in 1889, and the line was finished in the latter part of that year. Congress passed a law on June 16, 1886, authorizing the construction of a swing bridge over the Arthur Kill, after three years of effort by Erastus Wiman. The start of construction was delayed for nine months by the need for approval of the Secretary of War, and another six months due to an injunction from the State of New Jersey. This required construction to continue through the brutal winter of 1888 because Congress had set a completion deadline of June 16, 1888, two years after signing the bill. The bridge was completed three days early on June 13, 1888, at 3 p.m. At the time of its opening, the Arthur Kill Bridge was the largest drawbridge ever constructed in the world. There were no fatalities in the construction of the bridge. On January 1, 1890, the first train operated from Saint George Terminal to Cranford Junction. Once the Arthur Kill Bridge was completed, pressure was brought upon the United States War Department by the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad to have the newly built bridge torn down and replaced with a bridge with a different design, claiming that it was an obstruction for the navigation of the large numbers of coal barges past Howland Hook on the Arthur Kill. They were not successful in these efforts, however.
1900s
In 1905, Procter & Gamble opened a large plant near Arlington Yard, later called Port Ivory, resulting in additional traffic. The line's electrification project was completed on Christmas Day of 1925, cutting ten minutes off of travel time from Arlington to Saint George.In the 1930s, the SIRT began several projects to remove grade crossings along the formerly surface-level right-of-way, constructing the current concrete viaduct and open-cut sections of the line. On February 25, 1937, the Port Richmond–Tower Hill viaduct was completed, becoming the largest grade crossing elimination project in the United States. The viaduct was more than long, and spanned eight grade crossings on the North Shore Branch of the SIRT. The opening of the viaduct marked the final part of a $6 million grade crossing elimination project on Staten Island, which eliminated 34 grade crossings on the north and south shores of Staten Island. While the viaduct was being constructed, service on the branch was operated on one track. With the opening of the viaduct, the stations at Port Richmond and Tower Hill reopened as elevated stations. Arthur S. Tuttle, state director of the PWA, cut ribbons to dedicate the reopened stations, and rode over the of the viaduct and the of the route project in a two car train. The project eliminated 37 grade crossings including ones at several dangerous intersections and the crossing over Bodine Creek. Around this time, the Lake Avenue and Harbor Road stations were constructed.
In the 1940s, freight and World War II traffic helped pay off some of the debt the SIRT had accumulated, briefly making the SIRT profitable. During the second World War, all of the east coast military hospital trains were handled by the SIRT, with some trains stopping at Arlington on Staten Island to transfer wounded soldiers to a large military hospital. The need to transport war material, POW trains, and troops, made the stretch of the Baltimore & New York Railway between Cranford Junction and the Arthur Kill extremely busy. The B&O also operated special trains for important officials such as Winston Churchill.
In 1945, SIRT purchased the property of the B&NY and merged it with the Staten Island Railway. The line had been worked with B&O and SIRT equipment since it opened in 1890. By 1949, there were no longer any staffed offices along the line except at Arlington. All of the stations on the line, with the exception of Harbor Road, Lake Avenue, Livingston and Snug Harbor, had waiting rooms and agents. The stations without waiting rooms were flag stops; the train would only stop if there was someone waiting at the station. The station at Port Ivory, which was used for workers of the Procter & Gamble Plant and was only open for the morning and evening rush hour, closed around the year 1950.
SIRT discontinued passenger service on the North Shore Branch to Arlington at midnight on March 31, 1953, along with service on the South Beach Branch. Passenger service had ceased because of city-operated bus competition, though the branch continued to carry freight. The third rail on the line was removed by 1955.
On October 21, 1957, four years after North Shore Branch passenger trains ended, the very last SIRT special—a train from Washington carrying Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to the Staten Island Ferry from a state meeting in Washington, D.C., with President Eisenhower—crossed the Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge. There was a royal train and a press train and they traveled over the Reading Railroad and the B&O to get to Camp Kilmer in New Jersey. Since British royalty was being transported, the movement was done in secrecy with high security. The trains reached the Camp by traveling via the Port Reading Branch of the Reading Railroad. In order to travel to Staten Island, which required traveling over the Arthur Kill swing bridge, the two trains had to be reconfigured. Done at the Camp, the two diesel locomotives in the front were dropped from the two consists, allowing the trains to pass over the bridge, which had a limited load capacity. Awaiting the return of the equipment from Staten Island, the two diesel trains were sent to Cranford Junction. On the morning of October 21, the press train, consisting of 10 cars, left the Camp in New Jersey and traveled to the SIRT via the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The royal train, which was constructed by Pullman Standard, followed an hour later. These two trains terminated at the Stapleton freight yard, which was cleaned up for the occasion. Each of the trains were hauled back to Cranford Junction by a SIRT switcher after the Queen's motorcade left the yard. The trains, that afternoon, then went south to Baltimore.