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| Re: 76 TH STATION BROOKLYN/QUEENS. (1169477) | |||
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Re: 76 TH STATION BROOKLYN/QUEENS. |
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Posted by Handbrake on Sun Jul 29 21:27:12 2012, in response to Re: 76 TH STATION BROOKLYN/QUEENS., posted by tunnelrat on Sun Jul 29 21:20:35 2012. Here ya go TR:"Tunnel Rat" Responds to SubTalk Discussion on 76th Street Station (Queens IND) Posted by BMTman on Fri Jan 10 10:05:44 2003 (Please be advised that should you wish to contact Steve directly, you must send an email to me requesting his phone number as Steve is w/o web access and is interested in serious inquiries only. I have done my best to transcribe Steve's eight-page, hand-written response. Pardon any grammatical errors that I may have overlooked in the process.) 'I wrote the ERA article about the 76th St. & Pitkin Ave. station. Since I don't have a computer this letter is being submitted by a friend. If anybody wants to talk to me about this, feel free to contact BMTman at his email address (highlighted) and he'll forward you my phone number. Here are the facts that I know to be true, having been on the four lay-up tracks under Grant & Pitkin Avenues 50 to 60 times with ERA members who can back up this story. In the Euclid Tower it shows on the model board, and I'm quoting the board: Four tracks to 76th St. station & Cross Bay Blvd. In the Pitkin Yard Tower it shows two yard leads. Black-taped over stating "to 76th St. Station" on the four lay-up tracks. One car length away from the bumping blocks. On the express & local tracks coming from 76st St. are two signals, covered over with rotting canvas. In the signal relay room just behind the Euclid Tower is a 1947 signal schematic stating that the 2 signals -- going to the 76th St. station and beyond the concrete wall (towards Queens) -- controlled the 76th St. TOWER. These were to be installed by the contractor at a later date. You have two yard leads from Pitkin Yard that run for approximately 300 feet heading towards 76th St. They stop at a CINDERBLOCK wall. At the foot of North Conduit & Grant Ave. right where the foot-path between the Conduit Blvd starts. You can clearly see where the crossties are still in place connecting it to Pitkin Yard. The crossovers are still stacked on the ROW. Halfway down the ROW is a reverse homeball. At the base of the cinderblock wall & under the wall (I dug them out) are ties with spike holes in them. This two track lead was used to turn trains from 1948 to 1952 when it was taken out of service. First the portal was back filled with dirt. Two ERA members, Randy Litz & George Abera (deceased) saw this sometime in the early 1960's. Sometime in the 1970's a section of the tunnel had the dirt removed and a cinderblock wall with a structure door was put in'. I have eyewitness accounts of people who have been in the tunnel and station, through Pitkin Yard only. When I started with the T.A. in 1964 -- Signal Dept. -- I would ask the old timers about all the pockets I saw on the Queens Blvd. IND and found some startling information. My Maintainer (Tom Carey, deceased), worked Pitkin yard as a Helper when it first opened up in 1948. He walked the yard leads to the 76th St. station. There were 2 tracks that went a good distance beyond where the wall is today. Where they stopped was a Type 2 subway tunnel, i.e., just an IND tunnel with no tracks, no lighting or signals. Two ramps leading into the 76th St. station. The station is a full length IND station, roughed out with blue tiles on the walls stating '76 ST.'. These are local stations on a four track ROW. The four track ROW goes to where the bumping blocks are under Grant & Pitkin Ave. and extend beyond the station to approx. 79th St. In 1968, when I was a Transit cop, riding the A Train, I asked the Motorman if he knew about the 76th St. Station. He did. He said that sometime in the 1950's that section of tunnel beyond the cinderblocked wall had flooded and he had to go in on the pump train. He stated that beyond where the wall is now it was pitch black and the train went a distance, scaring the crew because they had know idea if they would run out of track into a bumping block or a wall. They finally hit water and pumped it out and left. Sometime in the mid-70's I was an NYPD Officer working in the 75th Precinct (Pitkin Yard). Two cops that I worked with then actually got into the tunnel and station thru the structure door in the cinderblock wall. The door has long since been removed). One cop was a former transit cop and knew about the station and tunnels. The other cop whose name I will not mention is also a transit cop and railroad buff and President of the L.I. Chapter of the New Haven R.R. Society. I called him up in 1998 and spoke to him for the first time in 20 years on an unrelated transit matter. After doing so, he told me without me asking about his going into the 76th St. Station. His description is as follows: His partner drove into Pitkin yard. Got the key from the Yard Master, walked him down the abandoned ROW. Opened the structure door, and walked down. Ballast for quite a distance until they were on the ramps to 76th Street. The station was roughed out, blue tile on the walls stating �76 ST�. Center entrance, full length in the mezzanine. There was no token booth or turnstiles, but there were staircases leading to the street and cemented over. The four-track ROW was just an empty tunnel, just the way my Maintainer described it. BTW, this person is online, so with a little searching, you can find him. On the street (Pitkin Ave.) from Grant to 79th St. all gratings had been removed many years ago. There is no trace of a subway below your feet, no manhole cover with NYCTS on it, etc. Over the years I have talked to half a dozen Maintainers who when they were signal holders (?), their Maintainers told them about 76th St., having been in it themselves. Keep in mind this spans a time period from 1964 to 1998 and none of these people know one another, yet their descriptions are all the same. To those of you who say it does not exist, have you been down in the layup tracks and yard leads and talked to reliable sources like I have? The answer is NO! Otherwise you would agree with me. Call me up, I will take you down there myself�so you can put the pieces of this puzzle together. For the record, the Pitkin Ave. extension was to extend to Linden Blvd & 229th St. (229th being the terminal station). At Aqueduct Racetrack, two tracks were to ramp up to the LIRR Right-of-way and two tracks to Cambria Heights. Also, don�t be so sure that the TA �knows� where all of its abandoned tunnels and stations are and regularly inspect them. Look at the Polo Grounds Shuttle. It was sealed up and forgotten about. Nobody inspected it until the homeless broke through the wall and lived in it. It�s now permanently sealed up. I was on the ROW two month ago trying to get inside. Also, in 1967, when I was still in the Signal Dept., I ran across a Maintainer who I had gone to high school with. I asked him if he knew of any abandoned tunnels and stations. He said yes, that he and his helper were working the �G� line at Bedford & Nostrand Avenues. Cleaning garbage from the ROW and rooms -- in a fan chamber -- they found a manhole cover. They opened it up and saw a rung ladder going down and smelled freshly poured concrete. Down they went. They discovered they were on a 600-foot long, two-tracked subway tunnel below the �G� train, running down Bedford Ave. No tracks, signal or lights. They had all of the TOP T.A. brass come down and take a look. Nobody knew what it was built for and NO blueprints exist of this structure. (I know I was in the T.A. blueprint room looking for this and 76th Street. NO blueprints exist even though they were built). I�ve been down there with Maintainers last year. There is a signal/power structure between the two tracks that nobody had a key for. And believe me, this guy had over 50 keys! Just about every abandoned tunnel or station I HAVE BEEN IN. There is a BMT station in Brooklyn ABOVE the local tracks on the �R� between DeKalb Ave. and Pacific St. (northbound). It was built but never used. The Chief Engineer on the project screwed up -- put it above the ROW. When they constructed the tunnel to the station, the station was unaligned, being some distance ABOVE it. A 1916 Brooklyn Eagle newspaper ran a full-page story on this and how the engineer blew his brains out when the mistake was discovered. T.A. personnel used to climb a rung ladder to chase the homeless out. The ladder has been removed. When I was on the ROW last August, I saw the edge of the platform. No way to get up there now. I hope this information has cleared up a lot of doubt on this subject. Again, if you want to discuss this further, please use the email address of BMTman to get my number, and we�ll "talk turkey".' Best regards, Steve �Tunnel Rat� Krokowski December, 2002 |
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