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New York City Railroads Car Body Reports

Call Number

MS 2112

Date

1908-1973 (bulk 1908-1943), inclusive

Creator

Extent

3.25 Linear feet (19 boxes)

Language of Materials

The documents in the collection are in English.

Abstract

Collection of Semi-Annual Car Body Reports, submitted to the Public Service Commission and the Transit Commission by various railroad companies operating in New York City between 1908 and 1943. Also included are detailed engine descriptions and several bulletins with articles discussing the history of various car bodies.

Historical Note

Missing Title

1832 The first street railway is built in Manhattan.
1868-1883 Elevated lines are built in Manhattan.
1885-1903 Elevated lines are built in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
1890 Above ground, there are approximately 24 street railway firms operating in the city running one main route or a branch. Most are consolidated by the Metropolitan Street Railway syndicate.
1902 The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) is formed to operate New York City's subway.
1904 The subway opens in New York City.
1913 The Board of Estimate and the New York State Public Service Commission approve a "dual system" that includes the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT), thus extending rapid transit lines to include two networks or broader routes. By 1913 the system carried 810 million passengers, and by 1930, 2,049 million.
1921 The earliest form of rapid transit in the U.S., the elevated railway (developed in New York City in the second half of the nineteenth century) reached its peak in 1921, when it carried 384 million passengers.
1923 The success and popularity of the subways renders the noisy and unsightly elevateds obsolete after 1923 and during the Depression they are eliminated. A majority of the lines are razed or abandoned in the late 1940s and 1950s.
1932 New York's Board of Transportation completes construction of the Eighth Avenue Line, creating the Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit Railroad (IND).
1940 New York City purchases BMT and IRT, becoming the sole owner and operator of all NYC subway and elevated lines.

At the turn of the century and for quite some time after, the heavy rail fleet was an amalgam of electric cars and converted steam coaches. The subway lines began standardizing car appearance although the propulsion, door and brake systems and other components could vary considerably between car types. The description and status of each company's various car body types were reported to the Transit Commission twice yearly. These records, beginning in 1908, comprise this collection.

[Sources: Kenneth T. Jackson, ed., The Encyclopedia of New York (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); Robert A. Hall, New York City Rapid Transit Chronology (Ann Arbor, Mich.: [Lithoprinted by Edwards Brothers, Inc.], 1945; and Gene Sansome, Evolution of New York City Subways (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)].

Arrangement

The collection is composed of nineteen boxes of materials. Within the 18 boxes containing the Semi-Annual Statement of Car Bodies reports, arrangement is by rail company and chronologically within company. Companies are arranged in groupings based on the manner of submission. Boxes 1 through 4, for example, contain the reports of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT). These reports were submitted individually. Boxes 8 through 11, on the other hand, contain the reports of fourteen companies whose semi-annual reports were always submitted together. Within each grouping, the companies are arranged alphabetically. An exception to this arrangement is Box 19, which does not contain car body reports.

Scope and Content Note

This collection is made up almost exclusively of Semi-Annual Statement of Car Bodies reports submitted to the Public Service Commission and the Transit Commission between 1908 and 1943 by various railroads operating in New York City. Other items include eighty-two Engine Descriptive Sheets (not dated); a report and recommendation for disposition of certain subway cars (dated 1957); and three Bulletins of the Electric Railroaders' Association, New York Division (dated 1970-1973).

The collection was originally composed of 12 bound volumes (containing 21" x 12" sheets along with some letter-sized correspondence), one oversize, folded bound volume, and one folder. The volumes were disbound and placed into nineteen boxes. Portions of the original binder covers are located in Box 2, Folder 3; Box 4, Folder 3; and Box 7, Folder 3.

The semi-annual reports appear in two formats. One format was employed until mid-1910; the other, with additional fields, was used from mid-1910 through the final reports in 1943. Information provided was based on car body type and included such attributes as number of cars, manufacturer, date purchased, dimensions, arrangement of seats, seating capacity, weight, cost, heater equipment, and number of motors per car. Not all data are available for every car body. Throughout the collection there are letters submitted in lieu of complete reports. The letters indicate either that there has been no change since the last reporting period or that minimal changes had occurred.

Some of the earliest cars purchased (in the late 1800s) remained in service for over 30 years. The New York Transit Corporation, for example, ran several closed trailers manufactured by Pullman from the 1880s until 1939. It is notable that cars were often leased by one company to another, increasing the complexity of reporting on their status. Several of the railroad companies reported owning no cars.

That the companies often were short-lived or suffering financial difficulties, is shown by the variety of date ranges covered by the reports and the fact that many of them were submitted by "receivers of" a given company.

The materials are arranged by company based on the way they were originally grouped. Boxes 1 through 4 contain reports of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) for the years 1908 to 1939. New York Railways' submissions (1912-1936) are located in Boxes 5 through 7. Next, in Boxes 8 through 11, are the reports of a group of fourteen companies, mostly operating in Brooklyn, who submitted their reports together. Boxes 12 through 15 contain reports submitted by another group of seventeen related companies. The final eighteen companies (Boxes 16 through 18) submitted their reports individually, rather than as a group, with the exception of the 8th and 9th Avenue Railway Company. In that case, there appear to have been two separate companies initially - the 8th Avenue and the 9th Avenue, which eventually combined to form one company. All of their reports are together in one chronological arrangement.

Folder 1 of Box 19 holds three Bulletins of the Electric Railroaders' Association, New York Division, for December 1970, December 1972 and February 1973. These are newsletters filled with technical information regarding current rail service, station construction and related items. Each bulletin contains articles by Bernard Linder about antique subway and trolley cars; one two-part series is on the Interborough Subway Cars, another on the BRT trolley roster of 1905 and 1910. In Folder 2 is a 1957 report and recommendation concerning disposal of a group of subway motor and trailer passenger cars. Box 19, Folder 3 contains detailed descriptions of various engines. Most of the sheets are labeled "Manhattan Railway Company" and concern engines placed into service in the 1880s and 1890s. They provide such information as builder, cost (in some cases), date first used, and component dimensions, weight and types.

Access Restrictions

Materials in this collection may be stored offsite. For more information on making arrangements to consult them, please visit www.nyhistory.org/library/visit.

Use Restrictions

Taking images of documents from the library collections for reference purposes by using hand-held cameras and in accordance with the library's photography guidelines is encouraged. As an alternative, patrons may request up to 20 images per day from staff.

Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.

Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: https://www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as the New York City Railroads Car Body Reports, MS 2112, The New-York Historical Society.

Location of Materials

Materials in this collection may be stored offsite. For more information on making arrangements to consult them, please visit www.nyhistory.org/library/visit.

Material Specific Details

[material specific details such as mathematical data, scale for maps, physical presentation data for music records]

Related Material at The New-York Historical Society

The Library at the New-York Historical Society has a number of volumes containing related material. The following are examples:

Hall, Robert A. New York Rapid Transit Chronology. Ann Arbor, Mich.: [Lithoprinted by Edwards Brothers, Inc.], 1945. (NYHS Call Number: F128 TF 725.N5 H35 1945)

Sansone, Gene. Evolution of New York City Subways: An Illustrated History of New York City's Transit Cars, 1867-1997. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. (NYHS Call Number: F128 HE4491.N65 S26 2002)

Walker, James Blaine. Fifty Years of Rapid Transit, 1864-1917. New York: Law Printing Company, 1918. (NYHS Call Number: F128 TF847)

Collection processed by

Jan Hilley and Valerie Paley

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:50:26 -0400.
Language: Description is in English.

Edition of this Guide

This version was derivedfrom NewYorkRRcars.xml

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024