AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
INSTITUTED 1852
TRANSACTIONS
Paper No. 1153
THE NEW YORK TUNNEL EXTENSION OF THEPENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD.
MEADOWS DIVISION AND HARRISON TRANSFERYARD.[A]
By E. B. Temple, M. Am. Soc. C. E.
The New York Tunnel Extension of the Pennsylvania Railroaddiverges from the New York Division in the Town of Harrison, N. J.,and, ascending on a 0.5% grade, crosses over the tracks of the NewYork Division and the main line of the Delaware, Lackawanna andWestern Railroad. Thence it continues, with light undulating grades,across the Hackensack Meadows to a point just east of the NorthernRailroad of New Jersey and the New York, Susquehanna and WesternRailroad, where it descends to the tunnels under Bergen Hill and theNorth River. (Plate XVI.)
That portion of the line lying west of the portals of the BergenHill Tunnels has been divided into two sections: First, the mostwesterly, known as the Harrison Transfer Station and Yard (PlateXVII), which is located on the southern side of the New York Division,Pennsylvania Railroad, and extends from the connection with theNew York Division tracks at grade up to the point of crossing thesame, where the Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal Railroad has itsbeginning; second, the Meadows Division of the Pennsylvania Tunneland Terminal Railroad, which is a double-track railroad, 5.08 miles long,extending from a point just west of the bridge over the New YorkDivision to a point 300 ft. west of the western portals of the BergenHill Tunnels.
[76]Harrison Transfer Station and Yard.—The necessities for theHarrison improvements are two-fold: First, as a place to change motivepower from steam to electric, and vice versa; second, as a transfer forpassengers from trains destined to the new Station at Seventh Avenueand 33d Street, New York City, to steam or rapid transit trains destinedto the present Jersey City Station, or to the lower part of NewYork City via the Hudson and Manhattan Tunnels, and vice versa.
All steam trains from Philadelphia, the South, and the West, fromNew Jersey seashore resorts, and local trains on the New YorkDivision bound for the new Pennsylvania Station, will change theirmotive power from steam to electric engines at the Harrison TransferStation. Likewise, all trains from the Tunnel Line will change fromelectric to steam motive power there, and passengers coming fromJersey City and the southern section of New York City can takethrough trains at the Harrison Transfer platforms. It is estimatedthat the time required to make this change of motive power, or totransfer passengers, will not exceed 3-1/2 min.