Working on the Railroad
Story and Photos by Don Sutherland
With its near-sister in drydock that morning last December, it was the only working vessel of its kind on New York Harbor. Once there had been hundreds like it, feeding the ravenous appetites across the North River � Manhattan, the boroughs and towns of Long Island. As it began one of the half-dozen round-trips it makes most weeks, the old barge looked tired. It sagged from years of burden, bearing massive weights across the water � fullyloaded tankers, hoppers, boxcars, railroad cars of many descriptions, bringing whatever was ordered in Brooklyn and beyond. Steering toward it, quite coincidentally, was another style of boat � gleaming, modern, picture-windows all around, designed for a cargo of people. Under charter that morning, it had aboard politicians and planners, candidates, city officials, interested citizens, and observers from many professions. The subject of discussion was the Gold Coast, the shore of New Jersey turned upper-crust. Once lined with low, dark piers and terminals, boatyards and railyards, ferryboats, tugboats, barges, and harbor lighters, among other maritime constructions, those shores now glisten with monuments to renewal, the upscale, the service economy in bloom. Its newest pier supports a Hyatt hotel, and just down the coast a bit, with its waterfront view of the onetime Morris Canal, stands the Goldman Sachs tower itself. The tourists passed the stern of the car float, to watch a sparkling modern tug, the John P. Brown, comporting it to an ancient landing in Brooklyn. The timing was perfect, as the subject of a cross-harbor tunnel was just coming up, with a New York City planner at the microphone. "And there," said he, as three tracks of railcars on a 360foot platform turned their backs, "is a living anachronism. A barge carrying rail cars across the waves of New York Harbor." It made a smooth segue to an oft-proposed tunnel beginning from the railhead at the Greenville yard in Jersey City, running beneath New York Harbor all the way to someplace in Long Island. It would change quite a few things on the map, some of which New York Mayor
www.marinelink.com
Michael Bloomberg didn't like. He shot it down in deference, he said, to the serenity of local neighborhoods. But a miles-long submarine tunnel has ways of dazzling anew and possibly if built, would start generating fortunes on its first revenue day. However, goods are getting across without tunnels, moving materials and products both ways across the harbor without bridges, with a minimal penalty for the infrastructure and the environment. How come there's not more of that? Nobody disputes the economies of waterborne commerce, but they just aren't sexy. Compared to the billions churned-up by a tunnel project, the few millions to upgrade bargeports is so page-nine. Perhaps that's why an announcement the day before kept such a low profile: the assets of New York New Jersey Rail had been purchased by an agency long used-to the exigencies of transportation, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
New skippers, new courses
The waterborne route had been known for years as the New York Cross Harbor railroad, but that changed three years ago. "Since September 1, 2006," said the present company's Donald B. Hutton, "we've been New York New Jersey Rail, LLC. We were acquired by the Port Authority on September 18, 2008." NYNJ Rail presented the Port Authority with plenty to think about. The operation had kept going for years under its Cross Harbor name, apparently with a restricted budget for maintenance. In stark contrast to the gleaming, perfectly-angled Gold Coast a short distance northward, the enclosed bridges at the old Greenville yards � founded back in the day of the great Pennsylvania Railroad � have long looked almost like they're melting. Three bridges in the terminal once served thousands of carfloats yearly, but at the moment only one bridge is in operation. Much in the form of upgrades could be made at the Brooklyn landings too. The City owns bridges to receive the carfloats at 65th Street, which have gone unused since completion in 1999. The City also owns Bush Terminal
MN 29