12-11-30 PHOTOS: Flushing Line HD

A week after Thanksgiving I was back in the Windy Apple to see a Broadway Play and seeing as how I would have some time to kill on a weekday I decided it was a good time to check out some hurricane Sandy damage and also grad some HD footage of an express run on the Flushing Line before said line was ruined through the removal of railfan windows. A few years ago I had gotten some standard def video of the same run, but with a new camera in hand I just couldn't resist trying to preserve the experience of riding at the front of a 7 express train before it was lost forever.

Of course I took some photos as well, but this is going to mostly be a video post as most of the photos ended up being from a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

We begin in Hamilton, NJ as a pair of ALP-46 hauled multi-level Push-Pull pass eachother in the station. Cab car 7047 is headed towards NYC while #4607 pushes the other set towards Trenton.

Now I choose not to get on that train because it was a local and even though most sane railroads would use push-pulls on expresses and MUs on locals I don't believed anyone has ever accused NJT of being sane.


While then waiting for the express to show to Amtrak AEM-7 #907 blasted through with a regional en-route to New York.


I eventually made it down to the recently flooded Boweling Green station and was impressed by the lack of any apparent damage or basement smell. I even got some good photos of the still functional, yet usually unattended US&S Style C panel type unit lever interlocking machine at the south end of the platform. Click here for detail on the model board.

I also got some video of the panel working in automatic mode as (5) train move in and out of the station.


While crossing the Brooklyn Bridge I cause a fuel barge heading north up the East River powered by the Jill Reinauer.

I walked to 4th Ave in Brooklyn where I managed to catch an eastbound R42 (C) train departing the station.


From there I caught an (A) to Times Square where I then transferred to a 7 Express, which had just started running, and I proceeded to video the entire 24 minute ride which you can see here. The video even kicks off with a crossover move at the TSQ terminal.


Heading back to Midtown like a schmuck on the (7)local. Here we exit the Flushing tunnel portal with another outbound R62 about to be swallowed up.

I also snapped a picture of Flushing's "Iron Triangle" which Mayor Bloomburg has been trying to destroy because automotive repair shoppes have no place in the city. 

Another outbound 7 express train entering the Citi Station at Willets Point. 

As I got off the (7) local to transfer to an R train I noticed what seemed to be a bit of a service disruption in the outbound direction. The last outbound train I had seen was that one at the Citi Station and for the peak period that is far too infrequent. I had heard something on the radio about a person falling either onto the tracks or just fallen down on the platform, but I wasn't sure if that was causing the problem or not.

As I left an outbound express train passed by, much to the shigrin of the poor people on the local platform. BTW weren't the crossovers installed here to allow express trains to platform at 74th St?


Express snaking its way toward Junction Blvd.

While walking around to find a place to eat I got a picture of that crazy collapsed crane on One57.

Well that's it for this week. Next time tune in for a trip to the North Pole at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.