Some history on the Hudson Tubes

[86thStreet]

Here are some links on the history of the "World of Subways" PATH. Hudson & Manhattan RR http://www.hudsoncity.net/tubesenglish/ And another set including stations that were never built http://www.tmk.com/hm_gallery/ A Shorpy pic http://www.shorpy.com/node/1774 I haven't digested all of the links listed in the first site yet.
I like the sim. I also think the physics are off, but I'm not sure by how much. It has been a long time since I rode PATH; I'm more used the the NYC subways which have very fast brakes and fairly quick acceleration(much faster than the Metro North for example.)

I never use the train guide and don't worry about the speed limit penalties -- these cars did not have speedometers and you estimated your speed using the throttle notches and your best guess. Also the psychology was to be alert to the track conditions for workers, other people and obstacles; especially alert when you entered a station -- for jumpers. It seems that there are no speed time signals like most of the NYC subway lines have now, but didn't have (except for a few)15-25 years ago. I remember the Lexington Avenue Express from 86th Street north to 125th Street. It now has a timer I think, and a kink in the track that wasn't there years ago. Even with the older cars of 25 years ago I'm sure we used to travel around 50+ mph on one downhill stretch. Almost as good as an amusement park ride.

Hope you find the links useful.

edit: I started checking the links on the first site and most are old, but there is another one which you can use to lead you to more information on the tubes http://world.nycsubway.org/us/path/

[Grimace780]

While doing my own research on PATH I found a route map and a track map.

http://world.nycsubway.org/us/path/path-routemap.html

http://world.nycsubway.org/us/path/path-trackmap.html

The track map shows a stub track leading off the northern most terminal track at Hoboken. A note on the map says, "Stub track is former car elevator to surface shops." I have spent a fair bit of time searching and can find no other information on this car elevator. Does anyone know more about this or where I can get pictures?

[ightenhill]

Is this anything to do with it...

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...DE&oref=slogin

[Grimace780]

Nope. That is not it. The elevator you describe is for cars and horses and is on an inclined plane.

The elevator mentioned on the map is for subway cars. From what i gather it was used to lift subway cars from Hoboken station which is underground to a maintenance shop on the surface.

[86thStreet]

While doing my own research on PATH I found a route map and a track map.

http://world.nycsubway.org/us/path/path-routemap.html

http://world.nycsubway.org/us/path/path-trackmap.html

The track map shows a stub track leading off the northern most terminal track at Hoboken. A note on the map says, "Stub track is former car elevator to surface shops." I have spent a fair bit of time searching and can find no other information on this car elevator. Does anyone know more about this or where I can get pictures?

I couldn't quite answer your question but I found this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFzCnqKv1KM&NR=1 which has other links to more actual train rides. They do have good acceleration and the brakes do seem to be quick.

That area in Hoboken now seems to be in for redevelopment http://www.hobokennj.org/pdf/mplan/R...nRailYards.pdf and http://www.newyorkssixth.com/2008/06...-unveiled.html
I hate to comment on the map but the map comment doesn't make sense to me unless he is talking about a transfer table. I took a look @ Google street view and as I suspected the whole area is flat -- you can take a look at street view in Google maps from the map area given in the redevelopment pdf file and see what you can find.

It also occurs to me that "surface shops" now usually mean buses but a while back used to mean trolleys. If this was the remenants of a spur that was used to deliver trolleys then a "car elevator" would just be some kind of transition track setup. NYCTA used to have one out in Brooklyn.

If I come up with anything else I'll post.