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From: burton@fortune.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.railroad
Subject: Re: Dade Co. Metrorail Opens - (nf)
Message-ID: <3623@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Jun-84 19:09:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: fortune.3623
Posted: Mon Jun 18 19:09:51 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 09:12:05 EDT
Sender: notes@fortune.UUCP
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 30

#R:inmet:7900003:fortune:8900014:000:1308
fortune!burton    Jun 18 12:41:00 1984


I don't know about Chicago, but I **do** know a lot about the old BMT
and predecessor systems/lines of the New Yrok subway system.

The Brighton line (now the D, QB, et al) was originally a steam road, as
was the Sea Beach (N) and the West End (B, T).  The Brooklyn & Queens
Transit, Brooklyhn & Manhattan Transit after the malbone Street wreck in
1918, was a product of mergers.  Brooklyn had a well-developed system of
steam roads, for internal use and to take people from the then-separate
city of New York (pre-unification) to Coney Island.    Originally the
Sea Beach line ran to the Brooklyn waterfront.  As a child, I remember
seeing the old surface right-of-way of the West End line just below the
El.

Much of the impetus for upgrading the steam lines to Els came from the
Dual Contracts, signed by the Citty of New York with the IRT and BMT
co. about 1914, whereby the City would fund the construction/upgrading of
most of the lines that became the BMT and IRT.

For more information, contact the Electric Railroaders' Association,
which has/had a reprint of the Dual Contracts book for sale.

  Philip Burton      101 Twin Dolphin Drive-MS 133
  Fortune Systems    Redwood City, CA  94065	     (415) 595-8444 x 526
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