Track Layout: Williamsburg Bridge 1948

This picture, although it is not clear, was taken by George Conrad on 8/8/48 and is posted in the http://www.nycsubway.org website.  In the picture, you can see a BMT Standard Jamaica Line train on the bridge and to the left of the train you can see an older type of streetcar headed towards the Delancey Street terminal which is underground.  I have not come across many pictures of subway trains and trolley cars on the Wiliamsburg Bridge together and I wanted to share it.  In a earlier posting, I posted a video clip of the 1940's classic "Naked City" which was filmed around this time on the bridge but I did not get a glipse of the streetcar right of way, although there were plenty of BMT standards in the video.  Unfortunately, in the New York City area, there are no plans to reinstate trolley cars on bridges that formerly had them.

Manhattan's Post Office Streetcar Line

Source: B. Linder, New York Division Bulletin, Vol. 45, No. 1, January 2002, pp. 2-4.

  Where Park Row meets Broadway in Manhattan today is an extention of City Hall Park.  Previously on the spot, was a 19th Century Post Office in front of which various streetcars terminated.  One such line was called the Post Office Line that ran from a loop at Broadway, through the lower east side and across the Williamsburg Bride to Bridge Plaza in Brooklyn.  It was not battery operated but used conduits and what is interesting is that it used the North Side of the bridge because those tracks had conduits.  For BRT-BMT Brooklyn streetcars, power was supplied by overhead trolley on the south side of the bridge that lead directly to the underground Delancey Street Trolley Termininal.   Thus Bridge Plaza in Brooklyn had overhead and conduit trolley tracks for the various companies.   Some interesting points are:

1. Line started on June 6, 1908 by the owner, Third Avenue Railroad Company but cars were operated by its subsidiary, Dry Dock, East Broadway & Battery Railroad Company.
2. Dry Dock wanted to increase the fare around June 1928 but the case went to court.  See material compiled by Lawrence F. Hughes in the reference cited above.  The Transit Commission disapporoved the tariff request.
3. The line was discontinued on January 21, 1932.