Coaling trestle


NYC_George

NYC_George

Well-Known Member
Here's a few other photos I found on an old hard drive. I actually put cars on this trestle. The Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center power plant burned up 4 cars a week. The Hospital closed in 1984. A big mistake letting out all the mentally ill.
coal_trestle_1.jpg
coal_trestle_2.jpg
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How did that trestle work? Was coal just dumped on the ground underneath and then moved into the hospital manually?
 
Nice pics of the trestle, sure must have cut down on their energy bill.

Did kind of make the back of the building look ugly. Must have been an old monastery or something which was converted to a hospital?
 
How did that trestle work? Was coal just dumped on the ground underneath and then moved into the hospital manually?
Click to expand...
Ianacole there was a coal chute in the middle of the trestle. It's barely visible in the photos. The coal was dumped down the shut and on to a conveyor belt.
Loagansawman The power plant supplied power for 27 large buildings. The hospital was built in 1938 and closed in 1984. In was never anything but a mental hospital.

George
 
George - very interesting power house photos! I delivered coal to a mental institution south of Pittsburgh that was similar. It also closed in the '80s.
 
"Here's a few other photos I found on an old hard drive. I actually put cars on this trestle. The Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center power plant burned up 4 cars a week. The Hospital closed in 1984."

I used to put loads of coal on that very trestle, back in my days as a Conrail engineer. The job was WNDA-1 out of Danbury.

I recall the cars as coming from the Lake Erie, Franklin & Clarion (IIRC). Since the switch faces south, we'd take the cars up to Dover Plains, run around them, and spot them (or pick up empties) on the southbound move. They'd get 4 at a time.
 
That's something Albert. Did you spot cars on the Wassic coaling trestle to? It's just up the road a few miles. I worked on the Chatham switcher for about 2 years. That's when Chatham was still a station. I was a member of the Harlem Valley Golf Club just a stone's throw from the trestle. A lot of the members worked in the power house. Did you see my model of the Pawling, NY RR station? You had to go right by it. Maybe it was already gone. I think it burned down in 1984.

George
 
George wrote:
"Did you spot cars on the Wassic coaling trestle to? It's just up the road a few miles."

You mean "the [Wassaic] state school", right?

We did put some cars in there once, back in the mid-80s, I recall at the time they weren't burning coal in the power plant but wanted some "test coal loads" placed because they were considering going back to coal. I can't remember whether they used the coal or not.

By the time I got running up there, the line ended at Wassaic, having recently been cut back from going up to Millerton. There was Maxon Mills (feed mill) and Triwall (a box company) in Wassaic. There used to be a cattle auction house not far from the tracks, we'd go in there an get something to eat at the cafe counter inside and maybe watch a cow or two get auctioned off. Good days/evenings on the railroad back then!
 
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