The Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR) was created originally to transport coal from Pennsylvania in 1846, but it soon began carrying passengers as well. To help with its growing needs, a large freight yard in Manchester, NY was constructed and opened in 1892 where the company apparently the company loaded and unloaded more than 100 freight cars per day. The yard was, at the time, was considered the largest in the world, employing over 1000 workers.
Nothing on the ground is ever as easy as it appears on Google Earth. This is a rule I keep close in mind, but sometimes my explorations like to make a point of it.
Coxton Yard was built in 1870 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company to facilitate the vast train activity required to support Pennsylvania's coal mining industry. By the end of World War II, however, technology began catching up with the railroads. Trucks on the expanding highway systems, and the move from coal to diesel-electric trains were bringing about the beginning of the end for operations at Coxton Yard. It was finally abandoned in 1996, though the Reading and Northern Railroad Company still uses the southern-most portion of the yard to support natural gas extraction.
There is little that I'm able to gather about this location except that the station appears to have been built sometime around 1913, while the switch house was constructed two years later. Major improvements were done to the track around the same time, including construction of the tunnel through which the road passes under the track. A cut-off line was constructed at approximately the same time that I believe followed what is now the "Endless Riding Trail" to Montrose, PA. Construction of the cut-off caused great upheaval for the little town, including having the windows constantly shattered by dynamite blasts.
At first I had no idea what this place was, and had in fact listed it here simply as an Unknown Building in Pennsylvania. Thanks to some great help from Bernard Stiroh at duryeapa.com, I found out that this was the Forest Castle Brewery.
No trip to New York City as a tourist is complete without a visit to Times Square.
Fort Tilden was named for Samuel J. Tilden, governor of New York and Presidential candidate. It was established in 1917 as part of the emergency fortification for World War I and was intended to defend New York from attack by sea or air.
New York City required a municipal airport and several locations for it came up for discussion. The mayor of the time, Fiorello LaGuardia, wanted it placed on Governor's Island. Despite this, the site chosen was Barren Island.
This station was built in 1952 / 53 as a prototype of the stations that would become the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line In 1956, with completion of the line nearing, its role changed to that of a training facility for the personnel that would man the stations in the Arctic.
I drove along the street, looking for the specific building I wanted. There were more run-down industrial buildings along here than I expected, so my head was kind of on a swivel. I love this sh*t!
