The primary significance of rail-marine operations is the confluence of railroading with water transportation in the use of "car floats" (barges with tracks on deck) and tugs to move railroad cars from one side of a body of water (a river or harbor) to the other, utilizing floating or crane-hoisted "float bridges" to adjust track and barge levels for changing weights and tides.

In New York harbor alone, there were a dozen or more separate rail-marine operations, many of which were "pocket" terminals with no land link to any other railroads.  Notable among these was the longest-lived (and one of the last railroads actively using steam), BEDT (Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal RR).  Others included the the Jay Street Connecting RR (one of the earliest RR users of internal combustion), Harlem Transfer (with its unique circular freight house and trackage), Hoboken Manufacturers RR, and CNJ's (Central RR of new Jersey's) and Erie's Bronx terminals on the Harlem River.  The New Haven used the Hell Gate Bridge and the NY Connecting RR to reach a float terminal still in use at Bay Ridge on Brooklyn's waterfront and the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) had its own float terminals in Long Island City.  SIRT (Staten Island Rapid Transit), a B&O (Baltimore & Ohio) subsidiary, had a yard, and the B&O had a yard on the west side of Manhattan.  Most major rail lines coming into the NY metropolitan area from the south and west, the PRR (Pennsy, Pennsylvania RR), Erie, LV (Lehigh Valley), Lackawanna, and the Jersey Central, itself, had rail-marine terminals on the Jersey side of the river.  All of these either ran their own car floats and tugs (usually built on Long Island by Jakobsen* in Oyster Bay - see Jakobsen's Rail-Marine Tugboats), or contracted from one of the rail-marine outfits and most were among the first users, along with the Hoboken Manufacturers RR, of those ubiquitous little early ALCo-GE-IR boxcab oil-electric (diesel) switchers that spelled the coming doom for steam ca. 1924-25.  Some of the Long Island terminals clustered around mini-harbors called basins, with famous names like Atlantic, Baltic, Erie, and Fulton, all still in use and some possibly renewing float service.

There is also a marine turntable preserved at Jake's.   (07 Jun 04)

Here, courtesy of Dave Keller, is a George Votava photo of the BEDT tug Petro Flame taken in Apr 1973 at the Kent Avenue Yard dock against the NYC skyline:

(G. E. Votava photo courtesy of D. Keller - all rights reserved)

However, see the Trunnel page for a planned Cross-Harbor Tunnel from the Greenville Yards in Jersey City, New Jersey, to the Bay Ridge Yard in Sunset Park, Brooklyn (Long Island), New York, which may well doom much, if not all, car floating in New York harbor.

On my Electric Boxcabs page, I mention the early electric box motor #4 that puttered around the Brooklyn waterfront from 1907 to at least 1957 or later on the SBK (South Brooklyn Railway (now an MTA subsidiary); she appears on page 6 in Bendersky and was built in 1907 by the Brooklyn Heights Railroad Company.  SBK also had a passel of odd electrics.  Even earlier, the New York Dock Railway had bought a small steeplecab electric from Baldwin in 1903 but sold it in 1908.  The progressive little Jay Street had bought one of the first gas-electric locos ever made from GE, their #3, a 45-ton center-cab 175-hp unit, back in 1915, considered the prototype for the boxcabs which followed.  Jay Street also bought an early boxcab, ALCo 1931 demonstrator #300, and one of the very first hood units, 1935 ALCo 300-hp CC-HH (ex-U.S. Navy) #5.  The Bush Terminal RR had seven small, early GE-IR 55-ton hood units (#1-#7) and a really odd GE 80-ton center-cab diesel #88, which still runs at a NE rail museum (I lost track of where) under that number.  Speaking of odd, the SBK had three big ex-U. S. Army Whitcomb center-cab diesels ca. 1946, but only two of them at a time [#8 and #9 (2)].

  The Oct 2000 issue of MODEL RAILROADER has, on pp. 82-85, an illustrated article on the Nov 1862 construction, under the direction of Brig. Gen. Herman Haupt, of a car float operation for the Union army at Alexandria, Virginia.  Haupt had been the Chief Engineer of the Pennsylvania RR and was building the Hoosac Tunnel when he was "conscripted" to run the U. S. Military RR.  Two steam-tug-drawn floats were constructed, each holding 8 cars transversely, and they were served by triple-track aprons at the transfer landings, running from Alexandria down the Potomac 60 miles to Aquia Landing, about 10 miles northeast of Fredricksburg, Maryland.

Another interest for rail-marine aficionados is rail ferries, once common along the Eastern Seaboard, the Great Lakes, and San Francisco harbor.

The major reference for anyone interested in rail-marine operations has to be:

The Rail-Marine Information Group
(now hosted by TrainWeb).   (New URL - 29 Apr 05)

However, see Horst Felbmayr GmbH's fantastic heavy-lift and -transport site at

For their huge Danube road/rail/marine harbor terminal, go directly to the upper right-hand corner of any page, open the box marked "Search for:", scroll down to "Heavy load port / Warehousing", and click on that.   For a moving panorama of that harbor terminal, go directly to the upper right-hand corner of their German home page, open the box marked "Suche nach:" (Search for), scroll down to "Schwerlasthafen/Lagerei" (Heavy load port / Warehousing), and click on that, then find "360°-Panorama" in the upper left and click on that (you can zoom in by pressing the "a" key and out with the "z" key and scroll with your pointer).

Bernie Ente sent me two links to David Pirmann's NYCSubway site with lots on the BEDT/NYCH, The Brooklyn Waterfront and photos of same.

Kevin Walsh has great photos on his NY waterfont section.

While not, to my knowledge, a rail-marine operation (in the sense of using car floats), the United States Army's Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, New Jersey, was a major rail and marine operation in New York harbor and (per the N. Y. Times of 01 Oct 99, courtesy of Bernie Ente) "they turned out the lights for good yesterday".  Thus, she joins the illustrious ranks of the gone-but-not-forgotten, along with the Brooklyn Navy Base and the Brooklyn Army Terminal.  What are we going to do when we need (God forbid) these facilities some day?

As one can see on my LIRR bibliography on the LIRR and LIRR Historical Society pages, the definitive LIRR books are those in a 7-volume series, The Long Island Rail Road - A Comprehensive History, by Vincent F. Seyfried.  ALL BUT THE LAST, Part 7, are out-of-print and very few libraries have them any more (they seem to vanish quickly):

Some of the work covers LIRR marine operations (but not just floating):

    Published by Vincent F. Seyfried, 163 Pine Street

Art's site shows a rough map (redrawn excerpt immediately below - that's New Haven at the far right, with Hartford above it), where it appears to be a southward extension of the Danbury Branch, but just try and find Wilson's Point in any atlas or gazeteer!

(08 Oct 02 map by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)

(08 Oct 02 map by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
{Thumbnail image - click on picture for a larger image]

Rail and marine enthusiasts might also find material of interest on my

[thumbnail image; click on picture for a much larger image].

{Who can explain to me why that float in the lower left seems to be swinging around, unattended?
Bet they're "hipping" it with the current.}   (17 Jan 05)

Great good news for NY harbor rail-mariners; the construction of the two NY State float bridges at the LIRR/New York & Atlantic's 65th Street yard at Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Long Island, New York, proceeds apace; here are three views of them during construction and one just taken on 26 Sep 99 from a harbor cruise boat:

   
[First three are thumbnail images; click on pictures for full images.].

(photos © 1999 B. Ente - all rights reserved)

Rail-marine fans should see the beautiful color photo by Frank Quinn (he's in it!) of the LIRR tug "Patchogue" tied up at Long Island City ca. 1949, on the October page of the 1999 Long Island-Sunrise Trail Chapter (National Railway Historical Society) calender.

Rail-mariners should post signs reading:

More great, good news for rail-mariners (per the indefatigable Bernie Ente): STATE OKAYS AMERICAN MARINE RAIL FACILITY IN THE BRONX - Oak Point Railyard Facility Receives Draft Permit - American Marine Rail (AMR) has jumped through another hoop in its two-year quest to build a barge-to-rail transfer station in Hunts Point, obtaining a draft permit from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Also, although I'm not offering a rail-marine bibliography, these other references are from my Boxcab Bibliography and LIRR Bibliography:

Railroad Model Craftsman, Feb 1950, pp. 8-10, "Bronx Freight Terminal", article by Warren Crater, with A. Q. Vogel photos of CNJ #1000 at work.   (27 Aug 04)

    Railfan & Railroad, October 1991, pp. 59-69, feature article by Bob Hart on the

    "Brooklyn's Waterfront Railways - A Pictorial Journey", Jay Bendersky,

    Railpace Newsmagazine, September 1992, cover and pp. 20-31, feature article by

    Railmodel Journal. Oct-Nov 1992, "Baltimore's Fells Point" (and an HO version in Oct 1993).   (27 Aug 04)

In addition, while not a RR or marine book, there is a book about the Fairchild Aerial Survey photos, "Cities from the Sky: An Aerial Portrait of America", by Thomas J. Campanella, which shows all Manhattan yards and the West Side freight line in 1921 (endpapers), and many pages with pier and float details like you can't even imagine!  Just for example, there are photos showing a huge array of car floats at Wallabout Market in 1932 (page 43) and yards flanking the Brooklyn Bridge in 1931 (page 41).

A correspondent wants to model a locomotive that he believes operated on the B&O's Fells Point car float.  There were two box cab locos, #4 and #10, which ran off overhead trolley lines (at least for a while, he doesn't know if they were straight electric).  He also doesn't know what the #4 was, but believes the #10 was a B&O class CE-1.  Can anyone direct us to more information and possibly a photo of either of these box cabs?  I referred him to the B&O Historical Society.  Can anyone give us more info on the CE-1?

As a matter of fact; I can!  on 27 Aug 04 I received a reprint of a series in Railmodel Journal from Oct-Nov 1992, "Baltimore's Fells Point" (et seq.) in which there are several photos of 1895 GE 5-ton B&O #4 and 1909 GE 10-ton B&O #10, plus the 1954 Cat DT-1 (and PRR #146) rubber-tired tractors.   (27 Aug 04)

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