Grand Central Terminal

A Grand Place.

Often mistakenly called Grand Central Station, this former railroad terminal is now the home to the Metro Link Metro North commuter railroad and sees heavy use.  It has to be seen to be believed, it is quite an architectural marvel and a feat of engineering.  There are no railroad tracks visible anywhere near the station, instead all trains enter the terminal via several miles of tunnels under Central Park Park Avenue that begin just past Harlem.

After the Train Show was wrapped up in Hartford, we rented a car and headed to New York City for a few days.  We ended up staying in White Plains, which is about 25 minutes outside of Manhattan.  We stayed at a hotel there and took the Metro Link into Grand Central Terminal everyday.  This is the best way to get in and out of the city, as driving around there is not for the faint of heart, plus we got to take a train into this historic terminal.

The famous clock in Grand Central.  The faces on this are made of Opal, the clock is valued between 10-20 million dollars.

Apparently only 40% of the traffic through here is commuters, the rest are tourists.

I looked, there wasn’t a single light bulb burned out.

Micheal Jordan’s steakhouse.  I think Micheal was in the back preparing the steaks.

The ceiling has to be seen to be believed.  I would guess the height of the ceiling to be at least 100′.  I pumped up the contrast in this picture to reveal all the panels.  Apparently when the station underwent a 450 million dollar renovation in the 1990’s the ceiling was quite black.  It was assumed that the blackening was from the coal smoke from the steam trains, but after analysis it was determined to be the smoke from cigarettes.

I just could not get any shots without people.

Looking into the Oyster Bar restaurant.

The grill to the air vent.  No detail is overlooked.

The food court below the main station.

HDR image of one of the entrances to the main terminal.

Its quite a place, fortunately it was spared from the numerous attempts to tear it down.  Unlike Penn Station, it was spared and completely restored.  Its only use now is for commuter trains, and used it is!

-T.

About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: Tim | 07-26-2009 | 11:07 AM
Posted in: 2009 NMRA Train Show - Hartford | Latest Posts | Comments (5)

Video from NMRA Convention in Hartford, CT

July 6-12, 2009

I shot a bit of video while at the convention, but not as much as I thought I would. At these type of shows there is always so much going on that it is difficult to focus on shooting video. Much of what was shot was shot by others.

The video above shows the layout on display in the contest room at the convention center, as well as Tom Griffith’s award winning scratchbuilt Howe truss float bridge.

Some video of the Modeling with the Masters clinic that Clark Kooning and I hosted on Wednesday is included. 28 modelers built turnouts, which was lots of fun for all.

We moved the layout down to the train show on Thursday by lifting it onto some flatbed carts and rolling it into the massive car elevator in the convention center. The train show was 3 floors below the contest room, thank god for that elevator. That went smooth, there is some shots of us setting up the booth before the show.

While at the show Josh Shedaker from Tony’s Train Exchange was kind enough to offer to “tweak” the sound in QSI decoder in my CNJ Boxcab. While there I had Lew White rework the decoder installation and change the LED’s to white. He also swapped out the speaker to one of their new High Bass versions. The difference in the sound quality was amazing! That I did get some video of…

I am still working through the pictures taken at the show and in New York City, and hope to get them posted here shortly.

Enjoy!

-T.

About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: Tim | 07-24-2009 | 04:07 PM
Posted in: 2009 NMRA Train Show - Hartford | CNJ 1000 Boxcab | Latest Posts | Video | Comments (1)

CNJ Bronx Terminal – Then and Now

1936/2009

The same picture, taken 73 years apart.

The black and white image was found in the New York City archives, taken in 1936, the colour version I took last week. I must have been standing at the very spot the first image was taken as they line up quite nicely.

Its interesting to observe what has and hasn’t changed after all this time. The clock tower is still there, although the clock has long since stopped working, one of the hands has fallen off completely. Most of the old buildings are still there, with new occupants. Added in are the luxurious projects in the back ground. Missing is, well the CNJ Bronx Terminal, replaced with another warehouse of somewhat similar design.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing left of the original terminal at this site.

Click here for a larger version.

Note it is 6MB in size and will take a while to download.

-T.

About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: Tim | 07-19-2009 | 10:07 PM
Posted in: 2009 NMRA Train Show - Hartford | Latest Posts | Prototype Information (the real stuff) | Comments (2)