A remaining vestige of the South Brooklyn Railway, a freight line owned by the MTA, trackage is shown here at Fort Hamilton Parkway and 37th Street, in a right of way that formerly ran beneath the Culver Shuttle connecting the West End and Culver BMT elevated subway tracks.
It wasn’t all that long ago that the sight of a freight train rumbling down much-traveled Brooklyn thoroughfares wasn’t an unusual sight. The South Brooklyn Railway was the NYC Transit Authority’s (now MTA’s) very own freight line; it used to run from the TA’s fright yard at 39th Street and 2nd Avenue west and south to the Coney Island Yards.
The line ran along 2nd Avenue, then shared tracks with the IND/BMT subways in an open cut/tunnel from 4th Avenue to the 9th Ave yards. It then ran at grade under the Culver Line all the way south to the Coney Island Yards, with the SBK running on McDonald Avenue from Cortelyou Road south to beyond Avenue X.
If they could talk, the SBK tracks would have a lot of stories to tell. According to NYC transit historian/hockey maven Stan Fischler…
• It was once attempted to haul a dead whale along the SBK to the Coney Island Yards, where it would be trucked to the Coney Island Aquarium. The whale had been killed and embalmed in the North Atlantic and shipped to the SBK yard. The whale was strapped onto a flatcar and a loco began to haul it along the SBK.
The whale got as far as the tunnel south of 4th Avenue, but wouldn’t fit in the tunnel. I suppose they had to ship it by truck to the Aquarium.
• The SBK also hauled a downed Army plane that crashed in Pennsylvania to the Coney Yards and then the pieces were trucked over to Floyd Bennett Field on Flatbush Avenue for an inquiry.
• The SBK did a lot of business with the many Brooklyn breweries that flourished pre-Prohibition. It also did a good business hauling wine grapes for Brooklynites who flouted the law during Prohibition.
The South Brooklyn arose from one of the many different passenger and freight railroads that ran in Brooklyn before subway service arrived in the early 20th Century, the Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad, which for much of its route ran along Gravesend (now McDonald) Avenue. For part of its route the SBK used trolley tracks on McDonald Avenue, making it the only line associated with the TA that used both subway and trolley tracks.
The bread and butter of the SBK in its heyday was the delivery of boxcars from all over North America to businesses that were situated close to the tracks along the Culver right of way. The freight would be floated on barges from Hoboken and then transferred onto cars at the 2nd Ave. yard where SBK locos would pull them to their destinations.
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4/14/23
10 comments
It was most certainly *not* IND/BMT trackage at that time; it ran over BMT tracks (BRT originally, of course). The IND division of the NYCTA took over the Culver Line (today’s F) with through service in 1954, but the SBk itself was always associated with the BMT. What was so unique about the SBk, and why I find it so fascinating, was that it shared trackage with the subway system between a point just wast of 4th Avenue and the 36th-38th Ave. Yard.
The South Brooklyn is a fascinating piece of history, and that short section of track poking through the pavement is all that remains of it anywhere east of the 36th-38th St. Yard. Along that 37th St. ROW were all manner of businesses over the decades. Robert’s foods (pickles and other condiments), Phoenix Hermetics (IIRC, Mason-style jars and lids), American Transparent Plastics (plastic bags), various lumber and building supplies companies near 15th Avenue, and no less than three coal distributors–Klein Coal between 12th and 13th Ave., Bay Ridge Coal at 15th Ave., and down south off McDonald Ave., Flatbush Coal near Avenue S. There was an interchange yard with the Long Island Rail Road at Parkville and Avenue i (the site of a large supermarket today), and newly-arriving subway cars would come off car floats from NJ, operate along the Bay Ridge Branch, and interchange with the NYCTA at Parkville. Electric, and later diesel, locomotives would haul the new cars on McDonald Ave. (Gravesend Ave.) to the Coney Island complex.
Bush Terminal freight interchange was west of 2nd Ave., with tracks to the docks and down to the car float at 65th St. West of 3rd Avenue was Davidson Pipe, on land now occupied by the big Costco store. It was the last SBk customer, and they closed that yard in 1994. The overhead catenary wire was permanently shut off in Dec. 1961, and the old steeplecab locomotives (#6 and #7) are now museum pieces. Diesels took over and continued until the end of service on the eastern section of the SBk in 1978. The McDonald Ave. tracks were paved over in 1991.
A portion of the South Brooklyn Railway still exists today, and that’s where the new R211 subway cars are delivered. They arrive on flatbed trucks, and are transferred to tracks belonging to New York-New Jersey Rail on the site of what was Bush Terminal. Once the track crosses 2nd Avenue, it becomes South Brooklyn Railway trackage for the short trip along the south side of Costco, and across 3rd Ave. There’s a small yard belonging to NYC Transit between 3rd and 4th Avenues that is being turned into a railcar acceptance and inspection facility, and the SBk track (track D1 at that point) merges with D3 Track coming from 4th Avenue, on which Coney Island B trains operate today.
Reminds me of the Myrtle Avenue El in Ridgewood and the old tracks beneath the M line.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7052666,-73.8997516,3a,90y,135.13h,52.89t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1seKSux1_6dkwFgzqyi6zhUQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
In 1974-75, I worked in the industrial building on 37th Street and 14th Avenue (Think the address was 1435 or 38). The el for the Culver Shuttle was still there, and underneath
it ran SBR trackage, two tracks I believe. Two things fascinated me; the arrival about 10:30 each morning of a freight train that served a single customer at that location. An unused track was converted to a bocce court by some old Italian men. Most fascinating was that an old spur came of that trackage, crossed 37th Street and snaked behind the building I worked in. Although it was asphalted over on 37th Street, it split into 2 tracks behind the building and they were perfectly preserved!! Complete with 2 covered platforms, so neat they could have been passenger platforms. Guess they’re long gone, but a great memory.
I remember years ago being behind one of the freight trains travelling south on McDonald Av. I also remember the bocce courts below the Culver El.
I lived on 41st Street between 15th and 16 Avenues. One day as I was walking to the D train station on 16th, a Transit police car stopped at the intersection. Two officers got out with Stop paddles and stopped traffic on 16th. A few minutes later a freight train consisting of an engine and three freight cars came slowly by, heading south. It was my first experience with the SB. The bocce court was on a live track. The men set boards between the rails to act as stops. When a train was coming, they dropped the boards flat so the train could pass without affecting the balls. After the train passed, the boards went back up and the game continued. I also remember reading that one of the things carried on the South Brooklyn was the material for the parachute jump at Coney Island in time for the 1939 Worlds Fair.
We kids used to hang out under the South Brooklyn Railway underpasses on 50th and 52nd Streets in the 50’s and early 60’s, smoking and throwing rocks at the passing trains. At times there could be a dozen guys sitting by the tracks with their heads in paper bags sniffing airplane glue (but not me!). I can remember when there’d be a big commotion at the corner of McDonald Ave. and 20th Ave. as a locomotive would crawl out of Parkville Junction pulling a string of boxcars down the McDonald Ave. trolley tracks. We never knew where they went, but they sure tied of traffic!
Correction: The underpasses were on the Bay Ridge Branch of the Long Island Railroad ROW. I should have read Peter Dougherty’s explanative comment more closely. Anyway, we always called them “the tracks”!
There’s a bit of track also visible at Old New Utrecht Road/37th Street/14th Avenue. In the Google Street View link they would be behind the “Shomrim” Truck.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6403879,-73.9832017,3a,75y,306.6h,87.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_YJCpGUy5vd4IvBZnP9Ujg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
And here’s a view on 37th Street near the building that John mentioned.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6393623,-73.9811801,3a,73y,71.77h,83.74t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sI-4Mps4w3U7fWidh6ZLrSA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
If you look carefully you can see a rail sticking out of the ground behind the blue car and the concrete blocks.
BTW I worked in that building also for a short while around 23 years ago.
Around the corner on 15th Avenue there are a couple of old subway columns supporting the fence and the roll up gate. https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6390013,-73.9808404,3a,71.6y,303h,83.51t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s38vbDtEDgYiIbQwrwX1gGg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
There used to be another column inside that parking lot but it was removed a few years ago.
There seems to be a rail visible at the junction of 37th and church avenue, just near the iron fence.
Church Ave
https://maps.app.goo.gl/yvmQfPgjBn8JveMZ8
You can see some old paved road next to it.
Oh I got it. It’s a rail from the old Church avenue trolley!