วีดีโอ

It does - or one of the ones used the old obscure 'pocket' freight yards around NYC 100 years ago... My money's still on an X-29 tho.

This is already moved and in good hands. It's definitely not my fault that the former owner left this in an area with no security. I found out it was there from the internet. The cat was out of the bag at least two years beforehand. Despite this I still didn't name where it was.

I'm not familiar with this one. 484, the former Amtrak FL9?

@@ltvsquad Hi, no, it was on utube 1-2? months ago. It is a stripped 484 baldwin?

Definitely have seen photos of one of these between locomotives.

That was my first thought.

Any idea how many were home-built? I'm neurotically trying to prove the others are long gone.

@@ltvsquad I had already researched these beforehand, all I know that is worth anything is the amount. The PRR had 4 flangers on their roster, this is a really early example from 1924, I have no idea what it was originally, your guess sounds good to me, though another comment saying it was a troop car at one point is another accurate guess.

@@Amtrak09 Oooo - only 4. I was able to find photos of two others but none from the last ten years. This is a pretty rare bird.

Definite flanger.

Another awesome detail - thank you for that. I only got to read a little about EPRY/ESPN and figured I'd research it more for the part 2 video...

I kinda like them - some more than others.

Do you happen to know if the boxes are used for storage, or if he's got plans for the flanger? I suspected this might be a possibility given the nature of the location, with all the art around the building.

Honestly the guy has a bit of an attitude. From what I understand the boxcar's we're locked shut just to keep the kids out. Not used for storage.

@@slikkarl Oy vey. I'm a little worried that if he does own them, what are his plans for them? What happens to them when he eventually passes away? There's a lot of examples of what happens when there's no arrangements made.

Ha! Tobin! I went to school with him.

Memory loss is no fun. I miss details sometimes. There's photos on rrpicturearchive of it in town in 2007, then on the siding by 2013. It apparently hasn't moved since. Conrail had it - there's a photo in the video of how it looked right after a Contrail repaint. It was apparently off their roster by 1987 tho.

Update! I've been discussing this on the Ahead of the Torch group and a member there says he helped move the cars across the road (after it was repaved) - so your memory on this one might be exact.

It's a cool neighborhood. I'm an NYC guy but spent quite a few weekends in that neck of the woods growing up (randomly befriended some guys out there)

Waoh, that's a great detail I missed. I've been wondering what other cars they might have cobbled parts from to build the doors and ends with.

Yeah, noticed that. Poling went out of style in the early 1960s; I've seen 1950s yard diesels with poling pockets.

@@michaelblum4968 I mistakenly thought it was prohibited before then, but apparently it was just abandoned for safety in the time period you stated. 👍

100 years old this October. :) (I'm surprised the build day was still visible on it, it's in the vid towards the start) The pockets are one more thing that points towards this car being converted from a boxcar.

It definitely has all the elements of a flanger.

@@dtj9923MU cables are almost a dead giveaway (besides the number)

Troop sleeper cars were built during the Second World War, prior to that Pullman had enough sleeper cars to go around. The PRR did convert some box cars into passenger cars for commuter trains during WW2, they got 'porthole' windows so that might have been a part of this car's life.

@@keystonedriving8180 I haven't heard of these boxcar/passenger car conversions. Any tips on where to read up on them?

But did any of the troop sleepers have big keystone logos on them like this one? I'm sticking with gut of X-29 conversion. As I said in the video, the evidence is there but I have no smoking gun.

Time to go through internet archives.

Yeah I don't see why it couldn't be restored. For 100 years old it's in pretty good shape. The trick would be figuring out what is missing and where to source or fabricate those parts. It really feels like a Frankenstein of different car parts from that era.

Nope, never 🤣

Yeah, there or the PA museum. I'm getting the impression there's not many flangers of this era preserved.

I bet it would have gotten way more traction if they didn't do it as a one off show vs. having it a regular space that people become curious about.

Ooo. I knew where it came from but - how long ago was the auction? I had assumed it was several years ago

Don’t worry. Am packing Heat!

Not necessarily. The cheapest option would be the one that branch was actually designed for: a connect to the LIRR mainline, utilizing readily available FRA grade equipment. With light rail, you'd need a transfer, either to LIRR or maybe a viaduct over to Queens blvd. (for the subway). The Queenslink proposal itself is that of an extended M train subway line - which will require not just clearing and repairing the tracks, but a tunnel connection under the LIRR mainline, down a few streets and into the existing provisions for connecting it within the subway tunnel. Anything with a new tunnel or viaduct is going to cost way more, but I back the Queenslink plan because it's well organized and pushing hard against what the most likely outcome is going to be: a trail. There are deep pocket people who selfishly only want a trail on that route. After watching this closely for the last two decades, I'm on team QueensLink. It's either that, or we end up with another 'high line', only this one will force generations of commuters to rely on polluting buses and transfers.

This is my best guess on why it landed here. B&M was probably offering them cheap to its customers (or former customers). There's a few of these storage boxcars around the northeast. Eventually I'll roll out more videos on them.

No one's saying light rail can't work. It would take a lot of work, and the BQX proposal never really talked about what that would entail. DeBlasio ditched a subway expansion project he announced months before introducing BQX at the behest of his real estate developer buddies,. That was it. That was the whole ass problem. This wasn't being built for commuters so much as it was a marketing scheme for the real estate developers who composed nearly the entire board of directors of this 'transit route'. We should expand bus service significantly - something we could do very quickly without costing billions in taxpayer dollars. Then start looking at which routes would be even better served by light rail.

​@@ltvsquad, bus service isn't working that well, and the areas of NYC mentioned in the linked video I provided are transit deserts that need a rail service which _can't_ be subway. Also, before you all build any more subway lines, you all need to fix the subway lines you have now (getting a shitload of new signaling and refurbishing a lot of the stations [including these ones-th-cam.com/video/hHp_qSZmvoI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=rGXYh6vEyjzTcJAK ] is needed.) As well, building a light rail line is less expensive than building another subway line.

@@Neville60001 They need to fix that they've got for sure, but blowing $2.5B to 3$B on a duplicate line just to make some billionaire real estate developers happy wasn't a good idea then, and it isn't now. Queenslink is currently proposed as a subway line. I'm sure anyone that needs to know more can google it. I think queens link, IBX and others would be very easy to start as commuter rail lines for a variety of reasons, but that's literally fodder for an entire video series. Also, it shouldn't be this expensive to build new subway lines. That's the construction industry and consultants having their dinner on taxpayers dime. Costs at the MTA are insane and someone needs to reform the whole damned thing, but that would take a governor that actually gave a damn about NYC residents and not deep pocket political backers.

Don't get me wrong, NYC could use its trolleys back (and elevated and even abandoned transit routes like Queenslink (former LIRR Rockaway branch)-but that's just the problem. We have at least a dozen 'low hanging fruit' transit projects that could make a huge difference, and none of them get built because of boondoggles like this one. We have to fight tooth and nail for anything to happen. Something as simple as a bus lane or a bike lane takes a never ending amount of red tape to complete. I worked with a group that proposed 14 different potential service improvements for one of their mayor projects. They only agreed to one. And then they cancelled the entire project. The MTA could literally increase bus and subway service on this corridor tomorrow if they wanted (well, 6 months to ramp up with employees),. This is part of the reason so many people rely on cars in NYC: service is minimal, or in some parts of the city, non-existent.

That plus Queenslink. It is frankly insane that Queens lost this vital transit route. The city is changing rapidly. Manhattan is no longer the center of the world. We need new routes that reflect this obvious fact.

All these social media platforms are terrible with notifications. The Torrington car is cool, it's right near a crossing behind the store.

Unfortunately this is NYC, doing it right is never on the agenda. Our existing bus lanes often end up as delivery truck parking...

The only trains we have are subways (underground) or elevateds (subways running on viaducts, grade separated). BQX was a proposed light rail but it never happened - hence why this abandoned mock up prototype thing exists.

Oy vey. It's going to be one very cramped ride.

​@@ltvsquad Lightrail has it's place - if done right. The capacity is much higher than busses, but it costs way less than a subway (not only to build but also to operate in the long run). For the medium density area along the East River waterfront, and as a connector between the radial subway lines, a lightrail (or even just a regular tram) actually seems quite fitting. BUT, considering that this line was estimated at over 2.5 billion $, we can safely assume it would _not_ have been "done right". Elsewhere in the developed world lightrail is usually built for less than 25 million per km (~40 million $ per mile). Even the most luxurious implementations hardly ever cost more than 50m/mi; so anything above ~600 million for the proposed 11 mile route does indeed sound insane.