New York Central Railroad Harmon Shops

Shown above are several views of the NY Central shops at Harmon NY, now Croton-Harmon and run by Metro North Railroad.

1913 saw the completion of electrification of Grand Central Terminal and the lower stretches of the Hudson and Harlem Divisions. Harmon, which is 33 miles from Grand Central Terminal, became the transfer point where electric locomotives were exchanged for steam and later diesel on through New York Central passenger trains. It also became the starting point for electric commuter service into the city.

Harmon was a New York Central-created community and came into existence because it was a logical point to be the outer limit of the electric zone. There was plenty of room as this was a requirement for an interchange point. Not only was there room for sidings and yards, but also for repair facilities. The steam engines that pulled the Great Steel Fleet to Chicago rested here. As the small, but powerful, electrics pulled in from Grand Central Terminal, the steamers quickly hooked on and took off up the Hudson.

Exchange from steam to electric started in 1908 at High Bridge, progressed to Hastings-on-Hudson, then Tarrytown, and finally to Croton and Harmon in 1913. Electrification actually runs about a mile north of the Croton-Harmon station to Croton-North (Croton-on-Hudson). There is a freight yard here and electric commuter storage tracks across the main line.

The shops handled all servicing, inspection and repairs for all electric locomotives and MU equipment. They also handled servicing, inspection and minor repairs on steam (later diesel) in the area. The shops were built in sections starting in 1907 with the final stage erected in 1928. For as long as I could remember, there was a large sign “Harmon Diesel & Electric Shops”.

Older MU car seats were upholstered in cane but shifted to synthetic fabric as authentic material too hard to get.

There were no third rails inside the shops. Instead, there were long 600-volt cables on reels hung from the ceiling. These were called “bugs” and were clipped to a third rail shoe when power was needed.

Harmon was basically a commuter passenger station and never developed into a transfer point. Stays were short as it only took a minute or two to change power.

There were two roundhouses west of the station area. One was a 25-stall building erected in 1913 with an 85-foot turntable. A portion of this survived into the 1960’s as a storage barn. A larger roundhouse was built in 1928. It had a 100-foot turntable for the increasingly larger locomotives and 31 stalls. A 900 ton trestle-type coaling facility south of the roundhouses served the area adequately.

Yards on each side of the main tracks were connected by a semicircular track crossing the main by means of a girder bridge.

There was once an inspection shed for electric equipment ready for assignment. When this burned in the early 1960’s, servicing was performed out-of-doors.

The freight yard at Croton-North is still active. Croton-Harmon is a big center for electric commuters, but AMTRAK no longer needs to swap power here.

By 1970, there were 76 trains on weekdays being handled by 16 “P” and “T” motors and 8 “S” motors. The roster included 227 MU cars, 40 road diesels, 45 diesel switchers (road and yard) and 17 RDC cars. It took 400 employees working 3 shifts 7 days/week to run the complex. $300,000 was spent annually on new windows. By then, the power station out of service as purchased power was used.

No story about Harmon would be complete without a description of some of the equipment which was unique to the Electric Division.

The pioneers of electric service were the S-motors. This entire class of 35 electrics survived fifty years and some served over sixty years. They were designed by William J. Wilgus, the Chief Engineer of the New York Central & Hudson River RR, who also designed the electrical current distribution and utilization system for the entire electrification project. He had little else to copy as the field of locomotives drawing trains by amperage instead of steam was so new. He made his design simple, durable and efficient. The “S” had four small but powerful gearless bipolar motors. The prototype Alco-GE appeared in 1904 with the remainder of the first order built in 1906. They weighed 95 tons and were rated at 1,695 horsepower. They drew power from an underrunning third-rail shoe but had a pair of small, pantograph-type trolleys for gaps in the third rail.

Two engines were needed when doubleheading as no provision for multiple unit controls was made. The only major modification was the replacement of two-wheel pony trucks with four-wheel bogie trucks. Another dozen Class S-3’s were built in 1908-9. They were bigger and had a train-heating boiler. The last of the S-motors were scrapped in the early 1980’s.

T-motors were a logical outgrowth of the “S”. These box-cabs had 8 motors powering all 16 wheels. The gearless bi-polar motors were built with the armatures on the axles. Blowers were required to ventilate the motors. The weights of the three sub-classes of T-motors varied from 126 to 146 tons. A pneumatic rail sander was required to start heavy trains. The first ten (Class T-1) were built in 1913. Six more (Class T-2) were added in 1914 as well as another ten in 1917. Ten Class T-3’s were built in 1926. Because of changing requirements, most of the T-motors were scrapped in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

P-motors were huge box cabs that came from Cleveland Union Terminal in 1953 when electric operations ended there. They were rewired for third-rail operation and became the workhorses of the Hudson Division until the early 1970’s.

Q-motors were rated at 1330 hp. These were built in 1926 by Alco-GE for light to medium duty in the third rail zone. All were retired by 1955.

R-motors were for heavier freight service. Class RA was built in 1926 and consisted of a married pair of box cabs. In 1931, 42 Class R-2 motors of 3000 hp were delivered. Later, some of these went to Detroit and ten went to the Chicago & South Shore in 1955. The rest were retired soon after and the West Side Freight Line was de-electrified in favor of diesels.

Everything wasn’t pure electric. In 1930, Alco, GE and Ingersoll-Rand jointly built a series of diesel-battery-electric locomotives for the Central. They were serviced at Harmon and mostly used on the West Side Freight Line.

In addition, the first successful diesel electric locomotive for road freight service in the nation was #510 which was based at Harmon. It also was produced jointly by Alco, GE and Ingersoll-Rand. It was built in 1928 as #1550, renumbered to #1510 and finally to #510. This locomotive was based in Harmon. The generator was a six cylinder diesel from IR and the four electric motors were from GE.

Since the inclusion of the New Haven in Penn-Central, another unusual locomotive appeared – the diesel-electric-electric FL-9. Built in the late 1950’s, several have been rebuilt and today serve both Metro-North and AMTRAK.

The original MU’s used in suburban service were built between 1906 and 1929. The Central bought upgraded cars in 1950, 1961 and 1963. The first truly “modern” cars were the M-1 Metropolitans acquired between 1972 and 1975 for the Hudson and Harlem Divisions. 178 of these were built by General Electric. The Port Authority funded these cars. They are efficient, but rigid with fixed seats, some of which always face backwards. They hold 122 passengers in moderate comfort. An improved M-3 built by Budd (142 of them) appeared in 1983.

Read about Harmon in the 60’s , how Harmon got its name , and all about freight in the Croton-Harmon area.

See stories on modernization plans and progress for the Harmon Shops.

A lot of the freight that rolled into Harmon was destined for the West Side Freight Line and the St Johns Freight House. A lot of these cars were head end equipment such as Railway Express and mail.

You will enjoy our map of Croton-Harmon and photograph from Google Earth.