LIRR 314 Mineola 1930s Ron Ziel Photo
On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 4:35 PM, Henry <> wrote:
Nowa technical item: In the third picture (engine 314)note the object in the foreground - unique to the LIRR; this is a "feeder rail". Where other properties might use a copper cable, overhead or underground as a feeder, LIRR used this arrangement. It is a piece of third rail, notmounted beside a track, butmounted on concrete piers, and boxed in with wood. These were used in a couple of places where there was single track, but a need to feed power from a substation over more than one 3rd rail.
I suspect that this picture is not on the Main Line at Mineola, but rather on the track that ran south from Mineola to Hempstead crossing, where it connected to the Hempstead and Central branches. The crossing was a load center - with Hempstead branch trains plus the Mitchell Field shuttle), but the nearest substations were at Mineola, West Hempstead and Hempstead, so feeder rails were used to provide additional conductivity to the Crossing. That track from Mineola to Hempstead Crossing is now long gone. Branching off of it was a spur to the Garden City Waterworks. Also gone is a connection from Hempstead Crossing to West Hempstead.
In the late 19th Century, after the general merger, many trains to the Oyster Bay Branch and points east on the Main line were routed from Floral Park through Garden City, then up this track to Mineola instead of using the Main Line. Some years ago there still were a few rails in the street crossing between the Mineola substation and Nassau tower, remnants of connections used in this routing.Later the LIRR's battery cars ran from Mineola through the Crossing, then down the West Hempstead branch to Valley Stream. When the West Hempstead branch was electrified, so was the connection from WH through Hempstead Crossing to Mineola, and trains could be run in a loop, going out via Valley Stream and back via Mineola, but I don't think this lasted long.
I haven't checked a roster, but I think 314 would have been an H-6 consolidation.