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Re: (rshsdepot) "450-Ton Locomotive at the Waldorf-Astoria"



 >>>First, thank you all for this fascinating look at history, BUT, and 
second, pls see below for questions/comments:

David S. Rose wrote:

>OK, now you've aroused my curiosity. I've done a little research on the
>"Waldorf station", and will do a little more, but the stories are certainly
>conflicting. The most recent one, from this past September, certainly tends
>to support the existence of the siding. But I recall reading a very
>authoritative debunking of the siding (which is the source for my previous
>comments on the list) and I'll try to dig that up as well. Here's the
>tantalizing description from the Journal News, a Gannett paper:
>
>A VIP station
>
>While the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and Grand Central Terminal were being
>completed side by side in 1932,
>
 >>>Something doesn't schmeck right here.  The hotel, 1932, yes, but GCT 
(the "new" one, the one we know today) replaced the old one some years 
earlier, I believe.  Can somebody double check this?

>an underground train station for the elite
>was built off a trunk line at Track 61. This station, hidden within the
>terminal, allowed Roosevelt and other VIPs to arrive in New York in style.
>It also had the advantage of concealing FDR's wheelchair use from the
>public.
>
>"His armor-plated Pierce Arrow car would drive off the train, onto this
>platform and into the elevator, and it would bring him and his car into the
>hotel garage,'' 
>
 >>>How?  I never saw pictures of any kind of box car looking rail 
conveyance carrying his car.  Did they set up the car carrying FDR's 
automobile into a bumper type arrangement, where the auto drove through 
the opened end of the box car directly onto a platform?  It doesn't seem 
to me they could have manuevered it out of the boxcar if it (the boxcar) 
was parked next to a concrete platform.  Something about this part of it 
just doesn't sound right.  Comments?


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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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