The site of the 1939-40 N.Y. World’s Fair was, for years, swamp land as well as the dumping ground for the Brooklyn Ash Removal Co. and was, for all intents and purposes, a garbage dump. Each day about 110 loads of garbage were dumped into Flushing Meadows.
During the Great Depression, my mother and her siblings, who were born and raised in nearby Corona, used walk to the dump site and crawl through holes in the fence to collect pieces of unburned coal from the dumped ash and clinkers to bring home for the family’s personal use.
The advent of the Fair and its construction on this vast site, greatly improved the looks of the surrounding neighborhoods, provided much-needed employment for many during the construction and operational period and, I’m sure, improved property values as well.
Note: The lead track to the exhibit (and the exhibit tracks) were indicated on the Emery map (below) as NOT electrified and this photo shows no third rail and it parallels the Port Wash branch.
The map (left) is dated 1939 a year before the Board of Transportation came to be and took over the subways, trolleys and busses. The 6th Ave EL is gone, but the other three Manhattan ELs, as well as all the Brooklyn ELs, are still with us. The map also shows the Yonkers Branch of the New York Central and the New York Westchester and Boston. There was a ferry from 39th Street, Brooklyn to Staten Island.
LaGuardia and Idlewild Airports are in the future and the 6th Ave Subway is under construction. The A Train in Brooklyn only reached to Rockaway Ave. The Battery Tunnel is in the future and the Midtown tunnel is not shown.
Lastly, the Worlds Fair is shown along with the now gone IND connections from Queens Blvd.
Many World's Fair trains were double-headed in the A-B/A-B combination of DD1 head-end power due to the increased length of the trains run.
This view looking north shows DD1 units #344 and #351 double-headed and laying up with an extremely long Fair train in the expanded Corona Meadows Yard.
"Railroads at the NY World's Fair 1939"
"Railroads at the NY World's Fair 1940"
Before the fair, the LIRR painted three MU cars and most likely at least one P72 diesel car in experimental paint schemes. The MU train shown has blue-striped T72 #2840 in blue stripe, numbers and lettering. It is alongside an MP72T in an orange stripe. One motorized trailer, MP72T #2648 was given an orange stripe, lettering and numbers with "Ride the LONG ISLAND Travel Easy" slogan above the letter board and windows and placed before the LONG ISLAND lettering. I don't believe it got the full slogan that the Zip cars and one train of earlier MP72-class Pullman-Standard cars of earlier manufacture (1955) received.
This photo shows both cars #2840 and #2648 and the car to the left (not shown) may very well be the red striped #2502 since all three cars ran together."
There was also a control motor with red stripe, lettering and numbers with orange ends and it was numbered #2502.
The red, blue and orange striped cars ran together in the same train for a short period of time on several different electric branches as a test to see what scheme was most popular and to no apparent surprise, the orange won out. One steam or diesel car, P72 #2920, wore a blue stripe for a time but it had the normal white standard condensed gothic lettering with a white number board with red numbers. I know of no other diesel car painted experimentally but of course, there were the two cars with what I call the full "World's Fair with slogan" paint scheme.
And as I mentioned, there was a 10-car train of the earlier MP72 cars that got the full WF with slogan paint job to augment the new fleet of Zip cars or MP75s which also wore this scheme; all were used in World's Fair service.
This train--no one seems to be quite sure what its makeup was--most likely was a control motor at the end, then three motorized trailers, and one trailer and then a second consist of the same cars, which adds up to10 cars but this is only a guess. Since the LIRR ran trailers (unpowered or unmotorized cars) in a 3:1 ratio, each of the two trailers in this train would probably be placed between the motorized trailer cars, making this consist a 2500 car, 2600 car, 2800 car, 2600 car, 2600 car, 2600 car, 2800 car, 2600 car, 2600 car and a 2500 series cars. But I can only guess on this and we have no information on what cars wore this scheme. While I'm not sure of the exact timetable, the LIRR dumped the red version, but in the spring of 1962 the railroad used the blue stripe on its parlor cars purchased from the PRR; I think it was around the same time that the two other blue cars (2920 and 2840) were also running in LIRR trains.
CHARCOAL GRAY BODY, ORANGE STRIPE AT WINDOWS WITH “RIDE THE LONG ISLAND TRAVEL EASY” ABOVE THE WINDOWS.
After the World's Fair was over, the "Your Thruway to the Fair Gateway" was painted out but the "Travel Easy . . . " was left in place above the windows for many years afterwards.
If the car has that portion above the windows, then it held that the lower portion was stenciled on during the Fair Years.
Some cars had both portions painted out afterwards and maintained only a small memory of the former fair: an orange band through the windows.
I remember the move to get this engine and car to the fair grounds. The car arrived on its own wheels in a freight train at Oak Point while the engine arrived on a flat car with the tender on a separate car. Both were unloaded whether by crane or ramp I do not know. The engine was steamed up at Oak Point and towed the car from Oak Point to Fremont on track 5.
This is the locomotive “General”, originally of the Western & Atlantic RR, which was stolen by the Andrew's Raiders in the Civil War. For many years, it was on static display in the waiting room of a station (Chattanooga?). The road became part of the Louisville & Nashville. L&N moved the engine out one night and put it in running condition, which, among other things, involved converting to oil burning and adding air brakes. The oil tank and an engine driven compressor were hidden under the wood pile on the tender.
1. "Through the Years With the Long Island Rail Road Company (1834)"
5. Booklet entitled "The Long Island Rail Road at a Glance"
GUY LOMBARDO SAYS: "Travel easy to the Fair"
LIRR Promo pin button: "I Traveled Easy to the Fair"
St. Louis Car Company's R36 World's Fair cars were delivered in 1964 for #7 train service along the NYCTA's Flushing Line. They are shown here at the TA's Willets Point station which was the transit's stop for the New York World's Fair. In the background is visible Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets.
M1 MU electric train pulling a railfan extra at Shea Stadium station on April 20, 1969.
service for New York Met's games at Shea Stadium.
World's Fair PRR brochure "Take the Pennsy to the Fair"
PRR "You'll never forget the thrill..."
As the day is done, and the Sun ends its daily journey, so too does the Fair come to end; October 17, 1965.
Note: When the 2nd World's Fair closed in 1965, the station this time was left standing, and renamed "Shea Stadium" as the LIRR's station stop for the NY Mets games at Shea.
Saturday, June 7th 2014, OBRM hosted their 50th anniversary celebration of the 1964 NY Worlds Fair. On display was a huge treasure trove of LIRR memorabilia from the Fair, as well as various select pieces from the collection of Jerry & Susan Jacobs. Their collection is very eclectic. Revealed was our new display of the actual LIRR Pavilion in 1/4 inch scale which included the operating G16 model train. For those of you who remembered the fair, this surely made you misty eyed.
The World's Fair Alco FA-1 diesel cab was also open for visiting. This artifact from the actual pavilion has a built in sound system.
"Remembering the 1964 World's Fair at the Railroad Museum"