Please can anyone help me, I am looking for photos of the New York Central RR Passanger Station in Youngstown, both exterior and interior?

I can find only two photos on my PC. I thought I had one or two more. I have no interior photos or even a streetside view of the station headhouse. I'll keep my eyes open and if I find any, I will post them here.

 

This station was the least used of Youngstown's four main stations (Erie RR, Baltimore & Ohio RR, Pennsylvania RR and NYC RR) and is the only one that was demolished. PRR's station was pretty close to the NYC station in terms of low usage, considering that these two dominant railroads of the Eastern US had mainlines that bypassed Youngstown. The mainlines of the Erie and B&O both came right through Youngstown but, of the two, only the B&O mainline survived consolidation, deregulation and deindustrialization. Because the NYC depot was the only station demolished, photos of it are hard to find.

 

Quite a few railroad stations were placed where they more convenient for the railroad than the traveling public. New York Central's Youngstown station was one of them. New York Central's line from Ashtabula came through Hubbard and then into Youngstown proper from the Northeast, bypassing the heart of downtown on the industrial east side. The NYC station was a four-track station and stood at the east end of the East Federal bridge over the railroad tracks, meeting Wilson Avenue and Himrod Avenue. Trains between Buffalo and Pittsburgh paused at this station, bypassing the rugged landscape just beyond the Pennsylvania state line, making a routing via Youngstown faster. Also, since New York Central owned the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie RR with its fast, heavy-duty, 2- to 4-track mainline from Youngstown to Pittsburgh along the Mahoning, Beaver and Ohio rivers, a few local-stop, commuter-type P&LE passenger trains that originated/terminated in Youngstown began/ended their trips from the NYC station. This was done despite the partnership that existed between P&LE and the Erie railroads for running frequent passenger trains between Pittsburgh and Cleveland each day. NYC didn't want to pay Erie RR for trackage rights for less than a mile of operation into well-located Erie's depot on Wick Avenue in the heart of downtown.

 

That partnership between NYC's P&LE and the Erie is evident in this 1954 photograph of the Erie Railroad's "Steel King" passenger service. A westbound Steel King train, pulled by a NYC/P&LE locomotive (painted with the familiar NYC lightning pinstripes) and undoubtedly having a mix of NYC/P&LE and Erie cars in its consist, coasts by the NYC station as it prepares to stop at the Erie Railroad station. This photo is courtesy of the New York Central System Historical Society. Perhaps someone at NYCSHS can find a better photo of the station for you....

 

Youngstown Erie Steel King 1954 NYCSHS by Ken Prendergast, on Flickr

 

 

Twenty-five years later in 1979, a friend of mine named Roger Durfee who is an excellent photographer took this photo of a Conrail freight train swinging off the line from Ashtabula onto P&LE trackage and was likely bound for P&LE's still-modern Gateway Yard (built in 1960). It could have stayed on Conrail and traveled directly below the fast-decaying NYC station if this train were bound for Pittsburgh or points east. North of this location to Ashtabula, ownership of this line had changed from New York Central to Penn Central (in 1968) to Conrail (in 1976). East of here, P&LE never joined Penn Central because it was so profitable from large volumes of coal, iron ore, limestone and steel products coming and going between Youngstown and Pittsburgh. By 1979, that traffic was rapidly disappearing. The two tracks in the foreground are the old Erie tracks that the Steel King used (in the photo above). By the end of 1982, these tracks that also went past the Erie depot downtown would be gone. But the tracks directly below the NYC station structure are still there and are used by Norfolk Southern (since 1999) about a dozen times each day as part of NS's Youngstown Line, linking Rochester, PA with Ashtabula, OH.

 

Youngstown NYC station-081179-RADurfee by Ken Prendergast, on Flickr

Thank you for the picture, and may I take this time towith you a very Merry Christmas, and in 2018 may you find the pot of gold.