New York Connecting Railroad - Electrification

Electrification

The New York Connecting Railroad was electrified around 1927 as an extension of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad's system of electrification. The system encompassed 20 route miles of track, and was electrified, like the New Haven, using overhead catenary at 11 kV, 25 Hz. The system received power from the New Haven's Cos Cob power plant and Consolidated Edison 201st generating station via the West Farms substation. Additional power was supplied from a 5 MW, 7 kVA, 11 kV, three-phase to single-phase converter installed at East New York. This unit was also operated in synchronous condenser mode for reactive power support.

Like the New Haven, the NYCR traction power was distributed using the 2 x 11 kV autotransformer topology. Two wires, the feeder and the catenary (often called the trolley wire), carried voltage of 11 kV to ground, but of opposite phase such that the feeder and catenary were 22 kV phase-to-phase. Six autotransformer stations, spaced an average of 3.8 miles apart along the line, converted power. Each station contained oil circuit breakers for both feeder and trolley buses, bus sectioning switches, and one 3 MVA outdoor autotransformer.

The Long Island Rail Road portion of the system (essentially everything to the south of Bowery Bay), along with the freight catenary from West Farms over Hell Gate to Bowery Bay, was removed in 1969-1970. By 1986 Amtrak, which had inherited the Connecting Railroad, changed the traction power system over to 60 Hz operation coincident with Metro North's re-powering of the New Haven Line at 60 Hz and de-activation of the Cos Cob Power Station. The autotransformer architecture was retained, but the source of power changed from the Metro North New Haven Line system to the ConEdison supplied Van Nest Substation 40°50′31″N 73°51′48″W / 40.8420°N 73.8633°W / 40.8420; -73.8633 (Van Nest Substation 46).