Construction crews on NYC’s Governor’s Island have unearthed a military railroad relic.
Construction crews in New York City find a railroad artifact from the early 1900s. An archbar, a kind of freight car wheel, was discovered on Governor’s Island. It dates back to when the 172-acre island was an important military installation with its own railroad.
An archbar is a type of freight car truck common in the early 1900s, says Robert Holzweiss, president of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. Simply put, they’re the wheels the boxcar sits on. The Association of American Railroads banned the design, which was outdated and required a lot of maintenance, from interchange (railroad to railroad) service in 1939.
Island officials plan to do more research and find a place to display the relic. Why the archbar was sitting underground on the island for nearly a century, we may never know.
View entire article: http://www.wired.com/2014/06/governors-island-railroad-relic/