Before the Hudson Tubes, almost all railroads had their New York stations in New Jersey. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Jersey City Terminal at Exchange Place was that road's main station for New York.

Train passengers crossed the North River on numerous ferry routes. This map from the late 19th Century shows the route the first attempt at tunneling was to follow.

The 20 minute ferry crossings sometimes stretched out into an hour or longer when bad weather set in. The "Hudson Tunnel" was to give passengers a safe, reliable and comfortable crossing. 

This detail-view of an H&M stock certificate presents the tubular construction from which The Tubes took their nickname.

The earlier subaqueous tunnels used tubular iron construction ...

... while the later subterranean tunnels used cut and cover and concrete. [Both images from the Terry  Kennedy collection]

The Tubes' planned extensions eastwards from 9th Street to the East Side IRT and northwards from 33rd Street to Grand Central Terminal [highlighted in yellow] were never completed, although the long and extremely wide IND pedestrian tunnel under Sixth Avenue from 34th to 36th Street is a vestigial remainder of the northwards extension.

Original plans for Grand Central Terminal show the Hudson and Manhattan Rail Road and the "McAdoo Tunnels" on the terminal's second underground level to the right], below the Tubes' own concourse and the East Side IRT and  above the "Belmont Tube"/ Steinway Tunnels. This connection, however, was never realized.

Similarly, the plans shown for the Tubes connection to the Jersey Central Railroad on Johnson Avenue in Jersey City were never realized.

An idealized view on a contemporary H&M stock certificate depicts the downtown Tubes running from Jersey City's Exchange Place on the left with the PRR terminal to the new Hudson Terminal in Manhattan on the right.

Looking eastwards, the PRR main line continued on the left straight to the Jersey City PRR Terminal at Exchange Place, while the Hudson & Manhattan veered off into a loop for the Journal Square Station. Photo by Harry Beck at  www.nycrail.com.

Perhaps connected with the earlier but aborted attempts to construct the Tubes, the entry to Manhattan is actually at Morton Street, not Christopher Street, and the Tubes make a double S curve.

There is now a preservation campaign to save the endangered  H&M Power House near Exchange Place. Here a drawing of the building in its original condition...

... here in a photograph from 1999....

.... and here in 2002 in a photo by David Pirmann with a Hudson Bergen Lightrail car [trolley].  Click here to read more on the Power House.

The corporate colors of the H&M's Hudson Tubes were red and white. Here is one of the few original signs left. The red and white mosaic [partially obscured by a security gate] directs passengers at the 14th Street station of the 6th Avenue IND to the Tubes' 14th street station.....

... while at 33rd Street the original signs direct passengers to 33rd Street [actually 32nd] and to 30th.

In the 14th Street IND entrance way to the Tubes' 14th Street station the original H&M mosaic sign contrasts with the simple PATH sign which in turn is being replaced by a new logo.

Recently the PA has begun with a blue and white logo whose "P" is split between New Jersey and New York. This example from the street entrance to Ninth Street.

"... come right out of the Tubes and escalate into Gimbel's"; the Tubes were at times called the Hudson Rapid Tubes, basically an advertising refreshment of the line. This flyer shows an example of the close relationship with Gimbel's Department Store, one of the two main stores of New York in the late 1940s - early 1950s.

This interior shot of a black car shows a short lived experiment to announce the upcoming station in advance through a telegraph board. Interestingly a half century before such devices came into common use.

Sporting a new PATH emblem just after the PA takeover, K series car no. 1227 from St. Louis Car Co. travels the above ground segment west of Journal Square  on its way to Hudson Terminal [NY]

New cars after the PA takeover: the interior of the PA-1 thru PA-4 series always were very similar to one another. After the rebuilding of the older series with only longitudinal seating, they probably appear exactly the same to most passengers.

On many of the PA series cars, shields were installed at the ends of the passenger compartment with the names and histories of some of the New Jersey  cities,  towns and townships located inside the PA's area, i.e. the twenty-five mile radius circle centered on the Statue of Liberty. Michael Steinberg's  Unofficial NJ Transit page has more details.

Competition in New Jersey: a Public Service trolley car on the trestle running up the Palisades and providing an alternate connection between the Hoboken and Journal Square stations.

Doubledecked Flying Junction: Just leaving the river tunnel and entering under Jersey City, a tube train from the east [Manhattan] is about to start heading southwards towards the second complicated flying junction between Erie / Exchange Place / Grove Street. In the background the tower [since removed] stands atop the DL&W station in  Hoboken .....

... and here a less picturesque but larger, clearer and annotated cutaway version of that junction.

This schematic is from the early 1990s, although updated after the terrorist attacks on New York, but shows the layout of the Tubes from the beginning to the present. Note the references to the 19th and 28th Street stations as well as to Hudson Terminal. [The green-colored [disused] platform at Pavonia Newport is about to return to service.] davidpirmann@nycsubway.org [www.nycsubway.org]

This second schematic dating from after the Port Authority takeover  is from Terry Kennedy's collection and gives even more detail of the underground sections.

This schematic shows the stretch from Exchange Place to Hoboken prior to the 2003 track changes at Exchange Place. [From the Joseph Brennan Collection]

A clear overview of the Tubes in 1940 [NY World's Fair]...

... a 1946 map with details on headways, running times, connections, corporate matters.

... from the mid 1980s a [distorted] panoramic view of the Tubes as part of the general transportation system

.... with text and timetables

..... and a more detailed route map [1999]

.... and the provisional service after the 2001 terrorist attacks on America.

John Bell has designed this excellent map of the PATH / Hudson Tubes system and displays it on his website.

The Tubes were regarded more as a railroad than just a transit system. Both the Tubes' and the first class railroads' schedules listed the Tubes as a connecting railroad. Here a New York-Chicago run. From Fallen Flag Railroads of New Jersey

With the NJ Turnpike extension in the background, the trains leave the surface just east of Journal Square .....

.... and zoom through the portal into the "Tubes" themselves. [Both images from www.nycrail.com ]

Compare with the map of the Tubes' early competition in Construction History. By 1950 there were only 5-6 ferries still crossing the North River; this map ignores them and instead shows the Tubes and its vehicular tunnel competition. From Fallen Flag Railroads of New Jersey

Gallery 2: Stations

Gallery 3: Equipment

This page was last updated on November-2-2007 using NotePad Lite.

© BKlapouchy 1987-2007