A High Line connection

There is another Princeton connection with the High Line (Alumni Scene, Sept. 23) — namely, my service as trainmaster at 72nd Street Yard responsible for Conrail’s freight service on Manhattan’s West Side Freight Line in its final years of operation.

Recognizing that the line was on borrowed time, in 1980 I made sure that I was able to ride the line as far south as possible and accompanied a shipment of frozen food (turkeys?) to a second-story siding near 14th Street; a year or so later, service ended and the line slumbered for almost three decades, fortunately avoiding the demolition advocated by adjacent property owners.

It is gratifying to see segments of the line evolve to their best and highest uses. The south end is, of course, the High Line park. Even better, the north end is once again a functioning railroad, and a main line passenger railroad at that: Its rebuilding allowed the rerouting of Amtrak’s Albany service into Penn Station, thus allowing connections to Washington, Philadelphia, and, yes, Princeton.