POTW: New York's Floating Cars

Before trucks became common, trains carried most American freight over land. In the same era, New York Harbor became the busiest port in the United States — if not one of the busiest in the world. Brooklyn’s (and all of Long Island’s) factories, refineries, and warehouses were only connected via freight rail to the rest of the country in 1917 with the opening of the Hell Gate Bridge. To knit together the industrial centers of New Jersey, Manhattan and Long Island, rail companies floated barges (or “carfloats”) of cargo-laden train cars across the Harbor. This photograph of the New York Company Docks in Red Hook shows a man driving a steam locomotive and pulling several freight cars on to dry land. 

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