(rshsdepot) Passenger car from Staten island to B&O connection for Philly; addendum to long time ago topic

["Paul Luchter" <luckyshow_@_mindspring.com>]

I was reading a book about Ken Strong, the All-American football player, a "triple-threat" All-American running back at New York
University, dubbed the next Lou Gehrig until a minor league industry ended that career.

When he first came to the NFL he played for the long forgotten Staten island Stapletons (the Stapes). This was a semi-pro football
team that took over the Hartford Blues National Football League franchise in 1929. They never did so well in the NFL, lasting to
1932, the franchise skeleton becoming the Portsmouth Lions who a few years later became the Detroit Lions.

Anyway, Stapleton is on Staten Island, just a little southwest (east on the SIRT) from St. George. In reading I came across a story
about how the Stapes would avoid having to take a ferry for the train to Philadelphia. They had a special Pullman car that they
boarded in Stapleton, it would be carried over the bridge to Cranston, I think it was Elizabeth, it read, where the car was switched
to a waiting B & O train to Philadelphia to play the Frankford Yellow Jackets. So this is a late example of through passenger
traffic, albeit private, from Staten island onto the mainland.
The return trip was less privileged, they had to take a ferry just like anyone else.

Ken Strong went to the New York Giants after the Stapes folded, the MVP of the "Sneaker Game" NFL Championship in 1934, he would
become one of the first NFL players to jump to another league, playing for the Brooklyn Tigers in the second A.F.L. in the
mid-thirties. Banned after that league folded by the NFL he played semi-pro ball, touring with a tea of All-Stars, by 1940 playing
on the Long island Clippers in the minor league American Association, playing for the New York Americans of the third A.F.L. in
early 1940s. later back on the New York Giants he served as the first kicking specialist in football, directly helping to lead
football out of the restrictive substitution rules of the day. When he retired at a  record age at the time, he had set the NFL
scoring record. Yes sports did exist before TV. Ken Strong is in both the college and professional Hall of Fames...

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railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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