old surplus vehicle yard

[james3rd]

hi,
i am a new member looking for some info.

many years ago my family used to travel on 9w in new york to visit family in albany. two of the highlights on my trips were the ghost fleet and a military vehicle surplus yard. both were in the same general area, around cementon ny on the hudson river.

the vehicle yard had it's own siding to unload the vehicles. the yard stretched all the way to the river. it was full of vehicles, i remember half tracks , tanks and trucks. my father ran a AAA half track w/ quad 50's and he used to say that he could see his track. i now know he was joking. but there were a lot of them there.

i have located the lot where it was, now just a empty field with a few buildings right by the river. there is no evidence of what it once held, thousands of vehicles.

i think it was closed down and the vehicles removed probably in the late 50's early 60's.

i have tried to find any information at all about this operation with no success. this has been on my mind for most of my life. any help or just a kind word would help. pictures would be a great plus.

thank you,

jim hoover.

 

[marchplumber]

Good luck on your search? GOOGLE? Wish you the very best in your continued search for information!

 

[james3rd]

thanks Tony. i have looked every where, including google. i have run completely out of ideas. thanks for the reply.

 

[marchplumber]

If you know town name, it might be available through town historian. Feds would have record of storage yard, but that could be a convoluted journey. Have ya stopped and talked to any "oldtimers"?

 

[marchplumber]

By the way, Welcome aboard from central Illinois!!

 

[NDT]

Try calling some of the surplus dealers that were around then that are still in business. They all were extensively networked then and now. White Owl, Memphis Equipment, others? The old-timers there may remember.

 

[FrankUSMC]

Could you be talking about Sarafan? They were a big military vehicle dealer up in NY back in the day. He sold out most of his stuff and moved to Florida, restarted a smaller military vehicle dealership, but he then passed away.
NDT is 100% correct, White Owl parts company, Route One surplus, Sarafan, now only White Owl parts company is still up and running. Memphis equipment is still running but (someone correct me if I am wrong) they are no longer ran by the family that started it, but the employees bought the company out several years ago.
Ok, now I fill old.....

One of the few, Frank USMC RET

 

[emmado22]

The ghost fleet is long gone also, anchored off of Iona Island. I think your talking about Sarafan for the vehicles..

 

[Recovry4x4]

Sarafan's last location in NY was Spring Valley. There were 2 brothers involved in the business and I last hear Michael was still around S Fla.

 

[james3rd]

thank you all for the excellent suggestions. it seems that they have moved to florida. i did get ahold of an e-mail address and have written them for info. now it is a waiting game for a reply.
i will continue looking for info, but i do believe that is was a sarafan yard/ depot.
thank you all for such quick responses and help.

 

[james3rd]

thanks Frank,
i will contact white owl and see if they might be able to help me

semper fi.

 

[james3rd]

after getting a email from mike sarafan about his family's business in spring valley ny i am beginning to believe that this yard/ depot i am looking for may just be a u.s. army surplus yard similar to the ghost fleet. i think now it might be a government yard where they stockpiled all types of different vehicles. from jeeps to tanks. holding them there until they can be sold or scraped, perhaps to companies like sarafan's or white owl or maybe even to civilians.

could this be possible? i have seen large yards in arizona for airplanes and helicopters. such as the big one at davis monthan or the yard at good year az in the late 60's early 70's.

i have started looking for info on old government surplus yards but it isn't easy.

thanks so much for all of your help in getting this far.

jim hoover.

 

[emmado22]

Are you saying it is still here in use? If so, where on 9W? I live down here, and am VERY familiar with the area. There is Camp Smith (NYNG training center that has a fair amount of vehicles) but that is on the Eastern side of the river off of Annsville Circle.

 

[james3rd]

no emmado22, it is long gone, i think either in the late 50's or very early 60's. it was on the west side of the river. i did find where it used to be. it is now an empty field, stretching all the way from the rail road to the river with several buildings right next to the river. the railroad there runs right next to 9w. it is down stream from where the ghost fleet was. it was full of ww2 surplus.

 

[CARNAC]

Is it possible that you can locate it on google maps and copy and paste the http of that location. That would probably help.

 

[Recovry4x4]

RR frontage sounds like a military facility to me. Probably barge frontage as well.

 

[emmado22]

the RR tracks run up and down both sides of the river....

 

[SteveKuhn]

Is this the place you're thinking of?

http://www.google.com/maps/@42.1374979,-73.9215479,5095m/data=!3m1!1e3

Steve

 

[bigbe5678]

Hi Every one When I was a kid I lived by Saraffin Surplus (Spring Valley NY) Wow what equipment he had Jeeps WW2 ambulance's, duce's, weasel's motor cycles you name it He would buy from other country's what we gave them Lend\lease My father was a Combat engineer mechanic in Korean war and would try to talk me out of saving for a jeep ambulance (he has seen enough of MV in the war ) Miss that place

 

[bigbe5678]

Update Camp Smith is on the Hudson on Rt 9W US Military base and they had a huge stock yard of trucks and jeeps etc. I think this is what people might be referring to