Beacon Line

Beacon Line
Beacon Line, Churchill Street, Beacon, New York
Overview
Type	Commuter rail line
System	Metro-North
Status	Limited cargo service
Locale	Dutchess County, New York, Putnam County, New York, Fairfield County, Connecticut and New Haven County, Connecticut
Termini	Hudson Line, Beacon, New York Danbury, Connecticut
Stations	none
Operation
Owner	Housatonic Railroad (Connecticut) Metro-North (New York)
Operator(s)	Metro-North
Character	single track
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Electrification	none
Operating speed	5 mph

Metro-North Railroad's Beacon Line is a non-revenue line connecting the railroad's three revenue lines east of the Hudson River. West to east, they are the Hudson Line, Harlem Line, and the Danbury Branch of the New Haven Line. It was purchased by Metro-North in 1995 from Maybrook Properties, a subsidiary of the Housatonic Railroad, to preserve it for future use, training, and equipment moves. Maybrook Properties had purchased the line from Conrail after Conrail withdrew from the Danbury, Connecticut, freight market.

The Beacon Line consists of parts of two former railroads:

The Maybrook Line was the main east-west freight service of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, which became part of the Penn Central system in 1969, and subsequently Conrail in 1976. Service was originally from Maybrook, New York in Orange County via the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge through Hopewell Junction, where it connected to the Hudson Line via the Beacon Secondary. It continued to a connection with the Waterbury Branch in Derby, Connecticut. The Housatonic Railroad owns and operates the portion between Danbury and Derby, which is the last remaining portion of the Maybrook which sees active freight use.

The portion west of Hopewell Junction to Maybrook was placed out of service in 1974 when a fire damaged the Poughkeepsie Bridge. Penn Central diverted traffic to the lightly used Beacon Secondary and upgraded it. Freight traffic abruptly halted when Conrail rerouted freight bound for New England to Springfield, MA via the Boston Line, and then south to New Haven, CT. Infrequent freight service continued for a short while but there is currently no freight service on the line.