Maybrook Line

Maybrook Line
Overview
Type	Freight, other non-revenue
System	Metro-North, Housatonic Railroad
Status	Metro-North: out-of-Service; Housatonic: active freight
Locale	Orange, Ulster, Dutchess, and Putnam counties in New York State; Fairfield and New Haven counties in Connecticut
Termini	Maybrook, NY Derby, CT
Stations	0
Daily ridership	0
Operation
Opened	1889
Owner	New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, Conrail
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Route map Maybrook, NY Campbel Hall Hudson River Poughkeepsie Manchester Bridge Didell Fishkill Plains Hopewell Junction Newburgh, Dutchess, & Connecticut Railroad Stormville Green Haven Poughquag West Pawling Whaley Lake Holmes West Patterson Towners Harlem Line connection Dykemans Brewster, NY New York–Connecticut state line Mill Plain (Danbury, CT) Danbury Branch connection Hawleyville Newtown Derby, CT

The Maybrook Line was a line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad which connected with its Waterbury Branch in Derby, Connecticut, and its Maybrook Yard in Maybrook, New York, where it interchanged with other carriers. It was the main east-west freight route of the New Haven until its merger with the Penn Central in 1969.

After the New York and New England Railroad succeeded merging with the Newburgh, Dutchess and Connecticut Railroad at Hopewell Junction en route to the Fishkill Ferry station, they sought to expand traffic onto the newly built Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge in order to move goods to the other side of the Hudson River, and the Central New England Railway was perfectly willing to provide a connection. The CNE line was originally chartered as the Dutchess County Railroad in 1889 and ran southeast from the bridge to Hopewell Junction, and was operational on May 8, 1892. The line was absorbed by the CNE in 1907, and eventually merged into the New Haven Railroad in 1927. Passenger service was phased out beginning in the 1930s, the same decade the New Haven Railroad faced crippling bankruptcy. Later financial troubles in the 1950s and 1960s led to its eventual acquisition by Penn Central Railroad in 1969.

Upon taking ownership, the Penn Central began discouraging connecting traffic on the line that paralleled Penn Central routes for the rest of its journey to prevent it from being short-hauled. After 1971 only one train in each direction (for the Erie Lackawanna) traversed the full line.

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Wikipedia