Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railway

Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railway
Locale	Poughkeepsie, NY to Boston Corners, NY
Dates of operation	1872–1938
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (standard gauge)

The Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railway was the first railroad to run east from Poughkeepsie, New York, and was taken over by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and assigned to the Central New England Railway in 1907.

History

The Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railroad was chartered April 13, 1866 to be built from Poughkeepsie on the Hudson River northeast to Boston Corners, New York and then southeast to the Connecticut state line, where it would meet the Dutchess and Columbia Railroad, also being built from the Hudson River, and the Connecticut Western Railroad, which would continue east to Hartford, Connecticut. The line opened from the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad at Poughkeepsie to Stissing on the D&C on January 24, 1871, and on October 1, 1872 from Pine Plains to the state line, using trackage rights over the D&C between Stissing and Pine Plains.

The company went into receivership June 20, 1874, and was sold in April 1875 and reorganized May 15 as the Poughkeepsie, Hartford and Boston Railroad. It again went bankrupt and on January 26, 1884 the Hartford and Connecticut Western Railroad bought the section southeast of Boston Corners, which they had used via trackage rights. The rest was sold in late 1886 and on January 22, 1887 it was reorganized as the New York and Massachusetts Railway. Profit was still hard to come by, and it again entered receivership in February 1893. It was sold under foreclosure March 2 and reorganized April 13 at the Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railway. Yet again, on June 17, 1898, the company went into receivership. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad bought it in 1907 and on June 25 merged it into the Central New England Railway.

The CNE had been forced to build the parallel Poughkeepsie and Connecticut Railroad in the late 1880s due to the Poughkeepsie and Eastern's refusal to sell. In 1910 the P&C was abandoned between Salt Point and Pine Plains, with trains rerouted over the P&E. With the 1925 abandonment of the P&E from Ancram Lead Mines northeast to Boston Corners, the P&C served as the sole route east of Pine Plains (it too was closed in 1932). Abandonment came in 1938 to the rest of the P&E.

References

• Railroad History Database
• Lyndon A. Haight, Pine Plains and the Railroads (1976)