Newburgh, Dutchess and Connecticut Railroad

Newburgh, Dutchess and Connecticut Railroad
Locale	Dutchess County, NY
Dates of operation	1869–1905
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (standard gauge)

The Newburgh, Dutchess and Connecticut Railroad, originally the Dutchess and Columbia Railroad, was a link in the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad system in New York state.

History

The Dutchess and Columbia Railroad was chartered September 4, 1866 to build a line from Fishkill on the Hudson River northeast and north to the New York and Harlem Railroad at Craryville. However, the Columbia County towns through which it would pass did not support the plan, and the route was changed to turn east at Pine Plains to the New York and Harlem Railroad at Millerton, continuing east to the Connecticut state line and a connection with the Connecticut Western Railroad. Construction began in 1868, and the line opened from a dock in the Hudson River and a connection to the Hudson River Railroad at Dutchess Junction north to Pine Plains on July 1, 1869. [1] The rest of the line, east to the state line, opened in 1871.

From opening, the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad leased the line, hoping to use the line southwest of the future Hopewell Junction as part of its line to the Hudson River. But the BH&E went bankrupt without completing the link, and in March 1870 the D&C began independent operations. In November 1871 the Connecticut Western Railroad (completed the next month) leased the short part of the D&C from the state line to the New York and Harlem Railroad at Millerton.

Also using the line was the Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railroad, completed in 1872, and its successors. The P&E obtained trackage rights over the part from Stissing Junction north to Pine Plains, with its own line continuing at each end. The easternmost part of the P&E later became part of the Hartford and Connecticut Western Railroad, and the rest was merged into the Central New England Railway (the H&CW's successor) in 1907.

The New York, Boston and Northern Railway was formed on November 18, 1872 as a consolidation of the D&C with several other railroads, planned to build from New York City north into Vermont and on to Montreal. The D&C would have been used as part of the main line from near the future Hopewell Junction north to Pine Plains. However the NYB&N went bankrupt too (after a renaming January 21, 1873 to the New York, Boston and Montreal Railway), due to the Panic of 1873, and the D&C went bankrupt in 1874.

The D&C was sold on August 5, 1876 and reorganized January 25, 1877 as the Newburgh, Dutchess and Connecticut Railroad. The New York and New England Railroad, the successor to the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad, acquired trackage rights on the ND&C south of Hopewell Junction, opening in 1881 to Hopewell Junction. That same year the NY&NE built a new line from northeast of Dutchess Junction west across the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad and then north along the Hudson River to docks in Matteawan (now Beacon). At those docks the NY&NE floated cars across to the Erie Railroad's Newburg Branch.

However, in 1888, the Poughkeepsie Bridge opened, making the car float operation less useful. In 1905 the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad acquired the ND&C, and merged it into the Central New England Railway, the successor to the Connecticut Western Railroad and part of the NYNH&H system since 1904, on June 25, 1907. In 1916 the line to Dutchess Junction was abandoned, leaving only the line into Beacon at the south end.

The ND&C had one branch, from Clove Branch Junction (north of Hopewell Junction) to Clove Valley. It was chartered in 1868 and opened in 1869 as the Clove Branch Railroad, only running to Sylvan Lake. It was meant to be part of the New York, Boston and Montreal Railway, which failed in 1873, and in 1877 the extension to Clove Valley was built along the grade of the NYB&M. Operations were suspended in 1897 and it was abandoned in 1898.

The first main line abandonment was from Shekomeko (about halfway from Pine Plains to Millerton) east to Millerton, abandoned in 1925 in favor of the more northerly Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railway or Poughkeepsie and Connecticut Railroad. In 1935 came the abandonment of the part from Shekomeko west to Pine Plains. In 1938 both remaining sections north of Hopewell Junction were abandoned - from the junction north to Pine Plains and from Millerton east to the Connecticut state line (and beyond to Lakeville on the Central New England Railway). [2]

The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad was merged into Penn Central in 1969; by then the former ND&C was known as the Beacon Secondary Track. After the Poughkeepsie Bridge closed in 1974, the former Dutchess County Railroad was abandoned west of Hopewell Junction, and the former ND&C, as well as the former New York and New England Railroad (then the Maybrook Branch), became the Danbury Secondary Track. Conrail acquired Penn Central in 1976, including the remaining part of the HD&C. The remaining part of the line from Hopewell Junction to Beacon is now owned by the Metro-North Railroad as part of its Beacon Line.

Station listing

Milepost	City	Station	Opening date	Connections and notes
		Beacon		junction with New York Central Railroad (Dutchess Junction) to the south originally Matteawan
		Matteawan
		Hopewell Junction		junction with New England Railroad (NYNH&H) and Dutchess County Railroad (NYNH&H)
		Clove Branch		junction with Clove Branch
		Billings
		Verbank
		Millbrook
		Shunpike
		Bangall
		Stissing Junction		junction with Hartford and Connecticut Western Railroad (NYNH&H)
		Attlebury
		Briarcliff Farms
		Pine Plains		junction with Hartford and Connecticut Western Railroad (NYNH&H) and Central New England and Western Railroad (NYNH&H)
		Shekomeko
		Millerton		junction with New York and Harlem Railroad (NYC)
		State Line		junction with Hartford and Connecticut Western Railroad (NYNH&H)

References

• Railroad History Database
• The Dutchess and Columbia Railroad
• Twenty-five Years on the ND&C by Bernard L. Rudberg

External Links

• Photos of former ND&C station in LaGrange