Bridgeport – West Stockbridge railway line
The railway Bridgeport West Stockbridge is a railway line in Connecticut and Massachusetts ( United States ). It is around 152 kilometers long and connects the cities of Bridgeport , Trumbull , Newtown , Brookfield , New Milford , Great Barrington and West Stockbridge , among others . The normal-gauge line is partially closed. The still operated parts of the Ford – Hawleyville and Brookfield Junction – Rising Junction belong to the Housatonic Railroad , which operates freight traffic on it. The section from Ford to Hawleyville is also used in freight transport by the Providence and Worcester Railroad .
history
The history of the railway began in the 1820s, when the difficult to navigate Housatonic River was to be supplemented by a canal from Canaan in northern Connecticut to the coast, in order to be able to transport goods to the Berkshire Mountains and the valleys in this area in winter . The advantages of the railroad over a canal were soon recognized and in May 1836 the Ousatonic Railroad Company received the concession to build and operate a railroad from the Connecticut coast along the projected canal route to the state border in Massachusetts near Canaan. On April 11, 1837, the Berkshire Railroad Company was founded in Massachusetts to expand the route to West Stockbridge. There it was supposed to connect to the Hudson – West Stockbridge railway line, which was under construction and opened in 1838 .
The city of Bridgeport invested in the construction of the railway and so it was chosen as the southern end of the line. Construction began in Bridgeport in 1837 and the first section from there to New Milford went into operation in 1840. On December 1, 1842, the railway company, now renamed Housatonic Railroad , opened the entire route. Rail traffic developed well, not least because it was part of the first continuous rail link from New York City to Albany . Trains to Boston also drove partly over the route, but had to be routed over West Stockbridge. In 1850 a line to Pittsfield went into operation and shortly thereafter the section from Rising Junction to West Stockbridge was degraded to a branch line and the trains running through went to Pittsfield. Further branches complemented the network with the railway line, which was moderately profitable in the following decades. New main lines running in parallel were mainly opened in the 1850s and 1870s, so that the throughput traffic decreased more and more.
In 1892 the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad took over the railway line and operated it as a branch line. The section from Bridgeport to Botsford was now known as the Bridgeport Branch . From 1921 passenger trains coming from Bridgeport no longer continued in the direction of New Milford and Great Barrington, but turned off in Hawleyville in the direction of Danville. Between Hawleyville and Brookfield Junction there were no longer any passenger trains, from Rising Junction to West Stockbridge until 1928 and between Bridgeport and Hawleyville until late 1931 or early 1932. The Bridgeport – Stepney and Hawleyville – Brookfield Junction sections were closed in 1940 and subsequently reduced. The same fate befell the Stepney – Botsford section in 1963 and the Rising Junction – West Stockbridge route in 1964.
In 1969 Penn Central took over the railway line. The last passenger train on the route between Brookfield Junction and Rising Junction ran on April 30, 1971. From this time, however, began the - albeit irregular - tourist traffic on this section of the route. In 1976, Conrail took over Penn Central, but closed the section from Boardman's Bridge to Canaan, which had been barely used for three years. Now only the short sections from Botsford to Hawleyville, from Brookfield Junction to Boardman's Bridge and from Canaan to Rising Junction were operated. The northern section from Canaan to Rising Junction was sold to the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1982 , which in turn was taken over by Guilford Transportation the following year . In 1984 the newly founded Housatonic Railroad leased the disused but not yet dismantled section Boardman's Bridge – Canaan and occasionally operated excursion trains on this route. It was fully reactivated in 1989 and has been regularly used again in freight traffic since then.
In January 1991, Guilford Transportation also sold its section to the Housatonic Railroad. In late 1992, the company also took over the Conrail section from Boardman's Bridge to Brookfield Junction and that from Ford to Hawleyville. For the latter section, the Conrail retained a right of joint use, but gave it to the Providence and Worcester Railroad in the following year .
Route description
The route begins in the former Bridgeport wedge station . The current passenger station in the city is a few hundred meters south on the main line to New York City . The disused railway line initially runs along Housatonic Avenue to North Bridgeport. From here, the route is used by the Henry Mucci Highway, a multi-lane expressway. Only in Trumbull does the railway line reappear. It was later converted in sections into a cycle and hiking trail, the Housatonic Rail Trail . The Ford – Derby Junction railway ends in the village of Botsford . There used to be a track triangle here . The railway line, which is still used today, continues northwards and crosses the city of Newtown. To the north of the city, the railway line turns to the west. From here, the route of the disused railway line from Waterbury to Campbell Hall is right next to the line.
Hawleyville is a few kilometers further on. The station on the line was formerly a wedge station, where the Bethel – Hawleyville railway converged . A branch line from Litchfield also ran east of the station . The line to Campbell Hall, which still runs parallel here, crosses the railway line west of the station. Today the tracks are up to this crossing point and then continue on the line towards Campbell Hall, while the Housatonic line is closed again from here. The short section to Brookfield Junction has been out of service since 1940 but is well preserved. The branch line to Danville , which is operated in freight traffic, joins Brookfield Junction . From here there are tracks on the route again and the train now continues northwards along the Still River.
At the confluence of the Still River in the Housatonic, the railway first crosses the tributary and then the Housatonic River, on whose eastern bank it now continues along. It crosses the towns of New Milford, Kent and Cornwall and reaches Canaan on Connecticut's northern border. Here the train first crosses the Blackberry River . A short distance north is the Canaan train station. The passenger station was right at the intersection of the Hartford – Poughkeepsie railway line . The platform is still preserved and was cut in the middle by the crossing railway line, which has been closed west of Canaan. In the direction of Hartford, the two connecting curves are still used today, so that the line from Hartford today joins the Housatonic line in a track triangle. The historic station building has also been preserved and is located on the northeast corner of the track crossing. To the north of the passenger station is the multi-track freight station.
Shortly after Canaan, the railroad crosses the state border into Massachusetts, crosses Sheffield and shortly afterwards reaches the city of Great Barrington. In the north of the city there used to be the Rising Junction, now part of the elongated Housatonic freight yard. The route to Pittsfield branches off in Rising Junction and is still used today. The original Housatonic route to West Stockbridge is closed from here. It runs along the Williams River north to West Stockbridge, where it merges into the Hudson – West Stockbridge railway . The terminus was built as a through station from the start to enable continuous trains.
passenger traffic
Shortly after the branch line to Pittsfield opened in 1851, there were no more trains running from Bridgeport to West Stockbridge. Instead, a passenger train and a freight train ran daily from Bridgeport to Pittsfield. From Van Deusenville to West Stockbridge and further on the rail line towards Hudson, a mixed train followed both trains.
After the route was taken over by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, five trains ran from Bridgeport on weekdays in 1893, and one train ran on Sundays. One of the weekday trains ended in Botsford, one in New Milford, the rest went to Van Deusenville and on to Pittsfield. There were also two weekday train pairs from New Haven to Pittsfield, which ran from Botsford to Van Deusenville on the railway line, and two train pairs on weekdays from Great Barrington to Pittsfield. Four pairs of trains drove between Van Deusenville and West Stockbridge on weekdays, some of them on the subsequent route towards Albany.
In 1920, shortly before the end of passenger traffic, two trains ran from Bridgeport on weekdays via Van Deusenville to Pittsfield, a train to New Milford and a train to Botsford. On Sundays a train ran from Bridgeport to Pittsfield. There were also two pairs of trains coming from New Haven via Botsford and Hawleyville to Brookfield Junction on weekdays. Also on weekdays a pair of trains ran from Danville via Brookfield Junction to New Milford, and another from Danville to Pittsfield. A pair of trains from Canaan to Pittsfield and one from Great Barrington to Pittsfield completed the offer. On the route to West Stockbridge, only a weekday pair of trains ran from Van Deusenville, which continued over West Stockbridge to State Line.
From 1921 the passenger trains from Bridgeport and New Haven drove to Danville and the trains to the north began in Danville or further south and did not meet the railroad until Brookfield Junction. Traffic on the New Haven – Danville route ceased in 1925, and the last passenger trains ran between Van Deusenville and West Stockbridge in 1928. At the end of 1931 or beginning of 1932, passenger traffic between Bridgeport and Danville also ended, so that now only trains from New York via Danville to Pittsfield ran on the railway line. From the 1960s onwards, only a weekend commuter train ran on this route, running from New York to Pittsfield on Fridays and in the opposite direction on Sundays. It last drove on April 30, 1971.
literature
- Ronald D. Karr: The Rail Lines of Southern New England. A Handbook of Railroad History. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 1995. ISBN 0-942147-02-2
- Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. (2nd edition) SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 2010. ISBN 1-874745-12-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ see timetables of the route from the years mentioned.