Poughkeepsie short line

[Anonymous]

Is there anyone familiar with the history of the tracks mentioned in the article below?

Mayor locks horns with rail developer
Freight service's revival proposed
By Craig Wolf
Poughkeepsie Journal

A plan for revival of rail freight service is still on track in Poughkeepsie, but not if city Mayor Colette Lafuente can help it.
Eyal Shapira, a developer of short-line railroads, has bought rights from CSX Corp. to operate on the defunct 4-mile ''Hospital Industrial Branch" which he'll call New York & Eastern Railway LLC.

The branch goes from the Metro-North tracks along the Hudson River through the city into the Town of Poughkeepsie to Hudson River Psychiatric Center and then back into the city to the Smith Street Yards.

''The deal closed on Sept. 10,'' Shapira said. ''The deal is well and alive.'' It's a lease he expects will ripen into ownership, leading to his investing $1 million in fixing tracks and finding customers, and in the process, creating some ''good blue-collar jobs.''

He said Lafuente has been giving him grief.

''Yes,'' Lafuente said. ''Where he wants to go in the city, it has been improved significantly and it's residential and all he is going to do is create an intermodal truck transport system and it would be very damaging to the City of Poughkeepsie.''

Trucks are concern

The big concern, she said, is ''all those trucks going in and out of there.''

There would be, mainly to the Smith Street Yards, in what has been for generations a mostly industrial section. Cargoes would be transferred between trucks and rail cars.

But Lafuente said the trend has been toward homes, if not on Smith Street, on nearby ones like Clinton.

Shapira said neither Lafuente nor any other local government can stop him because federal law gives powerful rights to railroads. And he disagrees with Lafuente's point.

''Look at developing jobs for the community,'' Shapira said. ''It's better to bring the raw material by rail than trucks because you take the trucks off the highway.''

Lafuente isn't sure the city can block it, but is looking into truck load limits.

Shapira said he has customers but ''cannot mention the names until the choo-choo is going to move out there.''

Jack Effron, chairman of EFCO Products on Smith Street, can't say yet whether he'd use rail, though he's talking with Shapira about it.

''It might be a nice economic development tool,'' said Harold King, executive vice president of the Council of Industry of Southeastern New York.

[Anonymous]

I really have too much time on my hands; but yes, I can help. Smith Street Yard was the original terminal of Poughkeepsie & Eastern. P&E was consolidated with Hartford & Connecticut Western and later Newburgh Dutchess & Connecticut into Central New England Railway. At it peak, CNE ran from Hartford Conn. through Canaan to Maybrook, NY over the Poughkeepsie Bridge, which they built. They also leased a line from Hopewell Jct, to Danbury, Conn. The New Haven gobbled them up in 1919. The NH removed most of the old CNE across northern Conn. in the late 30's; PC and CR strangled the rest more recently. The Hospital Branch, as I recall was built by CNE in the late 1890's to reach the new state hospital being built there. A wonderful three vol. set on CNE was published by Rob't Nimke in the 1990's, but they are expensive and hard to find. A soft cover book on the CNE-more pictures than history-is more doable. Contact a book dealer like Ron's Books to see if it's available. [written by Ed Gardner]

[jchnhtfd]

Good heavens! Someone who has the history of that particular sphagetti bowl of tracks in a presentable and understandable form! Thanks, Skeets -- I never could keep it straight (well -- the major bits, yeah, but not the details)!

One does wonder, wistfully, if the Poughkeepsie bridge will ever be put back into service. I don't suppose so -- but it is a wonderful thing to see.

As for the mayor of Poughkeepsie... oh well. This is a family forum, so I can't say what I might.

[Anonymous]

Poughkeepsie Bridge will never return absent a complete rebuild AND condemnation of the neighborhoods that have sprung up at each end. Can't run trains without ROW...

LC