Anyone here can give me a update on this line? plan on hiking it but dont want any surprises
I have had occasion to see this line when I have stayed in Fishkill, NY. I have asked people who live and work there if they ever saw a train run on it. None have. A fireman friend of mine from the area says that his department is well aware of it and it being considered an active line. It appears pretty well maintained with current signaling boxes. The crossing over route 9 in Fishkill has no crossing gates, probably because it is so lightly used. The crossing has newer rubber inserts for cars to pass over. Look at Google Earth, it is a long hike! It looks like a meandering branch line between the trees.
It is currently used to move equipment from one side of the area to the other. Others who read this probably know exactly where it originates and terminates but I recall reading that it is the only convenient way for Metro North to move equipment around in this area. Metro North recently is soliciting proposals to develop the property along the line for commercial use. It is mainly single track but with the booming growth in the Hudson River Valley it probably could have some commuter use. I doubt the money or the political foresight exists for that to happen.
He can still get charged for trespassing by Metro North or Housatonic (sp?) who both own parts of and have overlapping rights on the line. One or two fails in other places and that line suddenly gets very busy. Must have some insurance value to both or it wouldn't be maintained or would have a discontinuance holding it there.
When I lived in Poughkeepsie, I would occasionally see some MoW cars stored on the line but I've never seen a train run on it.
I rode the line in 1989 on a NH historical group fan trip. It was pulled by a pair of FL9's painted in the McGinnis era scheme. GCT-Norwalk-Danbury-Beacon-Harmon and return. Hopewell-Beacon was really slow.
Washouts are being replaced and filled in. Metro North has a RFP for anyone who wants to raise to money to lease the line. There is a cement block plant and a new big box warehouse being built on thr line in Fishkill. Beacon has 20 warehouses and mills and they are all now being turned into condos
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