new haven-new york

Curious. Is there a freight customer left between New Haven and the New York line ?

Depressing ?

I just snooped the old Stratford Industrial and tons of alive industry/business and an abandoned railroad.(by activity)

There are a couple active freight customers in the West Haven area, plus lumber yards in Darien and Mamaroneck. But you're right, it's hardly a shadow of what was there up through the 1960s/1970s.

shepaug wrote: Curious. Is there a freight customer left between New Haven and the New York line ?

Depressing ?

I just snooped the old Stratford Industrial and tons of alive industry/business and an abandoned railroad.(by activity)

I'm having trouble locating the latest tally on old posts. Biggest cluster of them is between New Haven and Devon Jct. in the Milford area. That's the 'healthiest' area left. There's only one customer left on the Stratford Industrial Track on the first few feet of it...all dead from where it passes under I-95 to end of track. Some lumber yard directly across from the Metro North yard in Stratford, though I don't know how often they get deliveries. Ring's End in Darien, and one customer in Mamaronek. Amtrak and Metro North have so thoroughly discouraged on-line freight by restricting CSX's hours of operation that there's just not anything that's ever going to come back. Most of what you see today are just the Fresh Pond-Cedar Hill jobs, P&W's big overnight stone trains, and the P&W Danbury/Bethel local running overhead (to Norwalk, though they'd much prefer if Housatonic's Maybrook Line were in adequate condition and they could peel off at Devon and Derby instead). Chances are everything west of Devon is going to go extinct within a few years and you'll just have the non-stop jobs and that Milford cluster that's in easy enough reach of Cedar Hill to have available business-hours slots. Even if the passenger hosts weren't so hostile the real estate values on the shore have completely priced out all the light industry and driven them inland. If those ex- customers want rail access the Waterbury Branch and lower Springfield Line are where the cheap industrial property is now with room to grow. Rent and real estate are just way too expensive down on the Sound, so even if the rail carriers were willing there's nothing new for CSX to chase except at Cedar Hill-proper.

Somebody pays the electric bill. https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=6 ... hoto%2cJPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The row now is beginning to get non-passable.(stratford industrial)


I recall seeing a freight car at some stone place near bridgeport hospital (bridgeport lumber) a couple years ago but it could have been 'nothing'. Allot of population and no rail freight anymore.


Sure eliminated any trace of any rail in Bridgeport except what is left where it went up to GE.

shepaug wrote:Somebody pays the electric bill. https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=6 ... hoto%2cJPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The row now is beginning to get non-passable.(stratford industrial)


I recall seeing a freight car at some stone place near bridgeport hospital (bridgeport lumber) a couple years ago but it could have been 'nothing'. Allot of population and no rail freight anymore.


Sure eliminated any trace of any rail in Bridgeport except what is left where it went up to GE.

What track is in this photo?

bwparker1 wrote:

shepaug wrote:Somebody pays the electric bill. https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=6 ... hoto%2cJPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The row now is beginning to get non-passable.(stratford industrial)


I recall seeing a freight car at some stone place near bridgeport hospital (bridgeport lumber) a couple years ago but it could have been 'nothing'. Allot of population and no rail freight anymore.


Sure eliminated any trace of any rail in Bridgeport except what is left where it went up to GE.

What track is in this photo?

Stratford Industrial Track, Lordship Blvd. grade crossing: http://goo.gl/maps/LdnvF" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. That's probably not an FRA-legal installation on a normal branchline since it's just wired into the road traffic signal, but for a 5 MPH industrial spur that's probably adequate stopping distance so nobody cares. It's completely dead except for Grainger on Moffitt St., 2000 ft. from the switch on the NEC...which still gets served couple times a week. Pretty sure CSX outright abandoned the operating rights from the Moffitt St. street-running track under the I-95 overpass all the way to the end. Its status is still undetermined because it's owned by American Premier Underwriters (a.k.a. the surviving business unit of Penn Central...what a weird line for them to hang onto), so it's just OOS/No Operator until APU does something to expunge it. Maybe they collect rent on a pipeline under the ROW or something.

It's nuts how many rusting sidings there are in the industrial park. This was, at one point, big business. With an end-of-the-line yard and everything. Somebody with decent amount of vision could totally make that park into a freight farm, but fat chance of ever getting the slots on the NEC to actually serve those businesses during business hours. That's probably the reason why CSX couldn't even find the upside to keep its rights mothballed for a rainy day. It's futile to develop more freight when their slots are in a tag-team Metro North + Amtrak vice grip that's never going to relent.

I can hardly blame them for deferring freight, considering the already strained capacity, and the relative inability to make any significant changes to capacity by infrastructure changes; and the economic importance of keeping passengers flowing is such a priority for the region. At the same time, though, the lack of a convenient east-west route until you get to the B&A mainline is an equally huge problem as jeopardizing passenger capacity, since the highway routes that become the alternative are overcapacity too. Don't really know what a solution to this would be, though. The next closest thing to creating an east-west line is going to be whenever Amtrak actually gets to building their inland route, but that starts skewing away from the New Haven Line and Shore Line pretty fast (since the point of it is to avoid it). But that's at least two decades away, and anyone's guess is as good as mine at how hostile Amtrak would decide to be against freight there.

Anyways, based on the P&W railfan timetable from Oxford Junction Press (effective date of Jan. 2012), I can see the following freight spurs noted on the New Haven Line between New Rochelle and New Haven:
Mamaroneck "Yard" in Mamroneck, NY at MP 19.70, servicing Marval Industries; Pepperidge Farms Spur in Westport, CT at MP 43.70, this is definitely gone at this point (used to stop near/go over Route 136); Stratford Industrial Track in Stratford (not listed, but still extant as noted earlier in thread); the #5 freight track starts at MP 64.80 in Milford, CT; Waste Conversion has a siding at MP 65.10, Furmann Lumber at MP 65.70, and Jefferson-Smurfit at MP 66.77, all in Milford and off of the #5 track; and finally all of the following in West Haven: Star Distribution at MP 68.20 off of track #5, Miller Supply at MP 68.30 off of track #4 (southernmost track), Eder Brothers at MP 68.40 off of track #5, and A.J. Schaffel at MP 69.60 off of track #5
I used the P&W one instead of CSX, even if they just have overhead rights, because (in theory) it is about a decade newer in effective date. Please note that these could be inactive, but it gives a good idea what is extant, or was recently extant.

And on an unrelated note, what would you even call the head type of that kind of signal... a traffic signal? Every now and again when they come up, I always have a hard time talking about them simply because I don't know what to call them. I.E.: for the triangularly arranged position light heads up and down NORAC territory, the unofficial term "tri-light" gets used. Offhand the only other place I can think of with something like this is in Groton where P&W's Old Groton Running track crosses Route 349; only services Electric Boat a couple times a year at most, so I figure it's a similar case to the one mentioned above.

YamaOfParadise wrote:I can hardly blame them for deferring freight, considering the already strained capacity, and the relative inability to make any significant changes to capacity by infrastructure changes; and the economic importance of keeping passengers flowing is such a priority for the region. At the same time, though, the lack of a convenient east-west route until you get to the B&A mainline is an equally huge problem as jeopardizing passenger capacity, since the highway routes that become the alternative are overcapacity too. Don't really know what a solution to this would be, though. The next closest thing to creating an east-west line is going to be whenever Amtrak actually gets to building their inland route, but that starts skewing away from the New Haven Line and Shore Line pretty fast (since the point of it is to avoid it). But that's at least two decades away, and anyone's guess is as good as mine at how hostile Amtrak would decide to be against freight there.

Anyways, based on the P&W railfan timetable from Oxford Junction Press (effective date of Jan. 2012), I can see the following freight spurs noted on the New Haven Line between New Rochelle and New Haven:
Mamaroneck "Yard" in Mamroneck, NY at MP 19.70, servicing Marval Industries; Pepperidge Farms Spur in Westport, CT at MP 43.70, this is definitely gone at this point (used to stop near/go over Route 136); Stratford Industrial Track in Stratford (not listed, but still extant as noted earlier in thread); the #5 freight track starts at MP 64.80 in Milford, CT; Waste Conversion has a siding at MP 65.10, Furmann Lumber at MP 65.70, and Jefferson-Smurfit at MP 66.77, all in Milford and off of the #5 track; and finally all of the following in West Haven: Star Distribution at MP 68.20 off of track #5, Miller Supply at MP 68.30 off of track #4 (southernmost track), Eder Brothers at MP 68.40 off of track #5, and A.J. Schaffel at MP 69.60 off of track #5
I used the P&W one instead of CSX, even if they just have overhead rights, because (in theory) it is about a decade newer in effective date. Please note that these could be inactive, but it gives a good idea what is extant, or was recently extant.

And on an unrelated note, what would you even call the head type of that kind of signal... a traffic signal? Every now and again when they come up, I always have a hard time talking about them simply because I don't know what to call them. I.E.: for the triangularly arranged position light heads up and down NORAC territory, the unofficial term "tri-light" gets used. Offhand the only other place I can think of with something like this is in Groton where P&W's Old Groton Running track crosses Route 349; only services Electric Boat a couple times a year at most, so I figure it's a similar case to the one mentioned above.

It's just a traffic signal. Like a crosswalk signal, except for trains. Town control...if some DPW worker wanted to open the control box and flick a couple switches to change the light to car priority they could get away with it despite law of the land saying the train always has the right of way. It basically lumps Stratford in with street-running track in "couldn't care less" status where MAS is simply too low (and indeed the line does have some street-running). It's better than just bare crossbucks, because that street is wide and wouldn't have been particularly easy to flag when running light. So some form of quasi-signalization is better than none, even if that is a hells no installation in NORAC-land on anything branchline-or-better on the food chain. The Groton one is behind the EB fence so that signal technically sits a private siding and not even an industrial track.

YamaOfParadise wrote:Anyways, based on the P&W railfan timetable from Oxford Junction Press (effective date of Jan. 2012), I can see the following freight spurs noted on the New Haven Line between New Rochelle and New Haven:
Mamaroneck "Yard" in Mamroneck, NY at MP 19.70, servicing Marval Industries; Pepperidge Farms Spur in Westport, CT at MP 43.70, this is definitely gone at this point (used to stop near/go over Route 136); Stratford Industrial Track in Stratford (not listed, but still extant as noted earlier in thread); the #5 freight track starts at MP 64.80 in Milford, CT; Waste Conversion has a siding at MP 65.10, Furmann Lumber at MP 65.70, and Jefferson-Smurfit at MP 66.77, all in Milford and off of the #5 track; and finally all of the following in West Haven: Star Distribution at MP 68.20 off of track #5, Miller Supply at MP 68.30 off of track #4 (southernmost track), Eder Brothers at MP 68.40 off of track #5, and A.J. Schaffel at MP 69.60 off of track #5
I used the P&W one instead of CSX, even if they just have overhead rights, because (in theory) it is about a decade newer in effective date. Please note that these could be inactive, but it gives a good idea what is extant, or was recently extant.

Your list is missing Ring's End Lumber in Darien. Also, there's something-- maybe a brickyard?-- on Barnum Ave. in E Bridgeport, across the tracks from MNR's East Bridgeport yard, with service. I've seen cars spotted in both locations within the last 12mos.

The Pepperidge Farms siding in Westport was gone long before 2012; early/mid 90's would be my guess for last service. The track crossed Route 136 on the overpass, then ran through the middle of the station parking lots and across Franklin Street before terminating in back of the buildings on Railroad Place. I have childhood memories of seeing flour unloaded from covered hoppers into trucks at the west end of that parking lot-- that would be about 1979/80.

When I passed through last week, industries along the line seemed pretty busy. There were 5 boxcars at Star and 4 old RBOX cars at the paperboard customer next to West Haven Station.

There's an NS boxcar at the brick distributor opposite Bridgeport yard today.

Does anybody know if Arnold bread bakery in Greenwich still receive hopper cars of flour by rail? They used to many years ago.

highwayman wrote:Does anybody know if Arnold bread bakery in Greenwich still receive hopper cars of flour by rail? They used to many years ago.

Nope. No customers in Greenwich. Only trace left of their siding is some rails buried in the pavement.

I think it was Grainger in right corner of picture but all I saw was a mostly blocked right-of-way.


https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=d ... hoto%2cJPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Stone Place ? I'll check it out when I am by there and find a place to snoop with all the traffic. Rail freight in Bridgeport !!!! Exciting SW Connecticut.

another picture https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=6 ... lder%2cJPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



I saw no acticity around that Grainger building nor the stone place. The rail spur looks like maybe lumber ? Anyway..the only rail car in Bridgeport....