bobbarbn wrote:
I presume that the Valley Railroad is still hoping to make Middletown at some point in the future and the P&W (the railroad) did, at one time, have thoughts of running from Saybrook to Middletown (and beyond, perhaps). Of course this all requires money and in these economic times I doubt that there is much available, even from the State.
It was fairly recently that P&W wanted to run down the Valley line, which would have been great for VRR, as they would have gotten free track improvements in exchange for trackage rights or something like that. I doubt anything will happen soon though, as there's not much use for the line, and as it is, the Valley doesn't run steam north of Chester, and only runs a couple of trains a week to Haddam.
It was seriously studied to haul freight down the Valley, but I doubt that capital would offset the slightly higher costs of operating down the Springfield Line and over the Shore Line, and there is certainly no shortage of dispatching capacity in the middle of the night.
VRR has, over the past 5-10 years, gotten the line operable a bit farther north, and put in a yard for the dinner train to run around. If the line ever were restored, it would be great for them to have an operable connection to the "outside world" or at least a bit of it (Saybrook is operable for P&W to take stuff in and out, but not for the Valley's locomotives, since they are not equipped to go on the main line). Presumably, they could run an occasional steam excursion over P&W trackage to Wallingford over the Air Line or Hartford farther up the Valley Line.
As far as I know, however, they have no plans to run farther north, as they have to "build" 3025 and do a heavy and expensive overhaul on #97.
All that being said, the only piece of right of way that is not intact is through the middle of a marina that is trespassing on the CDEP ROW, and it is intact, so when/if the money was available, the line could be reconnected.