Walkway Over the Hudson - Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge

[dwil89]

I can give you a GPS track of the route of the Spiral Railway if it will help you find interesting bits. I have a GPS track of the Walkway, too, if anybody wants it. It's kinda straight.

I explored sections of the roadbed on the Timp trail as well as the R-D trail....a portion of the R-D trail runs right up on the roadbed of the inclined planes......

[Otto Vondrak]

1899 Central New England timetable from my collection. Check it out (click on "ALL SIZES" to see the larger size and read everything):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottomatic77/4142686652/

=otto-

[Howiew]

Otto...thank you for sharing your collection. I'm impressed with what you have. Someday I should do the same with my NH & NYC tickets and timetables.

[Otto Vondrak]

Otto...thank you for sharing your collection.

It's fun to share! Does no good sitting in a closet where no one can see them... also, you forget what you have, sometimes!

-otto-

[Noel Weaver]

I strongly suggest you people do an inventory of your collections. Now is the time to start such a project and believe me, to
do it properly, it will be a huge project. It took me 6 years of off and on work to complete the job. The result is well worth
the effort, I can access my collection from both computers and determine exactly what I have whether it be timetables,
books or other stuff.
It is a lot easier to start the job before your collections get as big as mine is than it is to wait until retirement to start the
job. If you decide to do this job, you will not regret it in the future, I don't even though it was a huge disruption and a lot of
work over a long period of time.
Noel Weaver

[Spro]

The Walkway has a webcam.

http://dutchess400.com/dutchess400root/ ... alkcam.asp

[carajul]

The huge bridge in Poughkeepsie that caught fire in 1974... why did CR never use the bridge? They say it was damaged during a massive fire but it's now used as a walking bridge. Is it true that PC burned the bridge themselves in order to abandon the line? Any info on the line's history would be great. I'd like to know why the line was abandoned. Most the the rows leading to the bridge and under the bridge now seem to be nothing but weeds.

[judgesmails]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poughkeepsie_Bridge

[Noel Weaver]

The need for rail operation over the Poughkeepsie Bridge was drastically reduced as a result of the Penn Central takeover of
the New Haven Railroad and the shutdown of nearly all of the industrial base in Southern New England. It was simply much
more efficient and cheaper to handle the remaining traffic through Selkirk and via either the Hudson or the Boston and
Albany routes rather then through Maybrook and over this bridge.
There is no way that anybody can convince me that Penn Central was directly responsible for the fire that destroyed this
route in 1974. They let maintenance on the bridge go downhill and cut off the water system and watchmen but thdy did not
set the fire.
As much as I am interested in this bridge, we already have a thread about it and this one is not necessary, I suggest this one
be merged with the other one, link below.

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 28&t=64898

Noel Weaver

[DonPevsner]

I rode under the Poughkeepsie Bridge on AMTRAK's "ADIRONDACK" on March 6, and got my first look at the completed Walkway atop it. It was interesting to note that an extra-high fence was erected on both sides of the Walkway over the City of Poughkeepsie, presumably to keep vandals from throwing things over the railings and damaging trains and cars passing below. A similar section of extra-high fence was placed above the West Shore track on the west side of the Hudson River. A sad commentary on today's society.

[scottychaos]

During the 15 or so years the walkway was under construction, they also had a fairly large fence and gate at both ends,
preventing people from walking out onto the bridge when the walkway was closed, and no one was around..
I would imagine those are also still in place..

yeah, its too bad they can just have a nice walkway with no big fence "barrier" blocking the view..
but in todays world, everthing must be built with morons and criminals in mind..sad.

I was out on the bridge a few times in the mid 90's, in the early days of the walkway project..its very impressive!
but I havent been back down that way since it was complete..need to make a trip!

Scot

[Noel Weaver]

During the 15 or so years the walkway was under construction, they also had a fairly large fence and gate at both ends,
preventing people from walking out onto the bridge when the walkway was closed, and no one was around..
I would imagine those are also still in place..

yeah, its too bad they can just have a nice walkway with no big fence "barrier" blocking the view..
but in todays world, everthing must be built with morons and criminals in mind..sad.

I was out on the bridge a few times in the mid 90's, in the early days of the walkway project..its very impressive!
but I havent been back down that way since it was complete..need to make a trip!

Scot

You will enjoy the walk across this bridge, all of it, I did it when I was up north in November, 2009.
Noel Weaver

[RussNelson]

yeah, its too bad they can just have a nice walkway with no big fence "barrier" blocking the view.

Au contraire, my friend! The barrier is only over a small portion of the bridge. Look at the Flickr photostream of the bridge and you'll see that most of the bridge has a simple handrail.

[njtmnrrbuff]

While that fence makes it very tough for photographs of the Hudson Line, you can get good shots of it from regular streets below. You can get good shots of CSX from the walkway. I plan to make a trip back there sometime this spring.

[Mark_K]

Russ, that's a lovely shot. 600mm telephoto or did you finally venture past the Highland bluffline?

A few photos from my early November 2009 visit:

The fences are are a bit of a nuisance for River Line fans, but...safety first.





No problems over the West Shore though!






And, profound apologies for venturing O/T, the maritime photo opps are great.