Canal Line through New Haven

For the past few decades, the ROW here has been an overgrown mass of brush and weeds. But earlier this month I was surprised to find the line in the process of conversion into an attractive pedestrian/bike path. Here at the Hillhouse Ave. undercrossing next to new Yale buildings and just south of the Grove St. Cemetery:





Question: when did the last train traverse this part of the line?

~~Ken.

The Canal Line south of Cheshire wasn't officially abandoned until the mid-1980s, but the last regular service through the first couple miles through the cut in New Haven was in the Penn Central era of the early to mid-1970s. Remaining business north of there was handled by the local out of Plainville rather than from the New Haven end. Mr. Weaver or someone else may have more exact dates. BTW, there was a proposal back in the mid-1960s to make that section of the line in New Haven into a busway.

The stone walls on the sides of the cut look about as I remember them (I lived in New Haven in the late 1960s), so they are probably original. So when you bike or walk the path, you can pretend you are on an RS3M, alternating between idle and notch 2 to keep your speed down to what's safe on the unmaintained track! (I'm not sure of the actual compass direction, but this would be more East than South of Grove Street Cemetery I think: the railroad cutting runs to the north of the cemetery.)

I grew up next to the lower Canal during the 1960s. We lived adjacent to the crossing at Webster St., which was the first street crossing after exiting the cut when passing the Grove St. cemetary. The crossing was actually attended by a watchman who operated the gates manually and sat in a small wooden shack on the south side of the crossing. He was warned of northbound movements by a track circuit actuated bell that rang when the trains were still in the cut somehere around Prospect St. Since I attended Winchester Elementary School, I would pass the shanty every day on the way to and from school, and would walk the tracks halfway to the next crossing at Division St. before turning left into the Elm Haven Projects, where the school was.

There was a tremendous amount of business just in that immediate area. The New Haven Register unloaded all of their newsprint off of the team track that opened north just north of the crossing. G&O Manufacturing, which made truck radiators, received and shipped by rail. And, of course, Olin and Winchester were huge customers as well. One of the Water St. switchers would come up at least once a day with very long drags and spend a lot of time in the Dixwell area working all of these spots. The crews were very nice and used to take me with them while they switched. While a lot of commenters talk about the allegedly "horrible" track, especially in the cut, I walked every inch of this line all the way to Fair St. and back countless times when I was a kid and it always seemed reasonably well kept to me. I even remember a major tie and surface job the NH did just before PC took over,they kept the track equipment tied up in the old Yale University Hammond Lab siding that had not been used, I was told, since WWII.

I seem to remember that anything that didn't fit through the cut was left at Highwood up in Hamden for the road crew from Plainville to handle. Anyway, mention of the line sure evokes a lot fo nice memories, as well as sadness for the way industry in Connecticut is all but extinct.

MJ and others, I got a group of people together in May, 1968 and we chartered a Budd Car from New Haven all the way to
Northampton, Mass using this route northbound and southbound we switched over at Plainville and returned via Berlin and
Cedar Hill.
The railroad charged us an extra $100.00 for a track patrol over this portion of the railroad from New Haven to Plainville.
The total cost of the trip was about $500.00 to the railroad and a little over $12.00 per person, it was well worth it for a
great outing for the approximately 40 people who went on this trip. I still have all of the paperwork from this here someplace. More great memories.
Noel Weaver

Noel, I remember the trip. I watched it pass Webster St. in New Haven. I was only 13 at the time.

Jealous, jealous!
I, too, lived in New Haven in May 1968, and COULD have gone on the trip... but I was more interested in folk music than railroads at the time.
I don't regret the interests I had, but (given a railroad interest that has developed since) certainly DO regret missing what must have been one of the last passenger movements on that line!
...
My earlier comments about dreadful track were based things I was told slightly later: 1975 or so. I sometimes watched the daily Canal Line freight (often a "DeWitt Geep" RS3M, at least once an SW1200) in Cheshire about then, and was told about the "Run 2 / Idle" technique the track necessitated by that time. Once I noticed that a rail was broken: one side of the railhead had separated. I telephoned ... Penn Central, though I'm not sure where ... to report a possibly hazardous condition, and was asked which side of the railhead was affected. It was the outside (side away from the wheel flange), and I was told (politely) that on that line that kind of defect didn't worry them.

Allen Hazen wrote:Jealous, jealous!
I, too, lived in New Haven in May 1968, and COULD have gone on the trip... but I was more interested in folk music than railroads at the time.
I don't regret the interests I had, but (given a railroad interest that has developed since) certainly DO regret missing what must have been one of the last passenger movements on that line!
...
My earlier comments about dreadful track were based things I was told slightly later: 1975 or so. I sometimes watched the daily Canal Line freight (often a "DeWitt Geep" RS3M, at least once an SW1200) in Cheshire about then, and was told about the "Run 2 / Idle" technique the track necessitated by that time. Once I noticed that a rail was broken: one side of the railhead had separated. I telephoned ... Penn Central, though I'm not sure where ... to report a possibly hazardous condition, and was asked which side of the railhead was affected. It was the outside (side away from the wheel flange), and I was told (politely) that on that line that kind of defect didn't worry them.

Even if you had been following the railroad at the time it is not too likely that you would have known about this
particular trip. We did not advertise it, we did not want any of the kooks and oddballs who were around even then and in
fact before that. Had I or one of the people I invited to go known you, you would certainally have heard about this
operation.
Noel Weaver

I don't think that Noel's trip was the last passenger movement, but it was one of them. I remember seeing a BERA sponsored trip using 8200 black and red coaches pulled by an Alco switcher passing Webster St. on a fall weekend sometime in the late sixties. All of the coaches had cardboard signs in the windows crediting BERA as the sponsor of the trip, that much I recall. This all happened before I joined BERA in April, 1969, and the museum had stopped sponsoring fantrips by then.

MJRuef wrote:I don't think that Noel's trip was the last passenger movement, but it was one of them. I remember seeing a BERA sponsored trip using 8200 black and red coaches pulled by an Alco switcher passing Webster St. on a fall weekend sometime in the late sixties. All of the coaches had cardboard signs in the windows crediting BERA as the sponsor of the trip, that much I recall. This all happened before I joined BERA in April, 1969, and the museum had stopped sponsoring fantrips by then.

MJ The BERA was tied up running on the CV to Brattleboro in the fall of 1968. I helped out on those trips. I think the
Connecticut Valley Chapter of NRHS may have run up there that fall and maybe in the spring after my trip as well. That was
one of their favorite trips.
When I set up that trip and the Maybrook Trip that fall it was not my intention to be the last trip in either case but I wanted
the trip to be much more informal with just one Budd Car and I wanted to control would would be allowed to ride on this
trip. Everybody who participated in both of these trips enjoyed them very much and the railroad gave all of us the
"Red Carpet Treatment" so it was a great day both times. In both cases the weather cooperated too.
Funny thing happened on the Northampton trip, the information desk had a passenger for 66 who thought he could get to
Northampton on that train but by then the B & M was freight only north of Springfield. The information clerk pointed him
out to me in the station and I offered to let him ride with us but when I explained what kind of a trip we were running, he
thanked me and said no thanks. I didn't hear as to how he finally made it to Northampton but it was not by train at least
not north of Springfield. The guy asked me what time we would get to Springfield and I had to explain to him that we
would not be going through Springfield. Finally I pulled out a public timetable and showed him our route on the map in the
center of the timetable.
Noel Weaver