Out of curiosity I took a look at the website listed and it was fascinating to comb through those old aerial images of various places. One thing I noticed was that Black Grocery Bridge also was not removed until sometime between 1986 and 1994 even though the tracks were torn up in 1979. And actually if you look up current imagery on Google Maps you can see that apparently some of the actual trackage between Martindale and Chatham was never torn up, just abandoned. You’ll have to retrace it with a diligent eye to spot them, but they do exist. Perhaps some older imagery will yield clearer results; trees have clearly taken over in those spots.
NaugyRR wrote:I have the book "From Gotham to The Berkshires" at home which has tons of photos, I'll paw through tonight after I get home and see if there's anything in it.
I was thinking of gifting myself this book last Christmas (along with Lou Grogan’s NY & Harlem book which is a true masterpiece), but haven’t gotten around to it yet. How much of the book is spent on the section of the line north of Dover Plains? I just might go for it if said content is substantial enough!
NaugyRR wrote:I was up through that section of the Parkway on Sunday and you'd have no idea it was fill.
I remember almost 20 years ago being in the car on a ski trip to MA and despite it being so early in the morning I was hoping to spot where the ROW crossed the road. I honestly can’t remember how I figured out beforehand where the ROW passed through (maybe I looked at aerial images online first), but I recall finding it in real life in the vicinity of those power lines and thinking “well that was underwhelming”
NaugyRR wrote:I have a similar fascination with the upper Harlem. I've lived in the area my entire life and was a kid when Wassaic Station was built, so seeing the ROW go from overgrown to used has sort of sparked curiosity into what the rest of the route looked like.
Great minds! Same age group too haha. Even though I grew up along the New Haven Line school field trips and family car rides took me near/alongside the Harlem Line starting when I was 4 or 5 years old so at some point my interest in the “upper” Upper Harlem grew.
There’s also a Christmas cartoon from the early ‘90s about a talking mouse who visits her cousin in NYC and I’m convinced her home town was loosely based on Wassaic and she rides the 1900 era NYC Harlem Division (even though in real life there was/is no massive red bridge along the line). The fact that her train arrives in the pre-electrification Grand Central Station train shed convinces me even more..