L&HR and early Conrail question.

Hi,
Does anyone know if Conrail ever thought about or studied using the LnHR as a bypass from the River line to the Lehigh line, going around NYC? Did the proper track connections exist to do this back in the day? How much if any time could they have saved by not going through Jersey City\Oak Island?

Would have been interesting to say the least. Any ideas?

I recall reading about this in earlier incarnations of this site. There was a consideration of such a route when CR was first under the USRA assembly planning process. In the long run, under further scrutiny and evaluation, it turned out that the necessary upgrades to the Walkill connection (Kingston to Maybrook) were unreasonably expensive.

Others will have more details, but that's what I remember anyway. It would have made for an interesting operation!

The L&HR and the Wallkill Valley Branch were conveyed to Conrail in the USRA Final System Plan, with the intention of their use as a bypass around the NY Metro Area. Larry is right - with the Rosendale Viaduct on the Wallkill, as well as many other constraints, it would have cost a small fortune to develop the route for heavy traffic.