Newington CT Junction Question

Last night, I saw through the woods a remain of an old spur off of the Springfield line, just south of Newington Junction. It would have departed the track from a switch facing south and then curves northeast, paralleling Alumni Road. I was just wondering if anyone knew what business this spur served and when it was last in service. You can see the remains fairly clearly on Bing Maps here:

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Although you can't make the spur out on this map, you can see that there is active construction now on what was once a wooded lot, and where the old spur may have traveled.

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All through the New Haven Railroad days there were four tracks between SS-214 and Newington. Two tracks for the Springfield Line and two tracks for the Waterbury Line. In about 1954 the second track was pulled up between Plainville and Newington where they had a spring switch. Both lines had ABS with searchlight signals on the Springfield Line and semaphores on the Waterbury Line. I believe the second track still remained between Newington and Hartford until around the time Penn Central took over although during those years there was nowhere near the traffic to justify the second track there. The line between Hartford and New Britain was abandoned I think late in the Penn Central era as they could easily reach New Britain from Berlin and there was probably no customers on that section of track. So you can see the line has been abandoned for some time now. I have timetables when it was a very busy piece of railroad with many passenger trains each way daily and three round trips between Hartford and Maybrook which survived until at least the mid 40's. Hope this will answer your question.
Noel Weaver

Someone replied on the CT shortlines list that the spur in question served the Fafnir bearing plant. Which is clearly no longer

There must be some reason why B&M got the New Britain-Berlin Branch, instead of using the Highland Main between Newington Jct., and New Britain. Maybe it was due to the rights to Cedar Hill? Did Conrail still use any of it after the rest of the Highland/Canal/Naugatuck went to B&M?

I remember the large scrap yard under the I84 bridge near the W.Hartford/Hartford line. Who knows if it was connected to the Hartford Line.

Engineer Spike wrote:There must be some reason why B&M got the New Britain-Berlin Branch, instead of using the Highland Main between Newington Jct., and New Britain. Maybe it was due to the rights to Cedar Hill? Did Conrail still use any of it after the rest of the Highland/Canal/Naugatuck went to B&M?

I remember the large scrap yard under the I84 bridge near the W.Hartford/Hartford line. Who knows if it was connected to the Hartford Line.

The main was out-of-service before Conrail sold off its bundle of CT lines to B&M in '82, so it was never an option for them the entire time they owned it. Something about one of the highway bridges passing overhead needing emergency repairs and a temporary support being drilled straight onto the ROW, and so Conrail granted permission to mothball it because it had the backup route in Berlin. Not sure if it was the CT 175 overpass or one of the current Route 9 overpasses that sat unused since 1970 but were being prepped for construction at the time for the first leg of the highway extension to open in '85. B&M never even gained ownership of that leg at all. Conrail held onto it then sold it directly to CDOT some time afterwards.

Engineer Spike wrote:I remember the large scrap yard under the I84 bridge near the W.Hartford/Hartford line. Who knows if it was connected to the Hartford Line.

At one time that scrap metal facility certainly had rail access, but it has been a long time. It was last used by SIMS Metal management, but they moved that operation into a new building in the North Meadows of Hartford, right of I-91. It has since been sold to ELG Utica Alloys.