Possible Erie RR Cutoff

Did the Erie Railroad at anytime after it ran its rails south to the Hoboken/Jersey City area ever consider building a cutoff or bypass between Ramsey or Suffern directly to Port Jervis? This would have given the railroad more of a direct route to the west verses going over the line through Campbell Hall. The railroad, at one time, controlled the NYS&W, did it ever consider tying it to a direct line to Port Jervis that would be beneficial to the Erie RR in saving miles to the west?

I doubt it, because the Erie tried to keep it's gradient as level as possible in that area, following
the valley of the Ramapo River North-by-Northwest geographically (west by timetable) and then veered
directional west through Goshen and then toward Port Jervis.

Later on, the Erie built the "Graham Line" to further reduce gradient (and it was 6 miles longer!) and of
course it tunneled under Otisville, where the old main went over the mountain.

There was just "too much stuff in the way" to build a more direct line between Suffern and Port. The mountain
range and Greenwood Lake (plus other smaller lakes) was all in the way.

Charlie

When the DL&W did their Cutoff they were the both the highest priced
rail stock on the NYSE and had the highest dividend, $20.

Lacking coal, the Erie just never achieved that level of prosperity. At the time the Lackawanna
paid the $20 dividend, the Erie could not afford to pay any dividend.

The Erie did build a cutoff in Western NY to avoid the high grades west
of Hornell and the Graham Cutoff.

Way back the Erie did consider a short-cut route between Jersey City and Port Jervis, primarily to avoid the heavy grades over the Shawangunk Mountains near Otisville. In 1874 the Erie considered acquiring the Montclair Railway (later the New York & Greenwood Lake) and building a new route from Port Jervis to Greenwood Lake (via Pine Island and Warwick) and a connection with the NY&GL (Montclair Ry). Below is a news item from the Feb. 7, 1874 edition of Railroad Gazette detailing the plan plus one other potential route. This all fell through I think because Erie was in reorganization at the time and did not have the funds to pay for the construction. I believe maybe ten or fifteen years later the Greenwood Lake route was looked at again and some surveying might have been done as well. The idea was dropped a second time because the cost of drilling the two tunnels needed to make the route feasible was just too high.