Housatonic Railroad Thread (Maybrook, Berkshire, Pittsfield)

non , Beacon is not, neither is Danbury, despite sneaking in a few occasional ballast cars at Tilcon.

If the disconnected the Derby wye, that would be HUGE. There's got to be some news about that out there.... off I go in search.

I always knew that Derby Jct. is not an official interchange point but as we know , they use it to move locomotives and did that thing handing with the flat car and gondola car back and forth two years ago . We have known for awhile the north leg of the wye has been disconnected .
DRN has pointed out in the past they need to go out into P & W's freight rights trackage to move past the south leg and then go onto the south leg (Maybrook Line ) . I have no idea what could happen if P & W called them out on it.
If no one else has posted by tomorrow morning if they disconnected the south side ( Maybrook Line ) after 3604 used it , I will go look at it for myself in the morning and reply . They have signal indications ( red and green aspects ) just north of Derby Shelton facing northward for southbound traveling movements and at Burtville Ave. facing south for northbound facing movements and all kinds of cable hooked up with solar panels at the switch for the south side . I was under the understanding this was for protecting that switch. Again, I will look in the morning if no one replies by then as that is the only way to really know.

Thanks for the responses. I should have been more specific and asked where HRR has "gateways" for making rates and billing cars with other roads. It appears there remains a physical interchange at Danbury with the New Haven (well, whoever is the successor freight carrier) and same at Beacon with the NYC, but cars cannot be routed or rates made at either of those.

Just watch; when (if I'm physically able) I'm on "The Hill" for my 60th at South Kent School next year, just watch that excuse of a railroad spill something into, oh say, Hatch Pond. At least to my knowledge, they cannot handle HAZMAT, for if they did and they spilled, the whole Valley between Kent and South Kent, with Bull Mountain to the East and Spooner Hill to the West would need to be evacuated - and the area has now become "infiltrated" with pricey retreats for NY hedge fund traders.

I did some research yesterday, and came up with a rather dated report, which I'm attaching. It's a listing, as of 7/11 (not the store, July 2011 lol), of freight activity in the Housatonic valley.

My one question is: if the switches to the Maybrook were removed from the Waterbury Branch, was an STB filing required?

https://westcog.org/wp-content/uploads/ ... _20111.pdf

Also somewhat dated (2012): https://portal.ct.gov/DOT/Publictrans/O ... -Rail-Plan and https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DOT/docum ... .pdf?la=en

When I looked this morning, the Maybrook line is intact .

Are both legs of the wye connected to the Maybrook? Thanks for checking.

Some of what I've read indicates the junction has the "potential" for interchange with PAR (PAS) and P&W at that location. I haven't found any STB filings that it is so used; my assumption that an interchange agreement would be subject to an STB filing requirement.

Given that, my thoughts are that CtDOT, which owns the Waterbury branch, would have to agree to the removal of the connection. Most of the Maybrook portion east of Danbury is OOS although moves have taken place. AFAIK, P&W still does have overhead rights, although they withdrew their adverse abandonment request back in 2015.

HRRC is the common carrier; Maybrook owns the portion of the lines not owned by CtDOT on the Berkshire, and owns all of the Maybrook and Beacon (within CT) (that was a filing back in 2013/2014 I think). Danbury Terminal got merged back around then, too, I believe.

J.D. Lang wrote: ↑Fri May 08, 2020 9:32 am Are both legs of the wye connected to the Maybrook? Thanks for checking.

You're welcome! The north leg has been severed for a couple of years now.

How much freight moves on the Housatonic?

A fairly good amount; they have several jobs from Newtown up to Pittsfield. They switch Kimberly Clark in New Milford, and have some good waste and debris haulage jobs from the Danbury area. Not really anything in the middle above New Milford until you get to their headquarters in Canaan, where they're also fairly active. The meat of it is Canaan to Pittsfield, it seems.

A little content re: Housy and the miserably underrepresented Shepaug. A few inaccuracies in routings but nonetheless, worth a look
https://i95rock.com/photo-gallery-track ... railroads/

While of course it's very open if South Kent School will have an Alumni Weekend next year. It would be my 60th , and God willing I'd like to go back. After all, they love those "Lumbux".

As Mr. Smith notes, New Milford-Canaan is the "dead zone", and I hardly expect the 75 or so car Northbound (that during Winter, I could see from "The Hill") to go by about High Noon, let alone the "two a day" passenger "three a day Weekends".

GirlOnTheTrain wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 12:17 pm A little content re: Housy and the miserably underrepresented Shepaug. A few inaccuracies in routings but nonetheless, worth a look
https://i95rock.com/photo-gallery-track ... railroads/

Since the Shepaug is rarely mentioned I thought that I would post a few pictures that I have in my possession of the Bissell Rd. derailment in Litchfield that happened in January 1947.

First a little background on the pictures, they were given to me by the Zinsser family after Guy and Marion Zinsser passed on years ago. The Zinsser’s were good friends of my family and knew that I had a great interest of RRs. Guy owned a welding shop in Bantam at the time and was also the Bantam fire chief when the call came in about the train derailment at Bissell Rd. Because it was reported that one of persons was trapped inside Guy brought his cutting torches to free the fireman whose leg was caught between the engine and tender as they jackknifed going down the embankment. The pictures were taken by Charlie Morgan who owned Morgan’s Photo and Gift shop in Bantam. He was a next door neighbor of the Zinsser’s and gave copies of the derailment pics. to them. Some of the pictures that I have were published in Fletcher Cooper’s book on the Shepaug RR. so I won’t post those here but I do have a couple that weren't published that I can share.

First is a picture of Guy with his cutting torches.



Second and third show the engine plowed into the swamp next to the right of way and the 3rd. show how the sight looks today.




Pictures credited to Charlie Morgan of Bantam.

Great pictures, thanks! It's nice to see that history.