Harriman depot on Erie main demolished - 5/11

According to reports, the Harriman depot across from Nerera Chemical on the old main has been demolished. This was located on the ex-Erie mainline that Conrail abandoned in 1984 in favor of the Graham Line.

-otto-

Demolished 5/11/06.

Charles

Was the building demolished in conjunction with extending the Orange Heritage Trail east from Monroe to Harriman?

next time i drive through there i'm just gonna look away.breaks my heart. we were over there last fall and took pictures of all sides for modelling documentation. it looked rough, but not unrestorable. what a shame, life goes on...

Who owned the structure? Anybody know?

ny.existingstations.com

The structure had NO TRESPASSING signs posted by Conrail, so I assumed 6 Penn Center still owned the property. I stuck my head in through one of the windows once- there was some interior woodwork that could have been salvaged (like some of the built-in waiting room benches), but not much. Don't let the above photo fool you. The time to "save" this building was in 1986, not 2006. The floor was caved in, the roof was caved in, and the walls were standing up largely out of habit.

This is real shame.Used love ridin' The Old Main.As much as I love the view from up on Moodna I prefered riding the Old Main Line and passing these older stations.

Otto Vondrak wrote: The structure had NO TRESPASSING signs posted by Conrail, so I assumed 6 Penn Center still owned the property.

Wow, Otto, that brings back memories. I used to have Conrail as a customer and spent many hours in that building. What's left of HQ in Philly is now at 2001 Market Street, better known as Two Commerce Square. No matter the location, I still miss those guys.

Wasn't the first railroad telegraph sent from this building?

David Hutchinson wrote:Wasn't the first railroad telegraph sent from this building?

Right, Dave; Erie superintendant Charles Minot sent the first telegraphic trainorder from this location in 1851. At the time the station was Turner's, and had an earlier station building (the current building was the third structure on the site).

There was a plaque commemorating this, mounted on the building. After the old main was abandoned there was some pressure to save the plaque, but nothing came of it- and the tablet 'grew legs' and walked. I don't think its whereabouts are known, unfortunately.

Slightly OT but this story made me remember something...I used to visit NYC as a kid and take the thruway down from upstate. I remember seeing another abandoned station a little south of this location along the then CR/NJT line..I guess it would be closer to the Tuxedo/Suffern area...IIRC it was a little different than the station pictured here, I remember it being concrete or stone with arched windows. Of course, it was half burned out and covered with grafitti. Anyone know about this? It's been a while and my memory may be a little fuzzy.

There is a stone building half falling apart right by the Tuxedo railroad station. It is about equidistant between the Thruway and the railroad track. It might have been some type of grist mill or some other industry that needed water. The Tuxedo Police used to occupy the train station, but I noticed last week that it is now empty.

Steel Wheels:

You may have seen the old Sterlington station, which was just north of Hillburn (north of Suffern) and south of Tuxedo. Sterlington was where the old Sterling Mountain Railway slpit off the Erie and headed up into the Ramapo Mountains towards the iron mines. The station sat abandoned at Sterlington well into the 1960s.

There was a fatal and spectacular head-on wreck almost rigt in front of the Sterlington station in 1958; two passenger trains hit, one PA-powered and the other GP7-powered.

It is sad. There was a lot of history associated with not only that location but the original Erie main line in general. It being the first trunk line railroad over 500 miles in length in the USA and one the oldest railroad rights-of-way (ROW) in the USA. As was noted the first use of telegraph to dispatch trains in history was between Harriman and Goshen followed by Gosen to Port Jervis(not called that then) on the same day. It occured because the scheduled east bound never showed and Minot used the telegraph to check on its status. Once he determined that the scheduled train had not even reached their next scheduled stop he odered that the train be held until they arrived there. Charles Minot was also the first individual to operate a locomotive at the unheard of speed of a mile-a-minute in 1848. It was accompolished while he was employed for the Boston and Maine. The telegraph existed along the Erie ROW because that was were Western Union began its storied history. There are many railroad first associated with the Erie Railroad and its ROW.

Also, one minor point is that the plague was not on the station but was mounted on a large stone monument that was near the station unless it was moved. Next to the military, the railroads in the USA were the pioneers of the modern industrial hierarchial organization and its associated command and control structure. The Superintendent, following schedules and his use of the telegraph to override the schedule being examples. One final point, I need to confirm but I believe that Harriman was one of the first railroad staions to have a resturant in it for passengers before the advent of the dining car.

The building I believe you see near Tuxedo along the Thruway that now looks like a bombed out building is an abandoned(well over forty years now) hydro power house of the Orange Electric Company. If you look closely, you can see the remains of the penstock (piping) feeding into the power house.