Sarge wrote:I was curious on this one: I checked the CDOT rail ownership/service map, and the Middletown area is numbered 14 and served by P&W. There is a long stretch connecting to Essex/Valley RR that is railbanked with no current service. There are two spurs forming an X with the main line, with the main line heading down from Hartford (CSO) throug Middletown and on towards Durham and North Haven (P&W) and then on to New Haven (CSX). The eastern portion of the "X" looks like it heads towards a land-banked stretch which heads up to Windham county?
The question is: Which of these represented the Air Line? And how on earth did the short-lines end up with this jumble anyway?
From Middletown, the line heading SW through Middlefield, Durham, and (East) Wallingford to Cedar Hill is the Air Line, today operated by P&W. From Middletown, east then northeast to Portland, (near) Colchester, Willimantic, and then on to Putnam was also the Air Line, now much of it is a rail trail, except in Portland.
From what I understand...
Conrail would come up the Air Line from New Haven to serve the Reed's Gap Quarry in Durham, and continue on to Middletown to serve the "cluster" including customers in Portland, the "poo poo" shuttle, and any other customers in Middletown/Middlefield. When Conrail was downsizing in the late 1980s, they sold the Middletown cluster to the newly formed Connecticut Central (CCCL). CCCL later obtained trackage rights to Cedar Hill. Later, P&W replaced CR as serving the Reed's Gap Quarry and later acquired the CCCL. This all was in the mid/late 1990s.
As far as the Air Line east of Portland, I believe that was taken out of service in the 1960s. The Valley Line which heads east then south of Middletown along the Connecticut River was abandoned in 1968. It was leased to the Valley RR in 1969, but left to nature's growth until a few years ago when the line was cleared of brush, though remains out of service between a point just north of the East Haddam Bridge and near Pratt & Whitney in Maromas. With the sewer shuttle now gone, trains rarely (if ever anymore) run south of the Route 9 bridge on deKoven Drive in Middletown.