Danbury Branch - History, Electrification, Studies

Correct in last few weeks two more catenary poles have fallen over.
There is no plan to re-electrifyas of now.
The active catenary only extends to catenary pole 5 or about 12x85 foot past
Walk tower.

Does the wire serve Dock Yard as well?

no only danbury main track for 12 car leghts.

In the event you didn't see it, the Mileposts I referenced above is now available on the MTA website (for a limited time since it's not archived):

http://www.mta.info/mnr/html/mileposts.pdf

The work done was listed as:

• 36 of 114 welded-in-place insulated rail joints;
• 23 of 24 GPS-located mile post signs;
• one of 13 dual track electric/manual switch machines;
• 21 of 33 track signal foundations along the Branch;
• eight of 31 utility poles for new overhead catenary wire.
In addition, a locomotive-driven cable-plow train ran the entire 24-mile length of the Danbury Branch.

I still don't understand the eight of 31 catenary poles. I wonder if this is an error and the poles that are getting changed out are actually catenary bridges on the mainline - not on the Danbury branch.

However, the possibility cannot be ignored completely that the 31 poles are for the Danbury Branch in anticipation of its eventual electrification. Does anybody know?

Fred M. Cain

How long does 31 cat poles go down the line? Would it be enough to cover DOCK yard?

The poles are not for Catenary but to relocate the AT&T Fiber Optic line at or near new interlockings and over bridges.
for example 4 poles were planted near where the soth switch willl be for Betherl south Switch.

But M/N's statement on their website specifically refers to the "utility poles" as being "for catenary". Therein lies the mystery.

It's probably an error on their part. That's all I can think of.

I might try e-mailing them directly and ask them what's up with this.

-Fred M. Cain

After Dutch's response, it sounds like a case of "telephoneitis" on the part of the PR department to me...

The confusion probably arose from the fact that the fiber optic is strung for the most part from the old catenary supports.

Greg Moore wrote:That said, I do miss the old Bonanza bus service from NYC that basically followed Rte 7.

Whatever happened to the bus that used to run Pittsfield - Great Barrington - Hillsdale - Copake - Millerton - Amenia - and then over the hill and down to NYC via Fishkill? It began running I believe on or about Amtrak-Day. But I don't know when it ended.

Since someone bumped the thread, is this service still being offered? I went to the web-site Getaways page, and the Connecting Services page, and couldn't find anything (even though the Getaways page specifically says "Berkshires").

Note: not a dupe to the signalization thread. Someone posted an old video on the FB page for the CTRRC. I thought it was interesting, even if nothing else is going on.

http://www.danburybranchstudy.com/video ... Video.html

Well, well, lookie here--

Ridgefield Patch wrote:Lawmakers Call For Danbury Branch Upgrade
A bill from state lawmakers Toni Boucher (R-26) and Gail Lavielle (R-143) calls for electrification, increased performance and more trains on the line... State Sen. Toni Boucher (R-26) and state Rep. Gail Lavielle (R-143) have proposed House Bill 5180, which would authorize state bonds to electrify the branch.

http://ridgefield.patch.com/articles/la ... tc00000001

Danbury Elecrification, or the Bad Idea that Would Not Die.

Ridgefielder, would you mind explaining why this is a bad idea? (I'm not terribly familiar with the branch.) Is it merely too low a level of service to justify electrification, or something more?