Wye near Brewster/Southeast

What is the wye used for? What is its history? Is it still used? I've never been up to Southeast before so I've never seen the thing nor do I know anything about except that it exists. Thanks for any responses

I believe the tail of the wye used to connect to the old Put, hence the nickname for Brewster Putnam Jct, or Put Jct. Not used for much more than turning an occasional engine.

if you have never been there, have you ever considered using Bing maps and bird eye view ??
what are wye's normally used for ?? it seems your asking questions that can be known by just thinking ??

The end is often used for to store MOW equipment. They were actually moving old ties off the right of way a few weeks back, probably to make room for the rail trail that they are currently building. They should be clearing trees and brush along the end of the wye this week. Plans have the trail going to a bridge at Put Jct and going across the tracks to the area of North Main street and then up the next to the Beacon Line.

DutchRailnut wrote:if you have never been there, have you ever considered using Bing maps and bird eye view ??
what are wye's normally used for ?? it seems your asking questions that can be known by just thinking ??

With the advent of cab cars I wouldn't see much reason to turn around an engine in the first place. maybe once in a while they would want to turn around equipment or to perform an equipment swap

tjensen wrote: With the advent of cab cars I wouldn't see much reason to turn around an engine in the first place. maybe once in a while they would want to turn around equipment or to perform an equipment swap

There are occasions where a locomotive will have to be turned around to be on the south end of a consist such as waterworld or another instanse where there is no cab car.

RearOfSignal wrote:I believe the tail of the wye used to connect to the old Put, hence the nickname for Brewster Putnam Jct, or Put Jct. Not used for much more than turning an occasional engine.

Your comment about the history is exactly right

a lot of times entire push pull consist get turned when a cab car fails, in fall water world gets turned there as Harlem waterworld operates with only one engine.
the tail track of wye is used for storing MofW equipment and occasional stone cars.

as for Putnam Jct it was not only connection to Put that gave it that name but interchange between Maybrook line and Harlem and Maybrook connection to Put was there to.

When the Put still went to Sedwick Ave,the Put Div train would back down from the yard behind the GCT bound train,
then run thru the wye to head to Sedwick Ave(or around the "Horn" via XC-Goldens Bridge).
After the Put was split in two(Eastview-Carmel Abandoned) the wye was used to turn trains finishing their runs in the yard.
There were Spring switches on Main 2 and at the top of the wye to speed the process,run the train up the wye,clear the spring switch,
then shove into the yard.
That lasted untill the 3rd rail went online,and M-3's took over service.

When the Put was still running the move at Put Junction depended on whether the particular train was to make a station stop at Brewster or not. Some of them did and some of them did not. If an New York bound train was to make the stop at Brewster the engine would be on the west (NYC TT direction) end of the cars and the train would shove down to the station and after leaving use the south leg of the Put Junction wye. If the train out of Put Junction was not going to make a stop at Brewster the engine would be on the east (NYC TT direction) end of the cars and the train would simply depart from the yard using the north leg of the wye. Same thing on trains to Brewster/Put Junction, if a stop at Brewster the train would pull through the south leg of the wye and shove back to the yard at Put Junction and if the last stop was Carmel or Tilly Foster the train would simply head in to the yard at Put Junction using the north leg of the wye. As for why this wye still exists today really Metro-North does not have too many places on the railroad where they can turn equipment or engines so it makes very good sense to keep this available. A single GP-35 for example is no picnic when running backwards so they can turn it on the wye if one went to Brewster towing a dead engine or MU train or on a work train or something of that sort. Maybe a DM engine on the north end of a train has to go to Harmon Shop and can not be used on a revenue train, a light move for example could be turned to head in the right direction. The New Haven interchange had nothing to do with the naming of Put Junction.
Noel Weaver

Thanks everyone for your answers

Thought I'd resurrect an old thread and ask about the wye at Put Junction. Is it still being used? What's left of the stub track? Rail-trail?

Was a handy-dandy place to to dump construction debris when the 3rd rail was extended, northward might be a place to hide track machines now, Figure the spring switches became hand throws
ages ago.

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 2:13 pm Thought I'd resurrect an old thread and ask about the wye at Put Junction. Is it still being used? What's left of the stub track? Rail-trail?

Looks like there's ~1,000' of tail track left. I doubt its going anywhere. So far as I know this is the only place to turn equipment on the entire Harlem Division, and one of only 4 I can think of, other than the GCT loops, on the entire railroad- the others being the turntable at Danbury, the wye at Devon Jct., and the loop track in the New Haven yard.

You forgot the turntable at N White Plains, while a MW equipment shop, can turn power around,