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Welcome to our Catskill Mountain Railroad WebSite
Here's a preview of some of the exciting projects we have put together for you: Our feature article is an extensive history of The Catskill Mountain Branch Next, check out the current status of the branch. Now, find out some more background on the branch. See Why the NY Central acquired the Ulster & Delaware . Read about strange places on the Catskill Mountain Branch . See about Kingston freight schedules . Read how there were once trains from Beantown . Follow the path of the Catskill Mountain branch on Google Earth . The Catskills are "snow country. See a story on snow plows on the branch and see our snow railroad pictures section. Important to the Catskills and the railroad are the reservoirs which are the heart of the New York City water supply . Milk and express were important on the branch. Learn more about head end equipment operated by the New York Central and see some New York Central Railroad pictures ; as well as a postcard view of Big Indian . Don't miss our Reference Section |
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| The Catskill Mountain Branch |
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September 28, 1976 saw the end of service on the Catskill Mountain Branch of the Penn-Central.
Formerly the Ulster & Delaware, it became part of the New York Central during the Great Depression when it went "belly up" financially.
The last train ran 74 miles from Stamford to Kingston with GP38-2 no. 8098 leading 36 cars and a caboose.
Thus 106 years of life that had begun May 23, 1870 ended when Conrail said "no" to a shippers group.
In downtown Kingston, the switch with the West Shore has been removed but the tracks still head west parallel to Broadway. The building of the West Shore had been a beneficial event for the Ulster & Delaware. Without it, the railroad would have had to depend on the Wallkill Valley and the Erie for connections to New York. The tracks run through fenced in parking lots but are in a deep cut by the time they reach Albany Avenue. Earlier, the Ulster & Delaware had crossed the West Shore and gone down the hill to Kingston Point (Rondout Station). Kingston Point had been a river boat landing in the late 1800s. Other out-of-service and abandoned rail lines in the area are the Wallkill Valley Branch (former Erie; former New York Central) and the New York Ontario & Western's Ellenville & Kingston Railroad. The climb to the city of Kingston is 190 feet in three miles and had the railroad's only tunnel. Except for a trolley museum, most of this trackage is out of service. When I visited Kingston on a below-zero February day, the trolley museum was closed, but it was evident where it ran in good weather. In the 1986 season, it was running a Brill car from the museum to the Hudson River. The museum is located on the site of the Ulster & Delaware shops. It is near the Kingston Maritime Center which hopefully is helpful in gathering tourists. I was really surprised that my usually-accurate JIMAPCO map of the area did not disclose the trolley museum. Some of their equipment (Staten Island Rapid Transit cars, etc) is stored in the North Kingston yards of the West Shore (Conrail). Leaving Kingston, the Catskill Mountain Branch follows Route 28. Climbing a hill just west of Kingston to West Hurley, there is no sign of activity, but the roadbed is clearly evident. That hill just west of Kingston must have been a tough one in the days of steam. Between 1911 and 1913, eleven miles of track were relocated due to construction of a dam on the Esopus ten miles west of Kingston. Several towns once served by the railroad are now covered by the waters of the Ashokan Reservoir. The new station at West Hurley was the only modern building on the railroad. At the top of the hill about 10 miles west of Kingston, near the Ashokan Reservoir, I spot a motorized section car labeled "Catskill Mountain Road". Near Shokan is an old caboose used as a visitors center. This area of the line near Phoenicia is used in the summer as a "tubers trolley". A very popular sport on the Esopus River is tubing down the rapids near Phoenicia on large rubber tubes. The "trolley" is simply the motorized section car, or "track speeder", pulling trailer loads of tubers back up the tracks which run alongside the river so they can tube back down again. The whole thing is only 4 or 5 miles long and runs between Phoenicia and Mount Pleasant. The railroad, with tracks still intact, runs through Shandaken and Grand Hotel Station. Grand Hotel Station at 1886 feet above sea level is the highest elevation on the line. Grand Hotel itself was owned by the U&D. At one time, narrow gauge railroads ran 21 miles from Phoenicia through Hunter and Tannersville to Catskill Mountain Station. These roads, the Stony Clove & Catskill Mountain and the Kaaterskill Railroad, eventually merged with the U&D. They became standard-gauge before the turn of the century and were abandoned in 1940. In the 1880's, several large hotels were built and the railroads from Phoenicia served them. They were also served by a line from Catskill. When the Hotel Kaaterskill burned in 1924, the U&D lost its largest customer. There were convenient connections with New York City via the West Shore. The area served by the U&D had over 20,000 rooms for tourists. Today, the Catskill Mountains are not what they once were. The old hotels are all gone. Campers fill campgrounds but city dwellers don't take trains to the mountains. Fleischmann's marks the beginning of the Delaware & Ulster Rail Ride. The station there is freshly painted and there is an old boxcar next to it. The real hub of the rail ride is Arkville. Arkville was once a real rail junction where the Delaware & Northern connected with the Ulster & Delaware. The Delaware & Northern was a bridge line to the Ontario & Western at East Branch. A lot of interesting equipment has been trucked here. There is an ex-Western Maryland GE 44-tonner. There are three Pullman green ex-Pennsylvania MP-54 "owl eye" m.u. coaches and two open air flat cars with benches. There is also some maintenance-of-way equipment, an engine house, station and snack bar. An ALCO S-4 switcher is a recent addition. There is a Brill Rail Car built in 1928 which is diesel-powered and pulls a trailer coach. This is similar to the "Red Heifer" which ran over the Delaware & Northern. The ex-New York Central "doodlebug" M-405 is painted Cornell red and has gold lettering. Bellayre ski center, which is operated by NY State, is located near Arkville. Can't help but think ski trains from New York (Hoboken?) wouldn't make a lot of sense. This area once had several large hotels. Now, small motels are the rule. At Arkville, we turn on to Route 10 and head to Roxbury. In this area are many new vacation homes, many of them log cabins. Roxbury was the early home of Jay Gould. His daughter contributed a significant amount of money to this community. From Grand Gorge, the roadbed follows Route 23 to Stamford. The station in Stamford is freshly painted and has a baggage cart outside it. There is also a coal tower and an Agway store nearby. Stamford is 19 miles to Richmondville, 21 miles to Delhi and 27 miles to Oneonta. At Stamford, the tracks follow Route 10 to Bloomville. Originally, the railroad was to go to Oneonta through Harpersfield instead of through Bloomville. Six miles of grading from Stamford was actually done. The rail line from Stamford to Hobart was originally built as a "branch". Next stop on the line is Hobart where a Sheffield Farms processing plant which is long gone used to be the major industry. Further down the line an old Sheffield Farms creamery remains. Milk from this area went into New York City by train. This plant is between Bloomville and South Kortright and is now a garage. The railroad lost its milk business as highways were improved and glass-lined milk trucks carry milk in bulk shipments. In Bloomville, an Agway marks the end of most-recent train service. The Rail Ride owns the right-of way to Bloomville. I then took a 9-mile detour to Delhi to visit relatives. The Ontario & Western ran a branch here from Walton until its demise that served a dairy plant. A line to Andes and on to Margaretville from Delhi was never built, but the intended roadbed can be seen in several spots. Rejoining the U&D roadbed at Bloomville, I follow a county road to East Meridith. The nine miles down the Kortright Creek valley to Davenport Center drop 600 feet. Davenport Center was the terminus of the Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley. This road was completed in 1890 and had as its prime goal the transportation of hotel passengers to Cooperstown. When the U&D only reached Bloomville, stages connected the two lines. After 1903, when the D&H absorbed the C&CV, passengers changed at Oneonta and service from Cooperstown Junction to Davenport Center was discontinued except for freight which lasted until 1930. West Davenport and the former junction with the D&H at Oneonta which is covered up by construction from I-88 round out my tour of the Ulster & Delaware. Even with stops, I had beaten the four hours that the timetable of 25 years ago allowed to travel the 104 miles from Kingston to Oneonta. At that time, the prevailing speed was 30 MPH. The railroad was built in stages and later abandoned in stages. In 1870 it only ran to Shandaken, by 1872 it reached Roxbury and made it to Stamford by 1875. Hobart was reached in 1884. Bloomville became the end of the line in 1891. Oneonta, the final goal, was reached in 1900. In 1965, the 21 miles from Oneonta to Bloomville were abandoned. A 2.6 mile section at the far end was sold to an Oneonta group for use as a tourist line. When Interstate 88 was built, this trackage was in its path. The tourist line then acquired the D&H Cooperstown branch and remains today as the Delaware Otsego Railroad. Regular service after 1965 only extended to Stamford, with service to South Kortright and Bloomville only on an "as needed" basis. The state of the line past Bloomville has deteriorated greatly since abandonment, but trestles are still up. An old bridge is used by a farmer to cross his cows over a creek. He has installed gates on either side of the bridge. It is hard to believe that the deserted railroad was such a hub of activity in the early part of this century. There were almost forty locomotives at that time, the last one being added in 1907. While the railroad owned only a few passenger cars, it was able to carry 338,000 passengers in 1903 and 676,000 in 1913 by renting New York Central cars in the summer. Likewise, the railroad's relatively few freight cars (peak was 270) could never have carried the load that ran between Kingston and Oneonta. Anthracite coal traffic was the biggest item of revenue freight and the U&D didn't have to provide cars for this. Excessive dividends before 1923 coupled with failure to provide for repayment of bonds caused financial troubles for the railroad in the late 1920's. Decrease in both passengers and anthracite coal traffic spelled doom for the railroad. In 1932, the Interstate Commerce Commission "twisted the arm" of the New York Central to take over the Ulster & Delaware. In 1986, the Delaware & Ulster Rail Ride was unable to run trains because it could not obtain liability insurance. The Rail Ride is owned by the seven towns along the right-of-way. The supervisors of these towns (included in both Delaware and Ulster counties) are members of the Catskill Rail Committee which controls the Rail Ride. Ironically, the directors of the first railroad company organized in 1866, the Rondout & Oswego, were representatives of some of these same towns which had pledged money towards its construction. Until a recent non-profit corporation was formed, insurance coverage was dependent upon the towns themselves. Now the Rail Ride, operating under a State charter, actually owns the property and can more easily obtain insurance. The right of way past Arkville needs a lot of tree cutting. A large supply of rails is stored in Arkville. Could this mean expansion? The Catskill Rail Committee aims high, they want to run from Bloomville to Kingston again. |
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The "The Catskill Mountain Branch" was
published in June, 1987 in the CALLBOARD of the Mohawk and Hudson Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. |
| REFERENCE |
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List of New York Railroads Welcome to Defunct Railroads |
| Oneonta |
| Unofficial homepage of the Southern New York Railway |
| Photos by Peirce Behrendt |
