Catskill Mountain Branch

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 .

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The Catskill Mountain Branch

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

List of New York Railroads
Welcome to Defunct Railroads

Oneonta

Unofficial homepage of the Southern New York Railway

Photos by Peirce Behrendt

Gilboa Dam
Part of New York City's Water Supply.
This system runs throughout the Catskill Mountains.

New York City Water Supply

In 1842, Croton water arrived in the city, superseded the use of springs in Manhattan.
1927 saw the completion of the Catskill system plus city tunnel #1
1965 marked completion of the Delaware reservoir system
Today there are three watersheds: Croton, Catskil, Delaware; covering 2000 sq miles.
The system consists of 18 reservoirs
Three tunnels connect the city to the reservoirs (3rd tunnel under construction)
Water takes about 1 day to reach the city (flow velocity: 5 miles/h)

Throughout this century, the New York City water supply system has been the envy of virtually all major drinking water supply systems around the country and throughout the world. This system is one of the engineering marvels of the modern world. Ninety-seven percent of the water supplied to the city travels by gravity, meaning changes in electrical energy costs do not affect the cost of water. The supply tunnels and aqueducts that feed water to New York City are amazing in themselves.

Read more about New York City water supply.

New York Central Railroad
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All-time list of railroad names in New York State

Some interesting things about New York State Railroads, mostly New York Central Railroad

Head End
Railway Express and Railway Post Office

On passenger trains, railroads operated lots of equipment other than sleepers, coaches, dining cars, etc. This equipment was generally called 'head-end' equipment, these 'freight' cars were at one time plentiful and highly profitable for the railroads. In the heyday of passenger service, these industries were a big part of the railroad's operations, and got serious attention.
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Once train service existed to the Catskill Mountains as far as Oneonta on the Central New England Railway. Actually it was probably the NY&NE at that point. A parlor car left Boston and went through Hartford to Canaan, Lakeville, Poughkeepsie. It went across the bridge and New York Central picked it up in Campbell Hall. From there it went to Kingston and put on a U&D train.

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Once upon a time, milk trains were important
New York Central Milk Business
Creamery in South Columbia, New York
There were two basic types of milk trains – the very slow all-stops local that picked up milk cans from rural platforms and delivered them to a local creamery, and those that moved consolidated carloads from these creameries to big city bottling plants. Individual cars sometimes moved on lesser trains. These were dedicated trains of purpose-built cars carrying milk. Early on, all milk was shipped in cans, which lead to specialized "can cars" with larger side doors to facilitate loading and unloading (some roads just used baggage cars). In later years, bulk carriers with glass-lined tanks were used. Speed was the key to preventing spoilage, so milk cars were set up for high speed service, featuring the same types of trucks, brakes, communication & steam lines as found on passenger cars.


Interested in Penn Central? New York Central? Pennsylvania Railroad? New Haven Railroad? or in the smaller Eastern US railroads? Then you will be interested in "What if the Penn Central Merger Did Not Happen". You will also enjoy "Could George Alpert have saved the New Haven?" as well as "What if the New Haven never merged with Penn Central?"

Just Around the Corner by Bertrande H. Snell

Bertrande H. Snell, author of the following article, a native of Parish, Oswego County, N.Y., was a telegrapher all his working life. For many years he was employed by the New York Central Railroad, and for 33 years was a telegrapher for Western Union in Syracuse.

Bertrande Snell commenced his writing career with the Syracuse Syracuse Post-Standard in 1945 and continued it until shortly before his death in 1949. His columns were primarily of a reminiscent or historical nature, which included railroad stories.

If you like his column, we have more.

Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY Nov. 18, 1945

Just Around the Corner
By Bertrande Snell

Engineer Cotter eased open old 2165's throttle and No. 21, the northbound local slid slowly out of Salina yards. Barney Fiddler was fireman; hop, Loren Look, the conductor, and the flagman was Denny Haley. Fred Mug was the head "shack" and Dick Jones rode the cubicle.

Here was a sextet of hard-bitten railroaders ready for any emergency, and fearful, neither of "Hell, or high water." They drifted into Liverpool about 6:45 a.m. and unloaded a bit of merchandise on agent Jimmy Dial's platform; then whizzed through Woodard on operator Richardson's "highball," and jolted into Clay Station.

Here the agent, Charlie Zoller, had some switching for them, and they worked at this for some 30 minutes. The previous night had ben bitterly cold, the thermometer falling to 25 below zero in this section, but when the the local left Clay, about 8 a.m., the weather had moderated, and snow was falling steadily. there was a stiff wind from the northwest and the snow was beginning to drift.

There was a halt at Brewerton, where engineman Cotter gave his steed a "drink" from the water tower. "We'll never make Richland if she don't let up," he said, as he stamped into the station, where telegrapher Coon Rogers was getting train orders from Oswego.

"Hell," said Conductor Look, "we won't never make it anyway, if that double diagnosed dispatcher don't get his nit-wits together an' get us out o' here - what's he say, Coon?'

"Here y'are," said the operator at last, "meet No. 4 at Mallory, an' don't waste no time at Central Square - get out o'here, now an' step off it."

They dug out of Brewerton through the blinding storm, which grew worse by the minute. Sherman Coville at Central Square had his instructions to highball them over the O&W intersection without delay, and the train limped into mallory and onto the siding, as Courbat's noon whistle sounded.

--And there the train of 13 cars remained for two weeks; for this was the beginning of the Big Storm of March 5, 1904, and Oswego county's greatest blizzard was in full swing.

After No. 4, due in Syracuse at 12:50 p.m. arrived seven hours late that evening, not a wheel turned on the Hojack between Salina and Richland for five days. In some of the "cuts" the snow was drifted to the tops of the telegraph poles, after the storm had blown itself out - which did not happen until snow had fallen violently and continuously for more than 72 hours.

The crew of the local waited in the Mallory depot until No. 4 struggled in from the north, with a rotary snow-plow trying to keep the rails clear ahead of it. Then, they all came back to Syracuse, with the exception of fireman Barney Fiddler, whose mother resided at Mallory, a short distance from the depot.

Next morning, when I came down from Jim Jackson's where I was boarding, to open the depot, the snow was piled to the top of the waiting room door, and all the windows on the west side were completely drifted in. The train dispatcher at Oswego issued instructions for all telegraphers to remain on continuous duty in readiness for emergencies. So there we were, with nothing to do - and 50 miles of rails covered with seven feet of snow on the level!

We recall that this was a halcyon period for Jerome Fiddler, the old track walker, who lived just across from the station. He, too, was happily idle for more than a week, while, as he confided in me:

"Me pay keeps travelin' right along, glory be!"

Well, after a couple of days it stopped snowing and some of the boys from the mile-distant village tramped out a single-file foot path through the drifts and came over to see what was doing. There were Lyman Hoyt, Tobe Robinson, Len Snow, George Courbat, Lester Fiddler and others, who formed a sort of parade as they plodded along the cavernous path to the depot, where I had been alone in my lack of glory for all too long.

Fireman Fiddler hit upon a happy expedient to add to the jollity of nations. He discovered some barrels of beer in the freight house, which had arrived just before the storm made all deliveries impossible. This beverage had frozen solidly in the kegs, so Barney heated a poker in the stove, knocked in a bung, inserted the red-hot poker and pushed mightily toward the center of the keg.

The amber liquid which oozed forth as a result of this operation was of sweetish taste, not at all unpleasant, nd its potency was of that variety known as HIGH. Then we all gathered around the crimson-bellied stove in the waiting room, played a little poker; drank a little (?) nectar, told a little list of stories - and had, in general, a heck of a good time!

Finally, five days after the storm had started, a big snow-plow, pushed by two locomotives, left Salina and made the 21-mile trip to Mallory in a little over two days. Another plow left Richland at about the same time, and they finally met near Parish. Thus, the line was cleared for passenger traffic, and soon, matters began to shape normally.

In a section noted for its violet storms, this was easily the fiercest and longest continued of any within the memories of the oldest citizens at that time - and it has had no serious competitors since.

Of that salty and valiant train crew, which left Salina on that stormy morning in 1904; of all the agents and telegraphers I have mentioned here; of all the others who have appeared - there remain to survive, only Denny Haley of Syracuse, and this narrator; I to reminisce in my wandering way; and he, perhaps, to verify the tale, or point out its inaccuracies.

So, Denny, let's give each other three rousing cheers - and I'll say:

"Give 'er the gun, hoghead, the Big Roundhouse is Just Around the Corner!"

Why New York Central acquired U&D

The NYC controlled the Big Four and the Michigan Central though majority stock ownership, but up to 1930 the companies were operated as separate railroads. NYC wanted to lease the properties and operate them as part of the New York Central System, essentially a merger but not an outright purchase.

The ICC appears to have approved the leases contingent on NYC also purchasing or in some way assuring continued operation of the Ulster and Delaware. The CCC&StL and MC leases became effective early in 1930, but there was considerable difference between the offering and asking price for the U&D. Finally the U&D trustee and the NYC agreed on $2,500,000.00, the amount recommended by an arbitrator for the ICC, and the deal was effective on Feb. 1, 1932.

Remember, at that time the U&D was a Class I Railroad!! The criteria for inclusion in that exalted category were much lower in 1932.

The rest of the story, related by Gerry Best in his U&D book and which corresponds with records I have seen, is the nasty little "secret." Apparently, the U&D had a funded debt represented by a series of mortgage bonds, and there was a sinking fund of cash that would have been adequate to redeem the bonds on maturity. The cash is said to have come largely from transactions and settlements with the City of New York over takings and delays associated with construction of the Esopus Reservoir.

It appears that the Coykendall family, almost the only stockholders of the U&D, decided to take the sinking fund and use it instead for one whopping dividend in the middle 1920's. They essentially stripped the railroad of its cash. Revenues were dropping and expenses were climbing, so they probably decided to bail out while the money was still there. The bonds missed a payment and lost their value, and thus ensued the mechinations with the receivership and sale.

Lawsuits continued, and eventually the creditors did fairly well considering the depression.

Another great contribution from Gordon Davids

Snow Belt in New York State Boonville Station

There is a "Snow Belt" in New York State that runs above Syracuse and Utica. It goes East from Oswego to at least Boonville. Here's the station at Boonville.

Find out more about Weather around the World

Ominous Weather is about more than weather. Its about our environment. Its about our social issues that need to be surfaced if we want to save our environment. See Champions of our Environment like Al Gore SAS le Prince Albert II de Monaco John R. Stilgoe Ralph Nader. We have addressed several railroad-related projects that will conserve fuel and lessen pollution. Our Window on Europe spotlights projects that can help the rest of the World.
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The New York Central Railroad See some historic photographs of the New York Central Railroad. First-generation diesels! Passenger and freight runs. Much more!