The Maybrook Line Welcome to the Empire State Trail’s Maybrook Trailway, which follows the Brewster-to-Hopewell Junction portion of the former New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad “Maybrook Line,” once an important New England freight rail gateway.
POUGHKEEPSIE BRIDGE Completed in 1889, this 6,768-foot-long cantilever truss bridge carried Maybrook Line trains 212 feet above the Hudson River. It burned in 1974, impacting regional freight rail routes. It is now the Walkway Over the Hudson State Park. Source: Kent Cochrane.
The Maybrook Rise and Fall “MAYBROOK BOUND” This painting of New Haven Railroad diesel-locomotive-powered freight trains passing at Poughquag, New York, captures the East-west rail traffic south of Albany Like its hilly route, the Maybrook had its spirit of mountain railroading on the Maybrook Line. Source: crossed the Hudson River on freight car ups and downs. It was busy during World Hudson William G. Dulmaine Jr. River ferries between Beacon and Newburgh War I but lost traffic during the Great MA Rail to Trail until 1889, when the railroad bridge across Depression of the 1930s. The Maybrook’s R R L A R T N E
C
K the river was completed at Poughkeepsie. finest hour was during World War II, when R Today, the Empire State Trail follows the
O
Y
T
H
W RI
E
E
N
M
The “New Haven,” then southern New powerful New Haven steam locomotives A route of the former Maybrook Line for
Y
B R CT
R R
L O
A O R K
England’s dominant railroad, consolidated moved record freight tonnage over the T L I N E forty-four miles from Brewster to Highland, PA N
E
C
NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN
K R
O &
Y
several existing end-to-end rail lines by line. After the war, traffic declined again, W New York, along the Maybrook Trailway,
E HARTFORD RR LINES N
Hudson 1904 to create the 125-mile-long Maybrook and diesel locomotives replaced steam River the William R. Steinhaus Dutchess Rail Line. The Maybrook moved freight in 1947. Parallel competition from Penn Trail, the Walkway Over the Hudson, and gathered from five railroads converging Central rail lines after 1968 and Interstate MAYBROOK LINE the Hudson Valley Rail Trail. The Maybrook Line was a key rail freight connection across at a large freight yard west of the Hudson 84 after 1971 further eroded service. the Hudson River. The Maybrook Trailway follows the section in Maybrook, Orange County. From there, A 1974 fire resulted in the permanent between Brewster and Hopewell Junction. Source: Milestone Heritage Consulting. the freight was carried east across the closure of the Poughkeepsie bridge,