Housatonic Railroad Thread (Maybrook, Berkshire, Pittsfield)

[Jeff Smith]

HA! Wouldn't that be nice! Maybe someday CtDOT will trade their ROW north of New Milford for Housy's ROW south of there. Then, we can talk!!

[Jeff Smith]

https://itineranturbanist.wordpress.com ... operation/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Using our not very wayback machine, when MassDOT bought the line in their state, there was this really well written analysis of alternatives. Whether feasible or not, it puts the lie to Berkshires service. It also mentions US and our resident New England analyst F-Line.

Some SNIPS:

Berkshires Rail Service Still Not a Winner, or, the Importance of Interdependence and Cooperation
...
Indeed, even if rail transit returns to the Berkshires, the Housatonic line seems an unlikely candidate for that restoration; it is so poorly suited to through passenger traffic, in fact, that even the dedicated foamers over at railroad.net are very skeptical of the success of any restored passenger service. The entire line is so curvy that railfans estimate (see above link) that even with massive infrastructure investment trip times from NYC to Pittsfield would never get better than 4 hours–and even that seems optimistic. And the required investment would be massive–the line is single-track, completely unsignalled, and has been allowed to deteriorate to the very bare minimum necessary for freight service (and far too often less) over the years. Indeed, as early as the 1930s, New York-bound travelers abandoned what was then the New Haven Railroad’s Berkshires Division in favor of driving to New York Central’s parallel Harlem Line; today, that legacy continues as many Berkshires travelers take Metro-North to Wassaic (the current terminus of the now-truncated Harlem Line) and drive the remainder of the trip to their weekend or summer homes. Meanwhile, the middle portion, from New Milford to Canaan, CT, is so devoid of population that it was in fact entirely abandoned from 1972 until the Housatonic restored service in 1983.
...
There is, however, another option. Traditionally, New York Central handled Berkshires traffic, as noted above, via the Harlem Line, with a connection to the Massachusetts-bound Boston & Albany division at Chatham, NY. With the abandonment of the upper Harlem Line, that connection is gone, but another route exists: via the Hudson Line. Today, NYC-Albany Empire Service trips are officially scheduled anywhere between 2:20 and 2:35, but much faster times are possible even with current equipment; I’ve been on a train that did the trip in 2:10, and that’s with the artificially low speed limits imposed by Metro-North’s commuter-rail oriented signalling and track maintenance south of Poughkeepsie. Two-hour trip times are definitely possible, and 1:45 is probably within the realm of possibility for an express (say, stopping only at Poughkeepsie). Meanwhile, the eastbound Lake Shore Limited is scheduled from Albany to Pittsfield in 1:04, only ten minutes slower than driving, meaning that a total NYC-Pittsfield trip time in the vicinity of 3 hours is eminently achievable. A trip to Pittsfield via Albany would require going out of the way a little bit (Albany is north of Chatham), and probably a reverse move or a cross-platform connection at Albany; the alternative would be to skip Albany and send trains directly to Pittsfield via a new connection from the northbound Hudson Line to the eastbound B&A at Castleton, yielding even shorter NYC-Berkshires trip times. Either of these alternatives beats the hell out of pouring money into the Berkshires Division, even if CSX demands double-tracking of the B&A (which really isn’t that busy) as compensation for more passenger trains. Lastly–and far from least–any improvements to the Hudson Line made to facilitate Berkshires Service will also benefit the much more numerous Empire Service passengers. Rather than existing in a nostalgic vacuum, we can target investments in NYC-Berkshires service in a way that also helps many, many other travellers. It just requires a little interstate cooperation, always an interesting question in the fractious Northeast–and the topic of my post about a unified Northeastern rail authority
...
UPDATE 7/30/14

This article in the Berkshire Edge offers some more details about the thinking of the people involved in dreaming up the new Berkshire Division plans, mainly from the perspective of Housatonic Railroad management. It sounds like Massachusetts is determined to stabilize the line’s infrastructure just to keep freight trains running, regardless of whether passenger service ever happens. The freight business on the line may be marginal, but there’s value in keeping trucks off the of the narrow, windy roads of the Berkshires, and the current situation, where the line was going more or less unmaintained, was unsustainable. In the meantime, someone fed the Edge a number of $200 million to rehabilitate the line all the way to a connection with the Harlem Line at Southeast, NY via the little-used Beacon Line, which seems ludicrously low, especially since it includes rehabilitating even more mileage that’s not currently used for passenger service (though service to NYC via Southeast would probably be faster than the Danbury Line). The paper estimated the cost of sidings, signalling, stations, and grade crossing and bridge rehab at $80 million (unclear whether that’s included in the $200 million number), which seems just as unlikely.
...
Update 2, 7/30/14

Check out this thread on ArchBoston for even more information. I’d been searching for a New Haven-era timetable for the Berkshire Division, and commenter F-Line (a presence on the Railroad.net forums as well) tracked one down. 5:20 Pittsfield–Grand Central trip times. Yeah, I stand by my position that Berkshire Division intercity passenger service would be a waste.

[J.D. Lang]

Very good read. Thanks for posting Jeff.

John L.

[Jeff Smith]

That's why they pay me the (not-so) big $$$!

What I found very interesting was the confirmation that this is really about HRRC getting a subsidy to maintain their ROW. Now, you can argue whether or not that is in the public interest, or that of the state. We tend to rag on HRRC here; let's also remember though, that they resurrected this dead line by starting a tourist op.

I think we can all kind of agree a scoot to New Milford makes sense. Even a connection to the Harlem line may make sense, if done right (resurrect the connection behind that IGA in Brewster to eliminate the reverse move). There's plenty of traffic on that stretch of 84 commuting to Southeast, White Plains or Somers that could be eliminated. But Pittsfield? Nope.

[J.D. Lang]

I also thought that Mass. buying the line from state line to Pittsfield so it could help stabilize the line instead of just the much talked about passenger boondoggle to be interesting. I’m not so sure how much this benefits Massachusetts though because the only freight customers in that state that I know of is Sheffield Plastics and an occasional shipment of road salt to the siding in Sheffield. I am glad that they stepped forward with the plan though. I also remember the line when it was New Haven up through the PC abandonment of the portion from Boardman’s bridge to Canaan. By the early eighties the ROW through West Cornwall had two to three inch diameter trees growing. One of the few wise decisions that the state of Connecticut did was to land bank the route so that it could someday again become a viable freight corridor. I know that the Housatonic RR. is ragged on by many here and maybe for some good reasons which I know nothing about but they did bring the whole Berkshire corridor back to life for the benefit of companies such as Specialty minerals, Becton Dickenson, Kimberly Clark, and the lumber reload center in Hawleyville to name a few. I would think that a small one person owned shortline would have a tough go of it in this area.

The extension of commuter rail to New Milford is a no brainer but the state is broke so I don't think that they are in a position right now to offer to buy that section from the Housy.

John L.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

The passenger flight-of-fancy was all Gov. Patrick's thing. The line buy was probably going to happen anyway because of intervention required on the Berkshire Scenic eviction from operating on the tracks, and the horrible safety violations that HRRC was covering up re: deteriorated track conditions. The acute problem up there was that HRRC was divided into multiple shell companies. Coltsville Terminal was the shell company that had the property ownership on the MA part of the Berkshire Line. The Danbury Terminal shell company is the actual operating railroad, but instead of running on self-owned tracks it had a trackage rights agreement with the Coltsville Terminal shell to obfuscate responsibilities. And Maybrook Properties is the property owner in CT on the New Milford-Danbury privately owned section of the Berkshire + the entirety of the Maybrook Line in CT, similarly set up with Danbury Terminal operating on trackage rights. In essence, HRRC was a tenant railroad of...HRRC and HRRC. But each HRRC was a *slightly* different HRRC with plausible deniability of what its other multiple personalities were doing. Yep...nothing shady at all about that.

The shell companies put up a completely opaque front that let HRRC conceal a lot of its activities and negligence from oversight by playing "one hand doesn't know what the other is doing" games. Danbury Terminal could be absolved of blame for the derailments on Coltsville Terminal-owned track, and Coltsville Terminal could bully Berkshire Scenic on trumped-up "safety violations" charges while legally washing its hands of Danbury Terminal's safety violations. It also made HRRC completely untrustworthy for grant awards, such as the infamous "disappearing rail" incident where CDOT donated them some spare salvage rail and it vanished (suspected to have been sneaked across the state line to patch some of Coltsville Terminal's derailment spots). And the structure enabled what has been long-suspected (but never proven) about the company's end-game motives: have the executives loot the company by running the railroad into the ground, then cash out the property holdings for their scrap value when they file for abandonment. That almost happened on the Maybrook until P&W made its adverse abandonment claim and threats to sue make HRRC back off.

This was getting untenable and quickly to the point where outside intervention was needed. The BSRM dispute was MassDOT's trigger. What buying the line--even at an unfavorable overpay--did was liquidate the Coltsville Terminal shell company in its entirety. It may still exist on-paper, but it is now dormant and has $0 in assets. The only active HRRC division in Massachusetts now is Danbury Terminal, the operating railroad itself. And Danbury Terminal's trackage rights are now on public property with public oversight, instead of trackage rights on another opaque HRRC shell. It closes nearly all loopholes for shady dealings and concealment of oversight in MA. That is the be-all/end-all stabilization move. The railroad can still be just as bad an operational laughingstock as before..and just as hard to get rid of with how well-entrenched they are. But they have nowhere to hide it with all oversight made public. Harsh light makes the roaches scatter, and MassDOT's liability and anxiety level are a lot lower being able to control that.


Next domino that has to fall is CDOT making its Godfather move to liquidate Maybrook Properties to likewise box HRRC in to just the Danbury Terminal operating arm and the same harsh light of public oversight. It'll probably have to be a similarly stiff overpay, but the benefits of nipping it in the bud and closing all shady-business loopholes are much the same as MassDOT's move to KO Coltsville Terminal. CDOT does have more luxury to wait it out until HRRC gets more desperate for cash, because there's no hostage-taking HRRC can make like the BSRM situation in MA. They already played that hand on the Maybrook and lost when much bigger P&W pulled out its big guns. CDOT can also recoup some of its overpay by getting P&W better-entrenched on the Maybrook (possibly even brokering sale of the local rights from HRRC), since that's P&W's preferred route to Danbury and the company actually wants the full control as a growth and risk mitigation investment. May take a few more years of Maybrook Properties malingering, but eventually the time will come and the price point will move into the range CDOT is comfortable paying...then it's go-time for them to make their buy. Could even be coming in a few years, as Walk Bridge reconstruction on the New Haven Line puts some urgency on P&W having a reliable Maybrook route for its Danbury local so they never have to run that train through the chaotic bridge construction zone.

[DutchRailnut]

even with Common wealth of Massachusetts buying the part north of state line, did not mean HRRC invested any dime into upgrading Ct part of their Domain.
their waiting for CT to find money (long wait)

[Gilbert B Norman]

All I can say is that when I was last back at School during '11 for my 50th, parts of the line looked as if it should be condemned (near Woodrow). Hate to see what it will look like next week for my 55th.

[Ridgefielder]

All I can say is that when I was last back at School during '11 for my 50th, parts of the line looked as if it should be condemned (near Woodrow). Hate to see what it will look like next week for my 55th.

Well....

NEW MILFORD — Railroad crews worked much of the day Monday trying to set a freight train that derailed over the weekend back on the tracks as investigators were seeking the cause of the accident....New Milford Mayor David Gronbach said he was told over the weekend that the cause of the accident was a broken rail...

http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/ ... 966214.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Jeff Smith]

And general counsel was quoted as saying: "It's no big deal". Scary.

[Noel Weaver]

And general counsel was quoted as saying: "It's no big deal". Scary.

It is not happened or did not happen but WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED. Scary indeed.
Noel Weaver

[Pj]

In all reality, it isn't a big deal.

Where I work the tracks are impeccably maintained and inspected three? times a week and yet we had a rail rollover under a train.

Rail breaks, and sometimes even with routine inspection an internal defect cannot be detected (other than an inspection vehicle with proper equipment). Broken rail happens much more often early summer and winter due to temp fluctuations.

Derailments happen all the time and most are not seen on the news unless it's pretty decent, etc.

I'm not minimizing the incident, but it happens far more often than you realize.

[Gilbert B Norman]

And general counsel was quoted as saying: "It's no big deal". Scary.

It is not happened or did not happen but WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED. Scary indeed.
Noel Weaver

I have to wonder how much HAZMAT Housatonic RR handles. I'm staying at Rocky River Inn somewhat N of New Milford (for 50th our class booked the entire Cornwall Inn; not enough demand for 55th) and I don't need anything going BOOM near me.

[J.D. Lang]

I believe that they carry isopropyl alcohol to Pharmco in Brookfield in tank cars so yes scary indeed when the general council guy says no big problem. Unfortunately the odds of something tragically happening keep increasing as time goes on.

John L.

[Noel Weaver]

In all reality, it isn't a big deal.

Where I work the tracks are impeccably maintained and inspected three? times a week and yet we had a rail rollover under a train.

Rail breaks, and sometimes even with routine inspection an internal defect cannot be detected (other than an inspection vehicle with proper equipment). Broken rail happens much more often early summer and winter due to temp fluctuations.

Derailments happen all the time and most are not seen on the news unless it's pretty decent, etc.

I'm not minimizing the incident, but it happens far more often than you realize.

I beg to differ, lt IS A BIG DEAL, as I said not for what actually happened but what could have happened. That the derailment occurred in an area where it was maybe "not a big deal" it could have happened behind somebody's home, cars could have gone through a home, school or some other occupied building and caused major injuries or maybe deaths. An attitude of "not a big deal" would not last long in a major railroad today. I can't imagine somebody saying something like that to a superintendent or some other official and still having a job afterwards. Certainly not with any of the class ones or most of the passenger railroads as well. Not in my time and probably not today either. Maybe it was not considered a big deal with the management of the Housatonic Railroad but the management of that outfit does not amount to too much anyway.
Noel Weaver