MN Beacon Line - Beacon to Hopewell Jct

I visited Beacon yesterday and noticed the line to Hopewell Jct. The tracks are ok and they ramble through the old manufacturing district. What was surprising to me was that it is heavy, welded rail. Can anyone out there give me a short, recent history on this line. All of the crossings were marked EXEMPT so I am guessing that the ine is dormant.

I know that soon after the PC merger (certainly by 1971) the float interchange between the PRR and the Long Island was discontinued, and a pair of daily through freights began operating between Selkirk and Fresh Pond, which seems likely to have required substantial upgrading at that time (there was much astonishment and dismay among abutting property owners who had been assured by the Realtor that the line was going to be abandoned). I haven't followed developments, but perhaps once the new connection was put in from near High Bridge to Harlem River that is now being used for that operation.

Conrail ran a dedicated intermodal train SENH/NHSE (Selkirk-New Haven/Cedar Hill) on the Beacon Secondary Track up until the early 1990s. While the Housatonic Railroad had freight rights on this line, they were only exercised once with a delivery of an electrical transformer to Hopewell Jct. in 2002. I don't think HRRC was ever able to establish interchange at Beacon, and so the line was used by Metro-North to transfer equipment and for training purposes. A bridge out of service in Brewster has closed the line as a through route. All crossings are out of service, and all crossing protection has been removed. On rare occasions when a MN train does move, MTA police protect each crossing.

-otto-

I ran many trains over this interesting and very scenic route. Penn Central wanted a better way to get between Selkirk and both Cedar Hill as well as Oak Point that had better clearances. Penn Central did fix it up to an extent but Conrail did much more later on. I am glad that I had the opportunity to work this line. Incidentally trains SENH and NHSE were not IM but just regular freight trains with little if any IM, they usually worked Danbury in both directions as well.
Noel Weaver

The big advantage of routing the LI traffic this way (SELI /LISE) was that it was a facing-point move the whole way as opposed to having to change ends at Oak Point for the move over the bridge to Fresh Pond. Also, the clearances were much better than coming down the Hudson Line from Tarrytown to Oak Point via MO; no overhead restrictions or the length restriction at the Pt. Morris curve.

Noel Weaver wrote:Incidentally trains SENH and NHSE were not IM but just regular freight trains with little if any IM, they usually worked Danbury in both directions as well.
Noel Weaver

Correct that SENH-NHSE was a merchandise train with little to no intermodal. Conrail intermodal trains all had the "TV" prefix followed by one to three digits. For example TV-79. Of course there was the oddball TVLA.

Did SENH-NHSE run on the Springfield line for a short period of time at the end of the symbol?

Thank you for the correction on SENH/NHSE.

-otto-

Did SENH-NHSE run on the Springfield line for a short period of time at the end of the symbol?

Yes I believe that Conrail ran SENH NHSE over the B&A and down the Springfield line for awhile until they sold the haulage rights to CSOR between Springfield and Cedar Hill. The traffic still moves that way.

J.L.

David, I would check out the Beacon line topic under the Metro North forum. It was last posted that Metro North issued an expression of interest for the line between Beacon and Holmes (Dutchess / Putnam line). Paperwork was to be in and a tour of the property was to be done in November. I'd be interested to see if anyone knows what came out of that tour.... As for the rest of the line, as I had previously stated Sperry rail services is still using the Beacon line between Dykemans and State line to train there new employees. In fact about two weeks ago I saw them operating near the reservoir behind Lisi's towing on Route 6 in Brewster....

AMK0123 wrote:David, I would check out the Beacon line topic under the Metro North forum. It was last posted that Metro North issued an expression of interest for the line between Beacon and Holmes (Dutchess / Putnam line). Paperwork was to be in and a tour of the property was to be done in November. I'd be interested to see if anyone knows what came out of that tour.... As for the rest of the line, as I had previously stated Sperry rail services is still using the Beacon line between Dykemans and State line to train there new employees. In fact about two weeks ago I saw them operating near the reservoir behind Lisi's towing on Route 6 in Brewster....

MNRR also does periodic moves from Dutchess Jct. to the MTA training facility in Stormville, but it's via hi-rail...so far no work trains making that trip.

Dutchess Jct.? Wow. Didn't that disappear about 60 years ago?

I'm confused... when did SELI/LISE not run straight down the hudson line to mott haven? Did trains run down to beacon, across to the harlem line and south from there?

Back in the early and mid 1970's they ran via Danbury and Devon nonstop in both directions. The New Haven crews only had the job for two or three months a year but if we had enough time left to work we would take the traon over the bridge and deliver the cars to the LIRR at Fremont. They sent a Hudson Division crew over once and that crew raised all kinds of fuss, I was called to pilot them and we also had a conductor pilot. To my knowledge it never happened again. I don't recall this symbol ever running via MO but I might be wrong.
Noel Weaver

On the capital dashboard, MNRR has a project titled "Beacon Line Undergrade Bridges". The description states only "under development". It's budgeted at $7.5m. http://web.mta.info/capitaldashboard/al ... 4&PLTYPE=5" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Noel Weaver wrote:Back in the early and mid 1970's they ran via Danbury and Devon nonstop in both directions. The New Haven crews only had the job for two or three months a year but if we had enough time left to work we would take the traon over the bridge and deliver the cars to the LIRR at Fremont. They sent a Hudson Division crew over once and that crew raised all kinds of fuss, I was called to pilot them and we also had a conductor pilot. To my knowledge it never happened again. I don't recall this symbol ever running via MO but I might be wrong.
Noel Weaver

Interesting - I only knew of the late 80s & onward pattern when they ran SEOP/OPSE, that went via MO until the oak point link opened.