by Ridgefielder
bwparker1 wrote:I think there's been track down to Belle Dock from basically the dawn of railroads in CT in the 1830's. IIRC the Belle was a Long Island Sound steamer on the New Haven - New York run before the Civil WarTomNelligan wrote:Yes, Connecticut Southern handles the through traffic between West Springfield and Cedar Hill, and the Conrail/CSX terminal operation in New Haven has been an isolated island for a couple decades now. I have to presume that CSX makes money off their Cedar Hill business since otherwise they (or Conrail before them) wouldn't have kept it when the Shore Line East freight was spun off to P&W. CSX serves the two surviving freight customers at Mamaroneck and Darien out of Oak Point, and runs no through freights between Oak Point and Cedar Hill. Customers in West Haven and thereabouts are handled by a Cedar Hill crew. P&W got the Belle Dock line from Conrail, ran down there before all the construction mess began, and will serve any future customers that appear in the harbor neighborhood.Thank you Tom and boatsmate. Everything more or less makes sense now, although I guess I don't understand the building of this new branch to the dock by the City of New Haven, or was there an old spur before that was ripped out at some point? From Aerial imagery, there seems to be quite a bite of track down along there, and clearly all of the track is not new, but my contact sent me a photo of a brand new track that terminated at a gate fence, encased in a concrete crossing, which is high $$$$.