Empty Spaces
"What shall we use to fill the empty spaces"
Why trucks, of course!
Off in the distance our NYS&W Alco #260 pulls at a cut of double stack container cars into what is left of the Maybrook Switching Terminal just to have them depart into the opposite direction once the "shuffle" is complete.
Once having 177 tracks totaling 71 miles and hosting six class one railroads, this is indeed a sad sight to behold. Although traffic through the "Railroad Gateway to the East" had dwindled through the 60's, the final nail in the coffin of this great railroad town was in May of 1974 when the Pann Central bridge over the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, NY mysteriously burned and essentially severing the gateway.
Today, Yellow/Roadway truck transportation take up much of what was once the yard and even some buildings built by the Central New England Railroad. I've heard that the maintenance shop is still called the "back shop" by the ones who work there. So this little village in northern Orange County still holds the title, although changed a bit, as the Transportation Gateway to the East", but it's all done by rubber tires. If you look close enough, you'll see that even Conrail had jumped the fence.
Empty Spaces
"What shall we use to fill the empty spaces"
Why trucks, of course!
Off in the distance our NYS&W Alco #260 pulls at a cut of double stack container cars into what is left of the Maybrook Switching Terminal just to have them depart into the opposite direction once the "shuffle" is complete.
Once having 177 tracks totaling 71 miles and hosting six class one railroads, this is indeed a sad sight to behold. Although traffic through the "Railroad Gateway to the East" had dwindled through the 60's, the final nail in the coffin of this great railroad town was in May of 1974 when the Pann Central bridge over the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, NY mysteriously burned and essentially severing the gateway.
Today, Yellow/Roadway truck transportation take up much of what was once the yard and even some buildings built by the Central New England Railroad. I've heard that the maintenance shop is still called the "back shop" by the ones who work there. So this little village in northern Orange County still holds the title, although changed a bit, as the Transportation Gateway to the East", but it's all done by rubber tires. If you look close enough, you'll see that even Conrail had jumped the fence.