History
The portions of the line from Suffern to Harriman and from Otisville to Port Jervis were built as the main line of the New York and Erie Rail Road, opening to Port Jervis in 1848. The route south of Suffern is slightly younger (connected for through service in 1853); the original main line ran east from Suffern to Piermont. The portion from Harriman to Otisville was built in 1904–1908 as a low-level freight bypass named the Graham Line. This portion of the line bypasses the original Erie main line through Monroe, Chester, Goshen and Middletown.
The line, along with the Main Line through Paterson, served as a segment of the Erie Railroad's long-distance flagship trains to points west such as Binghamton, Buffalo, New York State's Southern Tier and Chicago, on daily routes such as the day route, The Erie Limited; (service ended by about 1958).and The Lake Cities (service ended in 1970) Additional train through to Chicago was the Pacific Limited, and its east-bound counterpart, the Atlantic Limited. The Lake Cities and the Pacific Limited were night-time departures.
On November 14, 1973, the MTA agreed to subsidize existing Erie Lackawanna Railway service to Port Jervis, which became part of Conrail on April 1, 1976.
In 1983 the Metro-North Railroad was formed to take over the commuter operations of Conrail in the state of New York. This included service west of the Hudson River, where rail lines do not connect directly with New York City. These lines pass through New Jersey, stopping at Secaucus Junction, where New Jersey Transit trains provide service to New York Penn Station multiple times per hour, and terminating at Hoboken Terminal.
The MTA initially equipped the lines with second-hand equipment. In 1984 the Main Line between Harriman and Middletown was abandoned, and service was moved to the longer (by 6 miles) Graham Line, the Erie's freight cutoff. Officially, the first day of regular service on the Graham Line was April 18, 1983. New stations were built, but at low cost and without facilities. At the time this was a very unpopular move with commuters, who were used to having their trains stop right in the center of their towns. Alternatively, there was pressure put on the MTA by the towns to have the service moved out of the populated areas due to "traffic concerns." The Graham Line passed though no populated areas, and driving to the new stations added significant time to their commutes. However, others wanted trains out of the center of the towns, and so the switch was made. The old main line was no longer used for freight, so following the move to the Graham line, it was abandoned. The line from Harriman to Middletown is now the Orange County Heritage Trail.
In the mid-1990s, as Orange County started to become a popular place for commuters, political pressure caused the MTA to start improving service, building a new station in Middletown-Town of Wallkill, expanding parking at Harriman, and other improvements. In the 2000s growth in Orange County accelerated, so that the MTA added more service, and started to expand parking lots, which made paid lots in line with the rest of the Metro-North system. Recently, the line has been plagued by regular break downs of the aging locomotive fleet. The MTA brought in leased equipment from the Morristown and Erie Railroad, but ran into even more problems, when it was discovered that the M&E engines would have to be significantly modified to comply with NJT's cab signalling system.
One oddity that results from the unusual arrangement between the MTA and NJ Transit, is that although the MTA subsidizes the service and maintains all of the facilities (except for the Suffern station), the actual operation of the line is almost totally under the control of NJ Transit- the trains are operated by NJT personnel, the trains are dispatched from Hoboken, and the fare system is also under NJT control but with a mixture of NJT and Metro-North rules. Thus, the ticket vending machines on station platforms are NJT machines, not Metro-North's. This also means New York passengers on the Port Jervis Line only pay the maximum in-state fare NJT charges for its non-NYC in-state destinations.
Service north of Suffern was suspended due to severe damage from Hurricane Irene in late August 2011. Shuttle train service between Harriman and Port Jervis started in September; and full train service resumed on November 28, 2011.
In 2008 Metro-North and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) began a joint feasibility study of a possible branch from the line to Stewart International Airport, which the Port Authority had taken over the year before, ending a seven-year privatization experiment. The PANYNJ withdrew from the study after its first phase, having decided that express bus service could meet the same needs much more cheaply. Metro-North is continuing the study on its own. Future improvements for the line include the completion of the cab signalling system and the construction of a yard near Salisbury Mills to relieve pressure on the Suffern yard. The Port Jervis Line runs from Hoboken Terminal to Port Jervis, via Middletown, NY.
Read more about this topic: Port Jervis Line
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