Line Description
The Main Line starts at Hoboken and then stops at Secaucus Junction. Many of the Port Jervis Line trains travel non-stop from Secaucus to Suffern, some of them stopping at Ramsey Route 17 station. Some of the Port Jervis locals run via the Main Line between Secaucus and Ridgewood and the others run via the parallel Bergen County Line; the expresses may be routed either way at the discretion of the dispatchers. From Suffern northwards the line follows the same narrow valley as the New York State Thruway and NY 17. The Sloatsburg station is not very far from 17, Tuxedo is right on 17 and Harriman has its entrance on 17 but its actual platform adjacent to the Thruway. Harriman is the busiest station on the line. One peak hour train in each direction runs express from Harriman, with the next (or previous) stop being Secaucus Junction. The Tuxedo station is the one stop on the line with the original (1883) station house.
After crossing under the on ramp from 17 to the Thruway and passing Woodbury Commons the line gradually moves away from the Thruway, crossing NY 32 and running along the shoulder of Schunemunk Mountain, where it twice is crossed by hiking trails. At Schunemunk's north end it curves along to the Moodna Viaduct, the highest and longest railroad trestle east of the Mississippi River. Immediately afterwards it crosses NY 94 and arrives at Salisbury Mills-Cornwall in the Town of Cornwall.
The westward curve accelerates afterwards and the line begins to run almost east-west across central Orange County. Campbell Hall is the apex of this curve and the northernmost Metro-North station west of the Hudson River. This station services the towns of Goshen, Montgomery and Walden.
The southward side begins shortly afterwards, as the track crosses the Wallkill River, then Interstate 84, to run parallel to NY 211 near Highland Lakes State Park for a while. Shortly after leaving the highway's side, trains arrive at Middletown near the popular Galleria at Crystal Run shopping mall.
Almost unnoticed from the highway, the line crosses under the Route 17 expressway (the future Interstate 86) after leaving Middletown. A second track begins at Howells, to accommodate trains waiting for others to clear the Otisville Tunnel. The siding rejoins the main line just after the Otisville station as trains enter a mile-long (1.6 km) tunnel under the Shawangunk Ridge, the longest on Metro-North.
Once on the western end, in some of the most undeveloped countryside Metro-North passes through, trains make a long descent of the west side of Shawangunk Ridge, parallel to the Neversink River valley southwards, reaching valley level just before the terminal station Port Jervis and the yard beyond.
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