The Poughkeepsie Bridge Route was a passenger train route from Washington, D.C. to Boston, Massachusetts, via Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
It specifically avoided New York City, due to the lack of a direct crossing in that area, instead passing over the Poughkeepsie Bridge at Poughkeepsie, New York. Another selling point was its Boston terminus at North Station, allowing a direct transfer to Boston and Maine Railroad lines to the north.
The Federal Express later used a similar route for several years in the 1910s, but ran via Trenton, New Jersey and New Haven, Connecticut.
The route used the following companies' lines:
- Baltimore and Ohio Railroad - Washington to Philadelphia
- Philadelphia and Reading Railroad - Philadelphia to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (via the North Pennsylvania Railroad)
- Central Railroad of New Jersey - Bethlehem to Easton, Pennsylvania
- Lehigh and Hudson River Railway - Easton to Maybrook, New York
- Central New England and Western Railroad - Maybrook to Simsbury, Connecticut
- New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad - Simsbury to Northampton, Massachusetts (via the New Haven and Northampton Company)
- Boston and Maine Railroad - Northampton to Boston (North Station) (via the former Central Massachusetts Railroad)
The route was only used from 1890 to 1893, after which operating patterns changed. Parts of the route near the Poughkeepsie Bridge have been converted to rail trails; the Hudson Valley Rail Trail to the west, and the Dutchess Rail Trail to the east. The closure of the bridge to rail traffic after a 1974 fire eliminated the route and created the Selkirk hurdle.
Famous quotes containing the words bridge and/or route:
“I was at work that morning. Someone came riding like mad
Over the bridge and up the road—Farmer Rouf’s little lad.
Bareback he rode; he had no hat; he hardly stopped to say,
“Morgan’s men are coming, Frau, they’re galloping on this way.”
—Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)
“The route through childhood is shaped by many forces, and it differs for each of us. Our biological inheritance, the temperament with which we are born, the care we receive, our family relationships, the place where we grow up, the schools we attend, the culture in which we participate, and the historical period in which we live—all these affect the paths we take through childhood and condition the remainder of our lives.”
—Robert H. Wozniak (20th century)