The ''Berkshire'' was a

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

('New Haven') named train running from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

. It was the longest-running north–south train in

Litchfield Hills The Northwest Hills (also known as the Litchfield Hills or Northwest Highlands) are a geographic region of the U.S. state of Connecticut located in the northwestern corner of the state. It is roughly coterminous with the boundaries of Litchfiel ...

of western Connecticut and the

Berkshires The Berkshires () are a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and northwest Connecticut. The term "Berkshires" is normally used by locals in reference to the portion of the Vermont-based Green Mountains that ex ...

of Massachusetts. From New York City it followed the

New Haven Line The Metro-North Railroad New Haven Line is a commuter rail line running from New Haven, Connecticut to New York City. It joins the Harlem Line at Mount Vernon, New York and continues south to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. The New Haven ...

to South Norwalk, the Danbury Line to Danbury and the Berkshire Division to Pittsfield. It began in the 1940s and ran until 1968. The train was preceded by the ''Berkshire Express,'' of c.1938-c.1943. It terminated at Pittsfield Union Station until 1960, when the New Haven moved it to another station in the city. While the route operated each day excepting Sunday, there were local stops unnamed trains available on Sundays. At peak years of post-World War II service the route was supplemented by other named trains for the New Haven's Berkshire Division route: ''Housatonic,'' ''Lichtfield,'' ''Mahaiwe,'' ''Mahkeenac,'' ''Taconic.'' The route served as a path to country homes of New Yorkers, as well as to towns such as Canaan and New Milford in the transportation service-neglected northwest Connecticut, an area lacking

Interstate highways The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...

or major airports. The route south of Danbury Union Station towards South Norwalk station was electrified until 1961. North from New Milford to Canaan, short of the Connecticut-Massachusetts state line, the route followed the

Housatonic River The Housatonic River ( ) is a river, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 in western Massachusetts and western Connecticut in the United S ...

. In summer months the train made stops in

Lenox, Massachusetts Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The town is based in Western Massachusetts and part of the Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,095 at the 2020 census. Lenox is the site of Shakespeare & Company and T ...

, the town hosting the

Tanglewood Music Festival The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Stockbridge and Lenox in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts. The festival consists of a series of concerts, including symphonic music, ch ...

Decline

By 1961 the ''Berkshire'' was cut to a Friday north-bound run; the ''Litchfield'' operated as a Sunday evening route from Pittsfield to New York. The diner-lounge was eliminated by 1961 in favor of parlor cars. Finally, in 1968, the ''Berkshire'' name was dropped, and unnamed trains served the route until 1971 when the New Haven successor

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...

discontinued service on the line.New Haven timetable, May 12, 1968, Table 9

References

External links

A contemporary description of the route, in the section, 'THE HOUSATONIC RAILROAD'
{{NH named trains Named passenger trains of the United States Passenger trains of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Passenger rail transportation in Massachusetts Passenger rail transportation in Connecticut Passenger rail transportation in New York (state)