The New York and Putnam Railroad, nicknamed the Old Put, was a railroad line that operated between

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

and Brewster in

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

. It was in close proximity to the

Hudson River Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...

and New York and Harlem Railroad. All three came under ownership of the New York Central system in 1894. The railroad was abandoned starting in 1958, and most of the former roadbed has been converted to rail trail use.

History

Early years, charter

The New York & Boston Railroad (NY&B) was chartered on May 21, 1869 to build a line from Highbridge on the

Harlem River The Harlem River is an tidal strait in New York, United States, flowing between the Hudson River and the East River and separating the island of Manhattan from the Bronx on the New York mainland. The northern stretch, also called the Spuyt ...

in New York northeast to Brewster. At Brewster connections were to be provided to the

New York & Harlem Railroad The New York and Harlem Railroad (now the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line) was one of the first railroads in the United States, and was the world's first street railway. Designed by John Stephenson, it was opened in stages between 1832 and ...

for travel north to Albany, and to the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. The New York, Boston & Northern Railway (NYB&N) was formed on November 18, 1872, as a consolidation of the NY&B with two companies to the north — the Putnam & Dutchess Railroad (P&D) and Dutchess & Columbia Railroad (D&C). The P&D was a plan for a line to split from the New York and Boston at Carmel to a point midway along the D&C. The D&C opened in 1871, running from the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

to the

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

border. The Clove Branch Railroad was to serve as a short connection between the two parts of the planned line. The New York, Boston & Montreal Railway was organized on January 21, 1873, as a renaming of the NYB&N. It continued north to Chatham on what is now the defunct section of the

Harlem Line The Metro-North Railroad Harlem Line, originally chartered as the New York and Harlem Railroad, is an commuter rail line running north from New York City to Wassaic, in eastern Dutchess County. The lower from Grand Central Terminal to Sou ...

and then used the Harlem Extension Railroad into

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

. The

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the ...

caused the cancellation of the leases and mergers on December 1 of that year. Construction on the P&D and D&C stopped; D&C later became part of the

Central New England Railway The Central New England Railway was a railroad from Hartford, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, west across northern Connecticut and across the Hudson River on the Poughkeepsie Bridge to Maybrook, New York. It was part of the Poughkee ...

, the Harlem Extension became a part of the

Rutland Railroad The Rutland Railroad was a railroad in the northeastern United States, located primarily in the state of Vermont but extending into the state of New York at both its northernmost and southernmost ends. After its closure in 1961, parts of the ...

, and the Clove Branch Railroad was abandoned in 1898. The New York, Westchester & Putnam Railway was formed on July 3, 1877, as a reorganization, and was leased to the New York City & Northern Railroad (NYC&N), formed on March 1, 1878. Between East View and

Pocantico Hills Pocantico Hills is a hamlet in the Westchester County town of Mount Pleasant, New York, United States. The Rockefeller family estate, anchored by Kykuit, the family seat built by John D. Rockefeller Sr., is located in Pocantico Hills, as is the a ...

, the NYC&N built a segment leading to a perilous 80-foot-high trestle over a marsh-filled valley. Because of the dangers of crossing the bridge, which often required that trains slow down to a crawl, the line was rerouted west around that valley in 1881. The bridge was torn down in 1883, and the valley became the

Tarrytown Reservoir The Tarrytown Reservoir is an storage reservoir in Tarrytown, New York. It was completed in 1897 by the Village of Tarrytown as the village's main storage reservoir. The reservoir was formed by the Tarrytown Waterworks Dam which impounded a tribut ...

. The line finally opened under the original plan, ending at Brewster, in April 1881. That year, the New York & New England Railroad opened to the north, using some of the grade built for the P&D and D&C. The West Side & Yonkers Railway was leased to the NYC&N on May 1, 1880, extending the line south across the Harlem River to the northern terminal of the Ninth Avenue Elevated at 155th Street. It was merged into the NYC&N by 1887. In the 1910s, the

Interborough Rapid Transit Company The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) was the private operator of New York City's original underground subway line that opened in 1904, as well as earlier elevated railways and additional rapid transit lines in New York City. The IRT ...

(IRT) of the New York City Subway purchased the bridge across the Harlem River to move its elevated lines north into

, cutting the NYP back to Sedgwick Avenue. The Yonkers Rapid Transit Railway was opened in 1888 as a branch from the NYP at Van Cortlandt northwest to

Yonkers Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York (state), New York, after New York City and Buffalo, New York, Buffalo. The popul ...

. It was merged into NYP by 1887.

Reorganization and decline

The company went into receivership by 1887 and was reorganized as the New York & Northern Railway. By 1894 it was reorganized as the New York & Putnam Railroad (NY&P) by

J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...

, who in turn leased the railroad to the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad (NYC&HR). The line eventually became the Putnam Division of the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...

(NYC) by 1913. The line lacked a direct connection to NYC's flagship station, Grand Central Terminal (GCT), which hurt ridership throughout its existence. Passengers were forced to transfer at Highbridge to reach GCT. The Sedgwick Avenue-Van Cortlandt section and the Yonkers Branch were electrified in 1926. Several short branches were eliminated after the 1920s. The Mohansic Branch near Yorktown Heights, originally built to serve a mental institution that was canceled by Albany, went first. In 1929, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. had the tracks removed from his Pocantico Hills property, eliminating four stations while creating one. The nearby village of East View was obliterated to build the new line. The Getty Square Branch was abandoned on June 30, 1943. Despite a legal battle by Yonkers residents which reached the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

to save it, the line was scrapped in December 1944. The first diesel locomotive passenger train in the U.S. ran on the Putnam on March 18, 1929. Besides the regular Sedgwick Avenue–Brewster service, service also operated from Golden's Bridge on the Harlem Division via a connecting branch to Lake Mahopac, and then over the Putnam Division to Brewster, where it returned to the Harlem Division. Trains taking this route were said to go "around the horn".

End of service

NYC saw the Putnam Division as a dispensable stepchild. The line lacked a second track, electrification, commuter parking and direct service to GCT, all of which the parallel

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

and Hudson Divisions had, resulting in declining patronage. In 1956, the New York Central asked for permission to discontinue service on the line. On May 14, 1957, the Public Service Commission allowed a 15 percent increase in fares, but required that service be run on the Putnam Division on a limited basis. On March 12, 1958, the Public Service Commission authorized the NYC to end passenger service on the Putnam on June 1, 1958. At the time, the line had less than 500 daily riders, and discontinuing the line was expected to save $400,000 annually. The last trains ran on May 29, 1958, as there was no weekend service on the line. Service "around the horn" via the Harlem Division's Lake Mahopac Branch continued until April 2, 1959. Until 1962, when NYC's

West Shore Railroad The West Shore Railroad was the final name of a railroad that ran from Weehawken, New Jersey, on the west bank of the Hudson River opposite New York City, north to Albany, New York, and then west to Buffalo. It was organized as a competitor ...

was upgraded, the Putnam served oversize freight trains, due to the lack of tunnels on the line. Tracks between East View and Lake Mahopac were removed in 1962. NYC merged with long-time rival Pennsylvania Railroad to form

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

(PC) in 1968. Freight service on the northern part of the Putnam ended in March 1970. The southern end of the line remained in service until the closing of the A&P warehouse in Elmsford, in 1975. The decrease in traffic from Stauffer Chemical cut back the line to Chauncey by 1977. Conrail took over the bankrupt PC in April 1976, but had no plans for increasing business. The last customer was the Stella D'Oro bakery in the Bronx, which stopped using the railroad in 1989, after which Conrail wanted to sell the right-of-way to the city and Westchester to reduce its tax bill. In 1991, the

Regional Plan Association The Regional Plan Association is an independent, not-for-profit regional planning organization, founded in 1922, that focuses on recommendations to improve the quality of life and economic competitiveness of a 31-county New York–New Jersey– ...

proposed extending the line and connecting it with the

IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line The IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (also known as the IRT Seventh Avenue Line or the IRT West Side Line) is a New York City Subway line. It is one of several lines that serves the A Division, stretching from South Ferry in Lower Manhatta ...

() of the New York City Subway.

Legacy

The Metro-North Railroad uses the remaining stub near Marble Hill station to store maintenance-of-way and contractors' trains, and for material delivery in the vicinity of West 225th Street. The roadbed north of the former Van Cortlandt station has been converted into the Putnam Greenway, South County Trailway,

North County Trailway The North County Trailway is a long paved rail trail stretching from Eastview to Baldwin Place in Westchester County, New York. It is also part of the statewide Empire State Trail. History and route The North County Trailway was constructe ...

, and Putnam County Trailway rail trails. A replica of the former Bryn Mawr Park station at the former Palmer Road grade crossing is in use as a grocery. The station in

Briarcliff Manor Briarcliff Manor () is a suburban village in Westchester County, New York, north of New York City. It is on of land on the east bank of the Hudson River, geographically shared by the towns of Mount Pleasant and Ossining. Briarcliff Manor inc ...

was purchased by the village in 1959 and converted into the Briarcliff Manor Public Library. The station in Elmsford serves as a restaurant. The Yorktown Heights station had its exterior restored and is the centerpiece of the town park. The station in Lake Mahopac has been an American Legion Hall since 1965. The freight house in Baldwin Place and the station in Tilly Foster are on private property. The Getty Square Branch still shows evidence of its existence, with vestiges of the railroad and stations, and neighborhoods exhibiting characteristics of

transit-oriented development In urban planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. It promotes a symbiotic relationship between ...

. Getty Square station, originally a

head house A head house or headhouse may be an enclosed building attached to an open-sided shed, or the aboveground part of a subway station. Markets In the 18th and early 19th centuries, head houses were often civic buildings such as town halls or courtho ...

and

train shed A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. Its primary purpose is to store and protect from the elements train car ...

, was replaced by an office building, which still stands and is ornamented on its exterior and in its lobby with images of

locomotives A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the ...

. The -long right-of-way is part of the trail system in

Van Cortlandt Park Van Cortlandt Park is a park located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. Owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it is managed with assistance from the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance. The park, the city's third-lar ...

, including the bridge that carried the branch over the

Henry Hudson Parkway The Henry Hudson Parkway is a parkway in New York City. The southern terminus is in Manhattan at 72nd Street, where the parkway continues south as the West Side Highway. It is often erroneously referred to as the West Side Highway throughout i ...

. Old railroad ties can be found along the right-of-way. The right-of-way within New York City ends at a parking garage for an apartment building in Yonkers. To the north of the apartment building, another parking lot was built. The bridge over the adjacent street was walled-in where the ROW used to pass underneath. Abutments of the former branch can be found at School Street across from Herriott Street, McLean Avenue near South Broadway, and the former Lowerre Station on Lawrence Street at Western Avenue. The former Caryl Station on Caryl Avenue between Saratoga and Van Cortlandt Park Avenues, with the tunnel into Van Cortlandt Park walled-off by cinder blocks, is now the Caryl parking lot and playground. A lot of the intrusions on the branch were from the expansion of outside storage from adjacent industries, which broke up the right-of-way in many places, especially in Yonkers. Private homes that once served the branch include the termini houses of the Park Hill station's adjacent

funicular A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite e ...

, on Undercliff at Park Hill Terrace, and on Alta AvenuePark Hill Upper Station; 2000 Walter Hahn Photograph (Existing stations in Westchester County, New York)
/ref> north of Overcliff, and the home of the railroad's president, also on Alta Avenue. North from the Yonkers-New York City boundary, the path of the route generally follows the path of the

Saw Mill River Parkway The Saw Mill River Parkway (also known as the Saw Mill Parkway or the Saw Mill) is a north–south parkway that extends for through Westchester County, New York, in the United States. It begins at the border between Westchester County and the Bro ...

until it reaches East Irvington.

Image gallery

File:Van Cortlandt station NYWP skelton cloudy jeh.jpg, Skeletal remains of Van Cortlandt station File:Mile 6 Old Put jeh.JPG, Milepost 6 located in Van Cortlandt Park; former railbed on left File:Bryn Mawr grocery jeh.JPG, Bryn Mawr Park station replica in 2007 File:Former Yorktown Heights, NY, railroad station.jpg, Yorktown Heights station, listed on

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

File:20 South Broadway in Getty Square, in Yonkers, NY, former Putnam RR station.jpg, Getty Square Terminus Station Building, 20 South Broadway, Yonkers, NY File:BriarcliffOutlook4 (2014).png, The

station, now part of the village library File:BMNYC 2020 at Croton trailway bridge jeh.jpg, Bridge over Croton Reservoir

Station listing

Main Line

NOTE: Stations along pre-1918 Manhattan terminus and pre-1931 Tarrytown Heights alignment are shaded in darker gray.

Branches

Getty Square Branch

Mohansic Branch

Mahopac Mines Branch

Lake Mahopac Branch

References

External links

Timeline of Putnam Division events

Old Putnam Line Blogs (Rich's Pedal Point)

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20191231120050/http://ny.existingstations.com/counties/Westchester.html Westchester County Existing Stations: has pictures of old Put stations. {{DEFAULTSORT:New York Putnam Railroad Predecessors of the New York Central Railroad Defunct New York (state) railroads Railway companies established in 1894 Railway companies disestablished in 1913 1869 establishments in New York (state) 1894 establishments in New York (state) American companies established in 1894 Subdivisions of the New York Central Railroad