Rye station is a

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

stop on the

Metro-North Railroad Metro-North Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a New York State public benefit corporations, public authority of the U.S. state of New Yor ...

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 ...

, located in the city of

Rye, New York Rye is a coastal suburb of New York City in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is separate from the Town of Rye, which has more land area than the city. The City of Rye, formerly the Village of Rye, was part of the Town until it r ...

History

Railroad service through Rye dates back to the 1840s when the

New York and New Haven Railroad The New York and New Haven Railroad (NY&NH) was a railroad connecting New York City to New Haven, Connecticut, along the shore of Long Island Sound. It opened in 1849, and in 1872 it merged with the Hartford & New Haven Railroad to form the New ...

laid tracks through the town and the city. The NY&NH was merged into the

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 ...

in 1872. In 1907 the main line was electrified through a major power plant across the state line in

Cos Cob Cos Cob is a neighborhood and census-designated place in the town of Greenwich, Connecticut. It is located on the Connecticut shoreline in southern Fairfield County. It had a population of 6,770 at the 2010 census. Cos Cob is located on the west ...

built by Westinghouse. Beginning on July 1, 1928, Rye became the northeastern terminus of the New Haven Railroad's affiliate, the

New York, Westchester and Boston Railway The New York, Westchester and Boston Railway Company (NYW&B, also known to its riders as "the Westchester" and colloquially as the "Boston-Westchester"), was an electric commuter railroad in the Bronx and Westchester County, New York from 1912 t ...

, on a separate platform from the rest of the station. By December 7, 1929 the line was extended to

Port Chester Port Chester is a village in the U.S. state of New York and the largest part of the town of Rye in Westchester County by population. At the 2010 U.S. census, the village of Port Chester had a population of 28,967 and was the fifth-most popul ...

and Rye served as the penultimate stop on the Port Chester Branch. The NYW&B station closed on October 31, 1937, and the New Haven removed the rails in 1940. The

New England Thruway Interstate 95 (I-95) is part of the Interstate Highway System and runs from Miami, Florida, to the Canada–United States border near Houlton, Maine. In the U.S. state of New York, I-95 extends from the George Washington Bridge in New Y ...

was built on the site of the NYW&B station during the 1950s. As with all New Haven Line stations in Westchester County, the station became a

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 ...

station upon acquisition by Penn Central Railroad in 1969. The station was updated in 1972 from low-level to high-level platforms. This was done to accommodate the arrival of new rail cars known then as Cosmopolitans, now more commonly known as M2s. The new cars did not include boarding steps, or traps, as their predecessor 4400 Pullman "Washboard" cars did, and could only board passengers at stations with high-level platforms. The update was done in two phases, with the eastern half of the station upgraded first; then the western half. Due to the railroad's continuous financial despair throughout the 1970s, they were forced to turn over their commuter service to the

Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the New York City metropolitan area of the U.S. state of New York. The MTA is the largest public transit authority in th ...

. For many years, Rye was the eastern Westchester County station for

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

, with trains such as the '' Connecticut Yankee'' and '' Mail Express''. MTA transferred the station to Metro-North in 1983, and Amtrak moved to

New Rochelle New Rochelle (; older french: La Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state. In 2020, the city had a population of 79,726, making it the seventh-largest in the state of ...

in October 1987.

Station layout

The station has two high-level

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms ...

s each 10 cars long. As of August 2006, weekday commuter ridership was 2,470, and there are 696 parking spots.

Bibliography

References

External links

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Station from Google Maps Street View
{{Amtrak New York stations Metro-North Railroad stations in New York (state) Stations on the Northeast Corridor Stations along New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad lines Former Amtrak stations in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Rye, New York Railway stations in Westchester County, New York Railway stations in the United States opened in 1848