New York's Most Remote Train Line

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@ocsrc 3 ай бұрын

Port Jervis used to have lines on both sides of the Delaware River running on the NY side and the PA side. In the 70s and 80s I watched trains every day on both sides. In addition to the 2 lines, there was a massive yard in Port Jervis and across the bridge in Milford PA and in NJ, there was a yard in the town that was right across the bridge in NJ. The Port Jervis area is actually 3 towns in 3 states Milford PA, Port Jervis NY and the town in NJ I can't remember. Tracks ran out of this area in every direction. Lines ran up through the Suffern area and up through the lower Catskills, and up to Newburgh and Kingston and west through NY to Schoharie Valley. And there was passenger service every day. It is hard to imagine what America used to be like in the 1950s Butt for instance let's say you lived in round Lake New York which is west of Mechanicville and south of Saratoga springs you could catch the DNH passenger train service that ran multiple times a day and take that train to Mechanicville and from there you could go east to Massachusetts or you could continue South into Albany New York and from there you could take the D&H throughout New York State and down through Binghamton and into Pennsylvania all the way down to Bethlehem or Allentown In Allentown at Emmaus junction you could take the reading on the perkiomen branch and that Branch ran all the way down into Philadelphia but it also serviced all of the little towns between Allentown and Philadelphia So if you wanted to take a trip and visit someone and let's say you lived in the little town of round Lake New York you could take your suitcase and walk a couple hundred feet to the train station and take the D&H to the MOH yard end through Binghamton to Allentown and take the reading on the perkiomen branch and if you were going to East Greenville to visit someone you could get off a few blocks from their house The entire country was like this that you could go almost from any town to any other town by passenger rail In the Albany New York rail station you had the Delaware & Hudson, the New York Central, the Penn Central, and once in awhile you would have another railroad that would run through there like the Troy Schenectady or the hoosic valley And in Allentown at the rail station you had Penn Central New York Central the Delaware and Hudson the reading railroad the Lehigh Valley railroad and several other Short line Railroads, all providing passenger rail service every day In the town that I live right now the train tracks end in the town but back in the 70s the tracks were still double track and in town they were four tracks and the passenger rail service ran every day multiple times and the trains would constantly be going back and forth with one track dedicated for northbound and the other track dedicated for southbound There were not highways like there are now In the 70s and even now if you travel the back roads like if you travel route 7 from Schenectady to Binghamton that used to be the only way to get from the Capital District area of New York to Binghamton and that road was 30 mph and it took 8 hours to drive that road that now i-88 replaces and you can get to Binghamton in less than 3 hours but every 30 me there would be a motel and the reason why was because it took an hour to drive that 30 miles and people would be traveling and you would get tired and you would find a motel that had a vacancy and you stopped and most of the time these motels had a restaurant and a bar that was built into them so it was a One-Stop place that you could rest sleep eat and relax at the bar and not have to go looking for anything else and some of these places even had a little store we're not just a soda machine and a bag of chips but they had actual little stores in the office where you could buy dry goods and ready-made food So when you left in the morning after you had breakfast at the restaurant you would have a piece of fruit and maybe some cookies and maybe even a sandwich that you bought at the restaurant that you could be traveling and not have to stop and eat as you were driving and there wasn't GPS I remember so many years of having maps not just the big maps of the state with the main roads but having the giant books of the counties with every single Street where each page you would fold out and it would have every street and there would be an index with the street names and then a letter and a number to allow you to find that street and what page was on It was a big deal to travel and AAA and travel agencies there used to be companies actual businesses that were travel agencies that when you needed to travel somewhere you would go in and they would book a motel room for you and they would get train tickets for you and plane tickets and they would make all the reservations and they would have the maps and they would highlight the routes and they would have turned by turn directions One of my best friends her life went to hell because of the internet and her whole life was being a travel agent and she would plan people's trips and when the internet came around in the mid-90s there was no need for her business any longer Other people that I knew that worked for the phone company I remember the strike of 1995 there used to be operators hundreds of people in each town in the central offices that you would call information to find somebody's name and their phone number and their address and hundreds of thousands of operators when the internet came out the phone company knew that people weren't going to pay to call information anymore and the phone company wanted to get rid of all of the people and they were Union employees and they had their contract up for renewal and the phone company said we're taking away all your benefits and we're cutting your pay to minimum wage and the phone company employees went on strike and they were on strike for a year and the phone company never wanted any of them back Technology is great but it destroys so many industries All of those little motels where people invested their lives and people relied on them for decades and once the highways were built those businesses went out of business Interstate 88 is a very interesting highway in that no one really ever uses it The reason that it exists is that the senator that was from Binghamton was so angry that it would take him 8 hours or moreat the Capitol to his home in Binghamton And he pushed so hard and he did so many things to force the state to build interstate 88 and it was a massive undertaking to build that highway I remember when they were building the Schoharie Valley portion they brought in thousands of trucks every week with giant boulders and just kept dumping them in to fill in the giant spaces to bring the level up to where they could actually put a road Route 7 followed the creek right next to it all the way down to Binghamton basically on the flood plain because there isn't anywhere to put a road But I remember before i-88 was planned and then when it was planned and surveyed and I remember it being built the whole thing from start to finish

@honajtransit 3 ай бұрын

thank you for all this information, i think this is the longest comment i’ve ever received, well done!

@Jorge-lh6px 3 ай бұрын

Wow, reading this gave me a bit of a nostalgic feeling. When I lived in the UK, it felt amazing being able to reach nearly every destination by rail. Never did I have to drive, all I had to simply do was arrive at my station and the train would be waiting for me.

@bugradio 3 ай бұрын

As soon as I saw the title, I knew where you were going! Though it's been a few year's since I've done it, that line out of Middletown was my primary way to get in and out of the city. Brought back some memories, thanks!

@BrianNeal 3 ай бұрын

Wowz you jumped across the big pond and back again! Very nice information. You mentioned Dunkirk. I was there 3 years watching trains! Really loved the long tressle you got to see! Keep on riding!

@gavinmulcahy5794 3 ай бұрын

thank you for these videos and keep at it!

@victorharderson8782 3 ай бұрын

I will definitely need to do this run one day.. a great ride with beautiful scenery Great video as usual

@tommyhaynes9157 3 ай бұрын

I've done that ride a million times , I live near Middletown

@glowingfish 3 ай бұрын

This looks like it could be an intercity rail. I know you are busy but I hope you get a chance to do some LD Amtrak soon.

@owen-i6y4g 3 ай бұрын

Will you make any septa videos?

@honajtransit 3 ай бұрын

i’ve made a few in the past, and i will definitely be back in philly at some point!

@johnkolassa1645 3 ай бұрын

Nice video. If you get the opportunity, I'd like to hear more about the NJT/MTA deal.

@adambuesser6264 3 ай бұрын

What are the other remote train lines in every state?

@honajtransit 3 ай бұрын

i don't know *every* state's most remote line, but for the NY/boston areas, i'd say: CT is the Danbury Branch NJ is the outer RVL or the Gladstone Branch MA is the outer Franklin Line or maybe the OC lines

@thesuperharrisonchannel4310 3 ай бұрын

On Friday I was supposed to go on Amtrak use last to go to Portland Maine but they canceled the morning train? I don’t know if there is a different train at that time

@honajtransit 3 ай бұрын

not sure if you meant to comment this on a different video (as this is about a train in NY!) but that doesn’t sound very fun, hope you made it!

@qazatqazah 3 ай бұрын

It would be really helpful if you could show a map of where you're going in your video's.

@acbenepe 3 ай бұрын

So many memories of that trestle bridge off Schunemunk mountain. Please forgive this one, i was kid, I finished my pee before the first drop hit the ground. Another time our mutt was standing in the middle of the tracks as a freight was flying in. My mom and I were both begging her from either side of the tracks. She ambled to one side or the other with seconds to spare. Spoiler, lived at least a dozen more years.