A Ghost Railway Line In The Bronx

When I was a kid in Yonkers, the section between Van Cortlandt Park and Lawrence Street was called “the tracks” even though the trains, tracks and the Lowerre Station were long gone.

Hi,

The Putnam Line ran through my hometown, Briarcliff Manor. While the rail bed was still there, and the occasional work train would barrel through, it was not a working commuter line later than say the late 50s? The station became the town library and the right of way is now a poplar bicycle path in Westchester. As usual, thanks four your cool posts.

Mike Scully

I love this trail and have walked it many times, especially in the spring. If you take it to the Yonkers border, you can (carefully) climb a hill up near McClean Ave and get a coffee and Danish at the 7-Eleven nearby.

BTW, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt died in 1877 and was buried in an elaborate tomb near his Staten Island birthplace, so I doubt he had anything to do with picking out the stones for the current (1913) version of Grand Central. Unless he did so from the grave which, knowing him, may have been entirely possible!

Van Cortland Park is a historic place. Back in the late nineteen-fifties, my buddy and I found a revolutionary-era brass bullet mold poking out of the ground. I later learned that troops had camped there.

In the 1970s, I used to hop freight trains right there. Since I live near the park, I often run or hike there. That stretch of trail always has the strangest people there. It’s quite strange – maybe it’s the Commodore taking different forms.

these tracks were operational past 1980 Metro north used to store some work trains near stella dora’s , also behind the westchester county bee line depot used to sit an old rail car on those tracks and even in westchester further north the tracks were still visible. I’m only 41 btw lol

The “Old Put” was an interesting railroad to say the least! It was originally going to go from The Bronx all the way to Montreal (!) but the Panic of 1873 derailed any thought of that so it just made it to Brewster, NY to connect to Boston and the NYC Harlem Line at Putnam Jct. BTW, it is interesting that about 10 miles of graded but never laid rails existed from Carmel to Holmes, NY on it’s roundabout way north and went through Lake Carmel.

Joe Schiavone wrote some nice historical books on the Old Put and archival movies are surfacing due to increased historical interest in what was this railroad.

Last commuter run on entire Putnam was May 1958. Last through freight was in Sept. 1962. Putnam line was dismantled in pieces. Middle of it taken out after Sept. 1962 from Eastview to Mahopac. Mahopac to Carmel removed in 1969. I remember the Upper Putnam when Penn Central was killing it that ran from Mahopac to Brewster with the odd small extra freight rumbling along no faster than 10-15 MPH. Carmel to Brewster removed in 1973 but the last revenue run was in March 1970. Chauncey (south of Ardsley) to Eastview abandoned in 1977 with tracks removed later for the rail trail. Chauncey to Van Cortlandt was removed in 1983(?).

All that is left of the Put is very short stubs existing in the Bronx and in Brewster as a turning wye.

It’s a pretty rail trail now. Very scenic. It is not a straight or a flat railbed: it’s hilly for a former railroad and winds almost roundabout, especially in Putnam County.

It’s a shame in a way it was abandoned when it was. It could have even been rebuilt to be a decent commuter railroad. Folks in Mahopac and Yorktown Heights, for instance, would have an easy commute in to GCT just by throwing a switch at Marble Hill. Or they could have connected to the Harlem line near Hawthorne.

The Putnam Line intrigued me from the time I was a young child. When I was a young boy riding in the car on the Saw Mill River Parkway, I wondered about the railroad track alongside the Saw Mill River Parkway. One time I saw a train on it when I went ice skating at Woodlands and this must have been late in 1968 or early in 1969. When I got a little older, my father told me that those railroad tracks where the New York Central Putnam division and that passenger service ended a number of years ago at the time. In time, I found that the Putnam division went to the Bronx and I first laid eyes on the Van Cortlandt Park station in 1977. Even at that time, only the skeleton of the canopy remained though it was in a little better shape than it is now and there were still tracks in place. I saw a train run through Van Cortlandt Park in April 1979 pulled by locomotive 9955. A few years later the last train ran on the Putnam Line. I finally got a taste of the Putnam Line in late October 1991 when I rode my bicycle on the portion from Eastview to a point a short distance north of the Hawthorne interchange which must have been near the Graham Hill station. Then when a substantial portion of the South County Trailway was opened, I rode my bicycle from Farragut Ave. in Hastings to a point near the Ardsley station. Even to this day, the path still has some remaining evidence that it once was a railroad. You’ll still see the occasional telegraph pole. There are remnants of the station at Mt. Hope in Hastings-on-Hudson. One of the more interesting remnants of the Putnam Line is in the vicinity of the Tarrytown Heights station. The line ran behind some of the buildings of the former Marymount College (now EF school). It looks like the embankment was specifically built for a railroad. The Tarrytown Heights station was where the skating shed now stands.