Poughkeepsie Bridge Route
The Poughkeepsie Bridge Route was a passenger train route from Washington, D.C. to Boston, Massachusetts, via Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The route specifically avoided the Port of New York, due to the lack of a rail crossing of North River (Hudson River). Instead it passed over the Poughkeepsie Bridge at Poughkeepsie, New York. Its Boston terminus at North Station, an advantage allowing for a direct transfer to Boston and Maine Railroad lines to the north.
The Federal Express later used a similar route for several years in the 1910s, but ran via Trenton, New Jersey and New Haven, Connecticut.
The route used the following companies' lines:
- Baltimore and Ohio Railroad - Washington to Philadelphia
- Philadelphia and Reading Railroad - Philadelphia to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (via the North Pennsylvania Railroad)
- Central Railroad of New Jersey - Bethlehem to Easton, Pennsylvania
- Lehigh and Hudson River Railway - Easton to Maybrook, New York
- Central New England and Western Railroad - Maybrook to Simsbury, Connecticut
- New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad - Simsbury to Northampton, Massachusetts (via the New Haven and Northampton Company)
- Boston and Maine Railroad - Northampton to Boston (North Station) (via the former Central Massachusetts Railroad)
The route was only used from 1890 to 1893, after which operating patterns changed.[1] Parts of the route near the Poughkeepsie Bridge have been converted to rail trails; the Hudson Valley Rail Trail to the west, and the Dutchess Rail Trail to the east. The closure of the bridge to rail traffic after a 1974 fire eliminated the route and created the Selkirk hurdle.