Dry Brook & Esopus Valley RR

Dry Brook & Esopus Valley RR

The Dry Brook and Esopus Valley branch was originally chartered as the Hudson & Western in 1885, as a way to connect the port towns on the east end of the Esopus Valley with the hamlets to the west. The 150 mile main line stretched from the eastern edge of the river valley, westward through challenging mountain grades to reach the lush farm lands and small cities to the west.

The early days of operations consisted of westbound coal and general merchandise from the ports in the valley with eastbound return trips consisting of milk, livestock, grain and feed to be shipped at port. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s when passenger service began.

Passengers would arrive on the east end via nearby rail interchanges as well as river boats and ships from big cities along the river. In the early years before the grandiose mountain houses were constructed, passengers were transported to various vacation homes in the mountain hamlets. Passenger service boomed in the pre-war days which necessitated double tracking several sections through the valley. A large station was erected at the interchange in midtown Esopus to interchange passengers.

Once passenger service began to dwindle in the post war days, the railroad was absorbed by the New York Central who operated the line with mostly freight and limited passenger service. By the early 1950’s passenger service ended and much of the double tracking was no longer necessary.

Freight began to decline in the mid 60’s and by the time Penn Central took over there was only a small handful of customers along the western end of the branch. The line east of the interchange was only used once a week to serve one customer at the port and PC had plans to abandon the line as soon as possible. The large station in Esopus burned down in ‘67.

Conrail took over in ‘77 and within a year the line was formally abandoned. The interchange was paved over quickly to make way for new construction in the area and the diamond was pulled to save maintenance costs. In the haste of doing so, a lone Penn Central RS-1 was left landlocked on the branch.

In the early 1980’s a handful of locals showed interest in reactivating the line for limited freight and tourist operations. By 1987 a contract was signed and the Dry Brook and Esopus Valley railroad was born. Rehabilitation of the track was done by hand by a crew of volunteers for the first two years. Brush and garbage debris made up most of the obstacles needing to be cleared as far as MP 9.5 but further funding and heavy machines were needed to rehab the line at the beginning of the grade into the mountains. The line was opened to Fleishmann’s by the winter of 1991 and operations could begin at the quarry.

The DBEV owners knew they needed equipment and were prepared to work with the minimum needed. They utilized the PC RS-1 for MOW work with intentions for it to be their main power but quickly realized one RS-1 wasn’t enough to handle heavy gravel trains down the grade into the valley. They quickly made arraignments with Conrail to purchase two older units, the GP9 and SW1500 for freight use. Conrail threw in an old caboose to sweeten the deal.

Initially the railroad had plans to reactivate up to 50% of the full line west of the interchange for tourist excursions. But a large storm in the spring of 1992 washed out the bridge at MP 17.3 as well as a section along the bend at MP 10.5. Funding to repair the washout at MP 10.5 was secured quickly so service to Fleishmanns Gravel could continue. But the washout at MP 17.3 was marked as a lesser priority and there are no plans to secure funding to repair the bridge until track is restored for passenger service to Felishmann’s station. At present (1992) the railroad is still operating in the red so much of the trackage is considered just good enough to operate shorter trains at slow speeds.

This route was built by YouTuber, ApproachMedium over the course of 20 episodes. You can watch the series here, https://youtu.be/W5duEhtxU3U

Dry Brook & Esopus Valley RR
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