The reason for the Newburgh Branch (Greycourt to Newburgh) was to get Pennsylvania coal to and across the Hudson River to power hungry New England via floats to the New York & New England. New England products could then flow back but, if headed for New York City, they faced a bit of a detour to Greycourt and then back on the Erie main line : thus, the Newburgh Short Line (or Cut), from Harriman (Newburgh Junction ["NJ"]) to Vails Gate. Later, the Graham Line was built to avoid the curvrs and grades of the main line through Middletown. It started climbing at NJ and, by Woodbury, was higher than the alignment of the old Newburgh cutoff. You can see a bit of the old ROW from the Thruway, but don't look if you're the driver. Then, throw in the proposed tunnel to the Hudson at Bear Mountain to meet the proposed bridge to Anthony's Nose, and you can see what a hotspot it might have been. The CNE bridge at Poughkeepsie took care of most of that. Randy Brown - -------------------------------------------------------------- Jerome, I can't tell you the purpose of having built 2 Newburgh Branch alignments, except maybe to keep the railfans happy in later years(LOL). . .. Ray </HTML> The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org To Unsubscribe: http://lists.elhts.org/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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