Haines Falls station

Last updated
Haines Falls
Haines corners station.jpg
Postcard of the former Haines Falls station
General information
Location Haines Falls, Greene County. New York
Tracks1
History
OpenedJune 1883 [1] [2]
ClosedJanuary 22, 1940 [3] [2]
Services
Preceding station New York Central Railroad Following station
Laurel House
toward Kaaterskill
Kaaterskill Branch Tannersville
toward Phoenicia
Ulster and Delaware Railroad Station
USA New York location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationNY 23A, Hamlet of Haines Falls, Hunter, New York
Coordinates 42°11′45″N74°5′29″W / 42.19583°N 74.09139°W / 42.19583; -74.09139
Area1.5 acres (0.61 ha)
Built1913
NRHP reference No. 96000861 [4]
Added to NRHPAugust 08, 1996

Haines Falls is an abandoned train station in Haines Falls, New York. It was owned by the Ulster and Delaware Railroad. The abandoned station was restored in 1999 and is one of two surviving U&D branch stations [5] . It is now the headquarters of the Mountain Top Historical Society. [6] It is also the start of the Kaaterskill Rail Trail, a scenic hiking trail along the former railway.

Contents

History

Kaaterskill Railroad

The station was owned by the narrow-gauge Kaaterskill Railroad, MP 6.6, and was one of the busiest stations on the line. It was called Haines Corners Station, as the town's original name was Haines Corners. It was very busy and was across from a boarding house. It was near a six-span bridge, called the Girder Deck Bridge, which was the largest structure on the railroad. It was right across from another station that was owned by another narrow-gauge railroad. The KRR station soon became a station that belonged to a standard-gauge railroad called the Ulster and Delaware, which turned the Kaaterskill Railroad into a branch, and combined it with a portion of another narrow-gauge railroad, called the Stony Clove and Catskill Mountain Railway.[ citation needed ]

Ulster and Delaware Railroad

The station, located at branch MP 18.4, wasn't changed during the period that pre-fabricated stations being erected in between the years of 1900 and 1901. However, the station was causing problems; as passenger trains grew the early 1910s, the State of New York was sending complaints that the station was too small for the town it was serving. In 1913, U&D finally gave in and tore the old station down, making way for a new one, a few hundred feet away.

This new station, branch MP 18.5, looked like the Tannersville station, but it didn't have the portico sticking out of the back. It was a full season passenger station until the New York Central purchased the U&D in 1932. This was when it became a summer-only station, with it being a flagstop in the other seasons. If a passenger were to get picked up at the station in another season, the business and income would be handled by the station agent at Tannersville.[ citation needed ]

But when the NYC was granted permission by the ICC to abandon the branches in 1939, and to scrap it in 1940, the station was abandoned. However, it was recently restored to perfect condition and painted blue. It is, at present, the headquarters of the Mountain Top Historical Society, and one of only two surviving U&D branch stations. [7]

In 2012, the Ulster & Delaware Railroad Historical Society donated 132 feet of 105lb rail to the Mountain Top Historical Society so that a display track could be built on the former railroad right-of-way besides the station.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996 as the Ulster and Delaware Railroad Station. [4]

Kaaterskill Rail Trail

In 2013, a hiking track called the Kaaterskill Rail Trail was completed. [8] The first phase was a 1.5 mile section between the Mountain Top Historical Society property and DEC land at the end of Laurel House Road. [9]  In 2016, further improvements were completed allowing visitors to travel from Haines Falls Station to the North/ South Lake Campground via the Rail Trail and the Escarpment Trail, with multiple views of Kaaterskill Falls accessible to the public. These upgrades also sought to improve safety at the falls, as a number of falling deaths have occurred in recent years. [10]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

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Hunter is a town located in Greene County, New York, United States. The population was 3,035 at the time of the 2020 census. The town contains two villages, one named Hunter on the west, and the second called Tannersville, as well as a number of hamlets such as Haines Falls, Platte Clove, Lanesville and Edgewood. Additionally, there are three residential parks location within town limits: Onteora Park, Twilight Park and Elka Park. The town is on the southern border of Greene County and abuts the towns of Woodstock and Saugerties, located in Ulster County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catskill Mountains</span> Mountains in southeastern New York State, U.S.

The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas close to or within the borders of the Catskill Park, a 700,000-acre (2,800 km2) forest preserve protected from many forms of development under New York state law.

The Ulster and Delaware Railroad (U&D) was a railroad located in the state of New York. It was often advertised as "The Only All-Rail Route to the Catskill Mountains." At its greatest extent, the U&D extended 107 miles (172 km) from Kingston Point on the Hudson River through the Catskill Mountains to its western terminus at Oneonta, passing through the counties of Ulster, Delaware, Schoharie and Otsego.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otis Elevating Railway</span> Narrow gauge cable funicular railroad

The Otis Elevating Railway was a 3 ft narrow gauge cable funicular railroad leading to the Catskill Mountain House in Palenville, New York. For the first 64 years of its existence, the Catskill Mountain House was accessible only by a long stagecoach from Catskill Landing on the Hudson. Faced with increased competition from the Hotel Kaaterskill, Charles Beach hired the Otis Elevator Company to build a cable funicular railroad straight up the Great Wall of Manitou. Opening on August 7, 1892, the line measured 7,000 ft (2,134 m) long with a rise of 1,630 ft (497 m), a maximum grade of 34%, and an average grade of 12%. In 1904, the line was shortened and the lower trestle eliminated.

Laurel House station, branch MP 18.5, was built as part of the three-foot gauge Kaaterskill Railroad, an extension of the Stony Clove and Catskill Mountain Railroad. It was built so passengers could stop there and take a carriage to the Laurel House, a hotel that was nearby. When it was built, it was anything but an actual station; in fact, it was nothing but a platform. When the Ulster and Delaware standard-gauged the railroad in 1899, it was replaced with an actual station. The branch it served would become an actual part of the railroad in 1903.

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Chichester station was the Ulster and Delaware Railroad's small station that served the village of Chichester, New York, branch MP 1.6. The old Chichester station was a lot like a small shack with a platform on it that was two miles away from the Phoenicia station, and 29.5 miles from Kingston Point. It had a nearby lumber shoot where wood would be delivered to the furniture factory across the creek. The old station burnt down in 1902, and was replaced with a shelter. It didn't generate much business, and was abandoned after the New York Central bought the U&D in 1932, and it was later scrapped.

Edgewood was a former train station for the New York Central Railroad in the hamlet of Edgewood, located in the town of Hunter, Greene County, New York, United States. Built by the Ulster and Delaware Railroad for its branches to Kaaterskill and Hunter, the station opened on September 28, 1881. The station, located 7.9 miles (12.7 km) from the junction at Phoenicia, closed on January 22, 1940.

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TannersvilleStation was a train station in Tannersville, New York operated by the Ulster and Delaware Railroad. It ceased operation in 1940 and was burned down on March 2, 1966.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haines Falls, New York</span> Hamlet in New York, United States

Haines Falls is a hamlet located east of Tannersville in the Town of Hunter, in Greene County, New York, United States. Haines Falls is located at 42°11′45″N74°5′49″W. The hamlet of Haines Falls was always a mountain resort town, unlike Hunter and Palenville which had tanneries. Haines Falls is at the head of Kaaterskill Clove and is the former site of the Catskill Mountain House, Kaaterskill Hotel, and Laurel House which sat atop the famous Kaaterskill Falls. In 1825, Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painters, did his first Catskill mountain paintings in Haines Falls: Lake with Dead Trees at South Lake and the Kaaterskill Falls.

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References

  1. Hibbard, F.B. (July 3, 1883). "Kaaterskill Railroad". The New York Tribune. p. 6. Retrieved May 6, 2021 via Newspapers.com. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  2. 1 2 Interstate Commerce Commission 1940, p. 156.
  3. "Mountain Branches Allowed to Suspend". The Kingston Daily Freeman. January 22, 1940. p. 1. Retrieved May 6, 2021 via Newspapers.com. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  4. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  5. "History of the MTHS – MTHS" . Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  6. "MTHS - MTHS Through the Years". mths.org. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  7. John A. Bonafide (May 1996). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Ulster and Delaware Railroad Station". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation . Retrieved 2010-05-08.See also: "Accompanying nine photos".
  8. New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. "Kaaterskill Rail Trail in the Catskill Mountains". New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. Retrieved 27 June 2023.
  9. Senterman, Jeff (2016-10-21). "Kaaterskill Rail Trail in the Catskill Mountains". New York - New Jersey Trail Conference. Retrieved 2022-08-19.
  10. "Kaaterskill Falls safety, public access improvements completed". Daily Freeman. 2016-11-24. Retrieved 2023-06-28.