L&HR Warwick to Maybrook

One of L&HR's vintage, light service, 2-8-0 camelbacks rolls away from the coal dock after filling its tender bunker at the L&HR's Warwick Engine Terminal (click for track diagram). A glimpse of the roundhouse, which was consumed by fire later in 1952, is available to the left of the locomotive as is the roof of the incongruously large, modern, back-shop. L&HR No. 63, 52, and 60 were kept on the roster until dieselization to handle local freights on the east end of the system and to performed switching jobs at New Jersey Zinc Co.'s mines at Franklin, NJ. Oddly enough, up until the abandonment of L&HR passenger service in 1939, these small consolidation type locomotives shared passenger chores with equally vintage 4-6-0 camelbacks. - northwest view, June 18, 1950 - Howard E. Johnston

The L&HR Service Train had vintage equipment. The radial roof coach behind the fish-belly, under-frame, box car summons back to the nineteenth century era of balloon stacks and cord wood fuel. The train is parked on one of the stub sidings north of Warwick engine terminal's turntable. - northwest view, October 31, 1936 - Howard E. Johnston

The contemporary engine terminal at Warwick opened in 1910 and replaced a smaller facility that had been situated closer to town (a short distance east of the new terminal). The large steam locomotive back-shop seemed disproportionately large for the number of locomotives the L&HR operated. When the L&HR retired their remaining steam engines during 1950, the building was converted to service diesels. Two of its seven bays were dedicated to car repair. July 6, 1963 - William T. Greenberg, Jr.

L&HR No. 91, with a consist having originated at Maybrook, blasts by the engine terminal (left) and yard (right) at Warwick on its westbound journey. Although the L&HR has been typified as one of the anthracite roads because it hauled countless trains of black diamonds from the coal fields of eastern Pennsylvania to New England, it functioned more as a bridge line moving freight trains from one railroad to another. Interestingly enough, because the L&HR had so few on-line customers and the majority of the trains they hauled were made up by other railroads, in their entire history they had owned only one switching type locomotives (a six-coupled camelback) back in the early days of steam! - northwest view, January 28, 1950 - Richard S. Loane

MP 19.5 L&HR No. 6, on a westbound freight, is about to pass the passenger station in Warwick, NY. This impressive structure was built in 1893 to replace an earlier wooden building. - northward view, May 4, 1963 - William T. Greenberg, Jr.

Contemporary Warwick station occupied the site of the original two-story depot. The location was at the western end of the broad gauge Warwick Valley Railroad - a predecessor rail-line of the L&HR - which had opened from Warwick to a connection with the ERIE at Greycourt, NY, in 1862. - November 20, 1960 - William T. Greenberg, Jr.

An L&HR mixed train (passenger and freight) bound for Greycourt, NY, starts out of Warwick Station with ancient consolidation class camelback No. 60 doing the honors. The train will proceed to Hudson Junction and divert down the mile long connecting track to the ERIE at Greycourt. - eastward view, October 1936 - photographer unknown

L&HR No. 91 works a westbound freight through the pastoral farm and dairy country south of Chester, New York. This train has just rattled over the Black Meadow Road grade crossing and is rapidly closing the distance to the speed restricted curve north of Sugar Loaf (MP 13.0). Less than two miles beyond Sugar Loaf the train will reach the passing track at Lake (MP 14.8), the shortest of three passing sidings between Warwick and Maybrook (Lake, Hudson 1, and Girarde). - northwestward view, January 1946 - Richard S. Loane

MP 10.6 The L&HR's Chester passenger station had been closed as an agency for several years when this view was recorded. Earlier L&HR timetables had listed this location as East Chester due to the station's distance and compass direction from town. The ERIE had been the first railroad to arrive in Chester during the 1840s and, understandably, had the better location. Behind the station are the freight and section houses. The overhead highway bridge in the background is NY Route 17. In addition to the mainline track, there was also a freight house track, a siding into the Grange Fuel and Gas Co., and a third short spur called the Conklin Side Track. An interchange connection with the ERIE's New York Division mainline occurred east of Chester at nearby Greycourt, which was listed on employee timetables at MP 9.4. Greycourt was actually an off-line station stop. To reach it and the interchange yard with the ERIE, L&HR trains had to divert from the mainline at MP 10.1 Hudson Junction (click for track diagram) and descend the almost one-mile long connecting track to the ERIE. - southward view, July 6, 1963 - William T. Greenberg, Jr.

L&HR No. 60 has just backed a cut of freight cars destined for the ERIE into the interchange yard at Greycourt. The locomotive is alongside the L&HR passenger station platform and will now spot its single coach consist beside the depot, which is out of view to the left. - southeast view, August 1, 1937 - photographer unknown

MP 2.1 The hind end of L&HR train OA-3 is under the ERIE's Graham Line - about a mile west of Burnside, New York - as it rolls westward on a hot summer's day. The Graham Line was built between 1905 and 1908 to provide the ERIE with an alternative minimum-grade freight route. It crossed over the L&HR's single-track mainline - without connection - on one span of steel, deck, girder bridge long enough to cross two tracks. The bridge was called the E&J Bridge in reminiscence of the Erie & Jersey Railroad, the ERIE wholly-owned subsidiary road who built it. If the L&HR were ever to have had doubled-tracked this section of mainline, the ERIE planners had thoughtfully provided adequate clearance! - northeastward view, July 1946 - Richard S. Loane

MP 0.7 There's a winter chill in the air as L&HR manifest freight OA-3 - Maybrook to Allentown - departs Maybrook behind one of the L&HR's modern mountain-type steam locomotive. During the late 1940s, the daily OA-3 was scheduled out of Maybrook at 2:30 PM and due in Allentown exactly seven hours later. The empty hopper cars in the consist bear mute witness to the large volume of coal that moved over the L&HR through the Maybrook gateway into New England. The building at the left of the train is a section house used by the section gang to store tools and track supplies needed to maintain the company's Maybrook yard tracks and easternmost section of mainline. L&HR No. 10 is rounding the first speed restricted curve out of Maybrook and will soon clatter over the diamond crossing of the New York, Ontario & Western Railway at MP 1.0 in Burnside. Traffic across this crossing was governed by NYO&W RX Interlocker (click for track diagram). During 1947 the NYO&W closed RX Tower and installed an automatic electric interlocking plant under control of the NYO&W train dispatcher. - November 23, 1947 - Richard S. Loane

The turbines of L&HR Nos. 10 & 11 are, undoubtedly, whining as the train departs the NYNY&H's Maybrook terminal. That Eastern States refrigerator (ERDX No. 10044) is a fairly uncommon train spotter car. Note that the lead engine is in the standard garb for L&HR ALCO RS-3s while trailing No. 10 is painted in the less elaborate, 1961, 100-year centennial scheme. - May 4, 1961 - William T. Greenberg, Jr.

The terminal hostler has spotted L&HR No. 11 over the Maybrook ash pit and is having its ash pans hosed out in preparation for another run to Allentown. - circa 1949 - photographer unknown

L&HR No. 12 is spotted under the coal bunker for a minimum load of coal. The L&HR preferred that its locomotives be fueled at their own facilities to avoid the increased costs of refueling off-line. - September 6, 1946 - Howard E. Johnston

One of the L&HR's mammoth 90 class 2-8-0 lays over in front of the Maybrook engine house awaiting pickup of a westbound freight. The L&HR's main engine terminal and shops were at Warwick, about 20 miles south (timetable west) of Maybrook. circa 1949 - Lud A. Larzelere/William T. Greenberg collection