Haines Falls Railroad Station

Ulster and Delaware Railroad Station
Location NY 23A, Hamlet of Haines Falls, Hunter, New York
Coordinates 42°11′45″N 74°5′29″W / 42.19583°N 74.09139°W / 42.19583; -74.09139Coordinates: 42°11′45″N 74°5′29″W / 42.19583°N 74.09139°W / 42.19583; -74.09139
Area 1.5 acres (0.61 ha)
Built 1913
NRHP Reference # 96000861[1]
Added to NRHP August 08, 1996

There were two stations that served the once-busy town of Haines Falls, New York. One was owned by the Ulster and Delaware Railroad, and the other was owned by the Catskill and Tannersville Railway.

Kaaterskill Railroad

This was the original station at Haines Corners, later Haines Falls.

One 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.

Ulster and Delaware

The Ulster and Delaware Haines Falls Railroad Station, 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. The U&D finally gave in and tore the old station, making way for a new one that was a few hundred feet away in 1913.

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.

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.[2]

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.[1]

Catskill and Tannersville

The Catskill and Tannersville's Haines Falls Station, MP 3.5, was a much smaller, more spartan station than the one owned by the U&D, and was right across from the original U&D's Haines Corners station. It, like the U&D's station, was renamed the "Haines Falls Station" along with the changing of the town's name. It was one of the line's busiest stations, and is the one with the most photographs. Unfortunately, this station's busy life was short lived. When the C&T went bankrupt in 1918, and was scrapped in 1919, along with the rest of the Catskill Mountain Railway system, this station was left to fall apart, and it was eventually destroyed.

References

Preceding station   New York Central Railroad   Following station
toward Kaaterskill
Kaaterskill Branch
toward Phoenicia
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