Poughkeepsie Bridge Route
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The Poughkeepsie Bridge Route was a passenger train route from Washington, D.C. to Boston, Massachusetts, via Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It specifically avoided New York, New York, due to the lack of a direct crossing in that area, instead passing over the Poughkeepsie Bridge at Poughkeepsie, New York. Another selling point was its Boston terminus at North Station, allowing a direct transfer to Boston and Maine Railroad lines to the north.
The Federal Express later used a similar route for several years in the 1910s, but ran via Trenton, New Jersey and New Haven, Connecticut.
The route used the following companies' lines:
- Baltimore and Ohio Railroad - Washington to Philadelphia
- Philadelphia and Reading Railroad - Philadelphia to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (via the North Pennsylvania Railroad)
- Central Railroad of New Jersey - Bethlehem to Easton, Pennsylvania
- Lehigh and Hudson River Railway - Easton to Maybrook, New York
- Central New England and Western Railroad - Maybrook to Simsbury, Connecticut
- New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad - Simsbury to Northampton, Massachusetts (via the New Haven and Northampton Railroad)
- Boston and Maine Railroad - Simsbury to Boston (North Station) (via the former Central Massachusetts Railroad)
The route was only used from 1890 to 1893, after which operating patterns changed.[1]
