Haines Falls Railroad Station

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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.

[edit] Kaaterskill Railroad

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

[edit] Ulster and Delaware

This was the new Haine's Falls station.
This was the new Haine's Falls station.

This 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.

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.

[edit] Catskill and Tannersville

This was the Catskill & Tannersville's Haine's Falls station.
This was the Catskill & Tannersville's Haine's Falls station.

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.