Poughkeepsie Bridge Route

An advertisement for the route

The Poughkeepsie Bridge Route was a passenger train route from Washington, D.C. to Boston, Massachusetts, via Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The route specifically avoided the Port of New York, due to the lack of a rail crossing of the North River (Hudson River). Instead it passed over the Poughkeepsie Bridge at Poughkeepsie, New York. Its Boston terminus was at North Station, an advantage allowing for 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 Company)
• Boston and Maine Railroad - Northampton to Boston (North Station) (via the former Central Massachusetts Railroad)

The route was used only from 1890 to 1893, after which operating patterns changed.^[1] The closure of the bridge to rail traffic after a May 8, 1974 fire eliminated the route and created the Selkirk hurdle.

Parts of the route near the Poughkeepsie Bridge over the Hudson River have been converted to rail trails; the Hudson Valley Rail Trail to the west, the Poughkeepsie Bridge itself, and the Dutchess Rail Trail to the east.

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