NYW&B Equipment in Storage

Maps

Map illustrating the lines of the NYW&B at their greatest extent. Featured in “Forgotten Railroads Through Westchester County.“

Traces of the Railroad in Connecticut

While conducting research for “Forgotten Railroads Through Westchester County,” we used the resources of many local libraries to uncover as much data as we could. One problem that perplexed us was that we could not seem to pinpoint the actual plotted course that the Westchester Northern was to take from the terminal on Westchester Avenue in White Plains, up past Rye Lake, and on towards North Salem and Danbury. Older 1870s atlases consistently displayed the route of the stillborn New York, Housatonic & Northern, but the Westchester Northern route was said to have deviated from that course. Other data has shown that the NYW&B was paying property taxes on tracts of land in places like Bedford and Greenwich, but the locations were unknown. Some later real estate maps from 1910 showed vague dotted lines indicating the route of the WN, but they seemed too loosely drawn to be engineered. They also did not show any property ownership. Definitive proof of NYW&B ownership in Connecticut was discovered in the Greenwich Public Library.

This map, published by the Franklin Survey Co. of Philadelphia in 1938, shows a clear right of way across North Greenwich, running nearly from King Street across Bedford Road to Riversville Road.
What’s really exciting is that this map clearly states that the NYW&B owned six acres of linear right of way across North Greenwich. It is unknown if this land was ever graded for railroad construction.
What’s even more exciting is that Google Maps shows the property line of that six acre parcel is still intact. Whether or not this reflects reality is unknown. I wonder how the Tamarack Country Club would have felt about the railroad cutting across a corner of its property? If you do decide to go exploring, please take the safe course of action and respect private property.

NYW&B Heathcote to Wykagyl

Here is part of a map that we reproduced in our first book, “New York, Westchester & Boston 1906:1946,” that shows the NYW&B running from Heathcote Station in Scarsdale, through Quaker Ridge and down to Wykagyl Station in New Rochelle.
Mamaroneck Freight YArd
Mamaroneck Freight Yard
Mamaroneck Crossing
Mamaroneck Crossing, S.S. 24