I Ride The Harlem Line

Tagged: waterbury branch

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Derby/Shelton

Photos / Train Stories / Tuesday Tours

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Derby/Shelton

A few weeks ago our friends over at TrainJotting were looking for nominations for the crappiest train station in the tri-state area. Though his home station of Hawthorne won the vote (likely because many of his readers are also from there), several of the nominations were for Waterbury Branch stations. I nominated Waterbury, due to the frequent stories of theft. Someone else nominated Ansonia, which is probably one of the most ghetto looking stations in all of Metro-North. In fact, quite a bit of the Waterbury Branch is pretty ghetto. It is the only part of Metro-North where there is...

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Bridgeport

Photos / Train Stories / Tuesday Tours

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Bridgeport

An older, and a bit more attractive Bridgeport station Throughout my tour of the New Haven Line I have discovered quite a few beautiful train stations. Unfortunately, I would not include today’s featured station, Bridgeport, among them. The current station is a somewhat imposing concrete structure, amassed with people heading in all directions via Metro-North, Shore Line East, and Amtrak trains. And all of those people are a quite diverse lot, ranging from girls in rainbow fishnet stockings, to a guy with a soulpatch wearing a miniskirt and high heels. I’m totally not judging. A literal train wreck at Bridgeport....

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Naugatuck

Photos / Train Stories / Tuesday Tours

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Naugatuck

As a member of a younger generation in the US, trains for me are merely a method of transportation – a means for me to get to work, or to get into the city. I do know, however, that trains were not always for people, but for moving goods (of course there still are freight trains, but they are not nearly as abundant as they once were). Many local areas have identities based upon either the rail, or the items that were once produced there… though in most cases the rail is no longer there, or the items are no...

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Ansonia

Photos / Train Stories / Tuesday Tours

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Ansonia

On Saturday my family had a surprise birthday party for my father, and I was the one tasked with getting him out of the house while everybody assembled at my parents’ house. Due to the fact that I don’t drive, this was somewhat easy – I just had to get him to give me a ride somewhere. Somehow, I convinced him to go over to Ansonia station so I could take photos, and then to pick up some tools to work on my railroad sign/lights. I punched in the address for Ansonia in the GPS, and when we arrived my...

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line – Waterbury

Photos / Train Stories / Tuesday Tours

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line – Waterbury

Ah, Waterbury… also known as the Brass City, or most affectionately the “Dirty Water.” Yes, Waterbury and I have a history, we go way back. Many years ago I attended UConn’s Waterbury Branch, and it was there I acquired my first job as a slave to the computer. From there I just went downhill, into the realm of phone line computer technical support (“my ethernet cord has a virus!”), and fixing college students’ virus-riddled computers after they downloaded copious amounts of pornography. But back then at Waterbury I was just a lowly computer monitor, though I would occasionally get called...

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line – Beacon Falls

Photos / Train Stories / Tuesday Tours

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line – Beacon Falls

Despite the fact that stations of the Waterbury Branch were the closest to my house growing up, I can’t say that I’ve ever taken the train from any of them. I’m not going to lie – people tell stories about the weird people on the Waterbury Branch. Stories about people riding the train down to Bridgeport for drugs or something like that. Whether these stories are true or not, I don’t really know. But I can say I have been to a few of the stations now, many of which are quite small. And being the only person there, a...