According to the Tyler City Station site, there was once a stop southwest of the Rte 175 HP&F crossing called "Clayton's." It is listed on my 1913 NYNH&H timetable as "Clayton." Today Rte 175 is called Cedar St, and that is the name of the CTFastrak station approximately at this location. Unlike the railroad station, Cedar St is northwest of the crossing, which is today grade separated by a bridge carrying Rte 175 over the HP&F right of way.
There's a lot of ways to see this section of the HP&F. There's obvioulsy the CTFastrak busway itself, but there's also a paved trail alongside it that is open to the public. For our primary exploration of the area, we walked (actually my kids scooted) from the East Street CT Fastrak depot to Newington Junction, where we climbed on a bus for the return trip. The trail was in very good shape, and seemed to be heavily patronized on the beautiful April day we hiked it.
The section of the Hartford, Providence, & Fishkill/ New York & New England right of way between Hartford and New Britain was pressed into service as the CTfastrak Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line in 2015. At present, this is one of only two places on the entire line (the other being a small portion of the Northeast Corridor) where one can actually ride mass transit on the line, albeit on a bus.
The busway has been controversial among railfans for the loss of railroad miles and among taxpayers for its cost. Personally, I think this op-ed by a UCONN student, Thess Johnson, gets it right. The busway exists, and for whatever trouble went on in building it, it works pretty well. My wife and I recently decided it would be fun to eat at a number of places in Downtown Hartford on a weekend afternoon, and parking in the suburbs and taking the bus in made it very hassle free. I'd rather have a train, but I like having good public transit.
All of the station sites listed on the map above were sited with information from the Tyler City Station site.
Click on the thumbnail for the full resolution image
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Newington |
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A pair of adult tickets, defaced, as they appeared on the CTFastrak busway in 2024. |
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A pair of child tickets, defaced, as they appeared on the CTFastrak busway in 2024. |
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West
and south of Newington Junction, the CTfastrak right of way has a
walking path alongside it. This is a view of the path from the bus on a
rainy fall day (10/2023.) |
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Looking north towards Newington Junction, with the Hartford Line rails very close by (4/2024.) |
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A bit further south, looking across the busway to the Hartford Line (4/2024.) |
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If one turns around from the
vantage point of the above photo, they will be looking towards what is
today an Amazon and American Freight store. But on this summer day when
my father, Bernard Dowd, took this photo of Southern RR boxcar SOU 501319, the building was a Sears warehouse (1976-1977) |
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Looking north towards Hartford at the Saputo Dairy in Newington (4/2024) |
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In the 1970s, this dairy was owned by HP Hood, and my father, Bernard Dowd, captured Penn Central boxcar PC 164503 and Atlantic Coast Line boxcar ACL 31476 on the siding there (1976-1977.) |
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On another day, this time in the winter, my father Bernard Dowd, caught Boston & Maine boxcar BM 770?0 and Pittsburgh & Lake Erie boxcar PLE 23595 at the Hood Dairy (1976-1977.) |
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Looking to the north at a bucolic stretch of the busway/trail from just north of Cedar St Station (4/2024.) |
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Approaching Cedar St CTfastrak
station. This photo is facing southwest and is taken from a similar
location as the one above (4/2024.) |
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Looking towards the southeast at the Cedar St CTfastrak station (4/2024.) |
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Looking South at the Cedar St
CTFastrak station. Cedar St (Rte 175) is visible in the distance going
over the HP&F right-of-way on a bridge (4/2024.) |
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Looking north through the Cedar St station whilst a CTFastrak bus makes a station stop (4/2024.) |
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Former industrial land between the Cedar St station and Cedar St itself. Looking north (4/2024.) |
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Looking south at the Rte 175 (Cedar St) bridge (4/2024.) |
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Under the Rte 175 (Cedar St) Bridge facing north (4/2024.) |
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Looking north towards Cedar St (Rte 175.) According to the Tyler City Station Website, the depot would have been to the left of the right-of way and before the bridge (4/2024.) |
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Looking south towards CT Rte 9's overpasses (4/2024.) |
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Looking north from near East St Station towards the Rte 9 overpasses (4/2024.) |
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Approaching East Street CTFastrak Station (4/2024.) |
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East
Street BRT stop on
CTfastrak, as seen from on board a bus. One advantage of BRT is that
multiple close-together stops
are an option without messing up the timetable much. Both this stop and
Cedar St serve Central Connecticut State University (10/2023.) |
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Stopped at East Street BRT stop on CTfastrak (10/2023) |
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Approaching East St Station and the hiking trail from the parking lot. This is looking northeast (4/2024.) |
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New Britain |
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(c) 2016-2024 Timothy M Dowd. Last Modified @ 22:26 EDT on 2024-05-08
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