Preserving the Railroad Heritage of the Catskill Mountains - Local History by Dede Terns-Thorpe

Kingston recently hosted a railroad show, making it the right time to share information from a 1999 booklet by Bob Buncenec, PRESERVING THE RAILROAD HERITAGE OF THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS, the ULSTER & DELAWARE RAILROAD, with credit to the Empire State Railway Museum. I’d also like to thank Empire State Board Member Paul LaPierre for permission to share sections of this book. 

Author Bob Buncenec said that it wasn’t until after World War I that railroad buffs began to organize their efforts into groups. One of their great accomplishments was the “Empire State Railway Museum dedicated to bringing the living history of great railroads and their people and the towns they served, to the residents and visitors of the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains.” Charted by N.Y.S. Department of Education in 1960, the museum was able to obtain the old Phoenicia Station in 1984. 

Milepost 27, Phoenicia Gateway (27 miles from the Hudson River), was one of the busiest stations for both passengers and freight. To reach the Greene County section of the railroad, the narrow gauge crossed over the Esopus, cut through Phoenicia, and pursued a northeasterly course with the grade rising abruptly climbing 187 feet per mile up the notch. 

President Thomas Cornell and Samuel Coykendall, his assistant and son-in-law, heard the plans of an early 1880s influx of Mountain Top hotels, with threats of competitive railroads emerging to the Catskills. Cornell laid out a railroad from Phoenicia through the Stony Clove Notch to the Town of Hunter. 

The Stony Clove & Catskill Mt. Railroad was organized on January 1881. By April of 1881, 400 men followed the wood choppers clearing the notch. Stagecoaches could now meet travelers at Edgewood for hotel visits to Windham, Hunter, Tannersville, and Haines Falls. 

Labor shortages prevented the railroad from reaching Hunter in 1881, but the work continued with arrival to Hunter on June 24,1882. Just 3 months later the U&D carried almost 33,000 passengers and over 5,000 tons of freight. 

By November of 1882 George Harding, owner of the new Hotel Kaaterskill, urged Thomas Cornell to extend the narrow-gauge railroad to the South Lake area. The Kaaterskill Railroad costing $19,000 (equivalent to $6 million today) was officially established on November 25, 1882. It ran from the Tannersville Junction (north-east end of Route 214, the Notch Road) to ½ mile below Hotel Kaaterskill on South Mountain, and 1 mile below the Catskill Mountain House. It opened for travel on June 25, 1883. (The location once known as Tannersville Junction was renamed Kaaterskill Junction.)

By 1931, it was obvious that the end was nearing. By 1940, the Kaaterskill and Hunter lines were found unprofitable and were sadly discontinued.

Thanks for reading a little history of the days of THE IRON HORSE! 

A special thank you to railroad buff John Ham and the Ulster & Delaware Railroad Museum for preserving the railroad’s history. 

Stay safe and be well.

Dede Terns-Thorpe/Hunterhistorian@gmail.com