Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Poughkeepsie Bridge fire, which occurred under somewhat mysterious circumstances.
Poughkeepsie Bridge, constructed in 1889, formed the southwest end of the New York, New Haven & Hartford's system. All westward freight traffic on the New Haven crossed Poughkeepsie Bridge and then went to Maybrook Yard, where it was handed off to one of five other railroads; Lehigh & Hudson River, Lehigh & New England, New York, Ontario & Western, Erie, and New York Central. From there that traffic went west (Erie, NYO&W, NYC) or south (L&HR and L&NE) and was handed off to other railroads (CNJ, Reading, Lehigh Valley). That made Poughkeepsie Bridge a pretty vital connection between New England and the rest of the national system, although NYC could also move traffic out of New England over the Boston & Albany as well.
Over the years, Maybrook Yard's significance began to decrease, with the NYO&W filing for abandonment in '57 and the L&NE filing for abandonment in '62, but it remained the lifeblood of the L&HR, who was moving a sizable amount of traffic from New England to Allentown Yard for hand-off to other northeastern railroads, and the Erie/Erie-Lackawanna also saw some traffic as well. In 1968, the New York Central merged with Pennsylvania Railroad to form Penn Central and a year later, as part of the ICC's stipulations, the New Haven was also incorporated into Penn Central.
Penn Central managament now could funnel ex-New Haven trackage over the Boston & Albany to the ex-NYC yard at Selkirk, and then send it to points west over the NYC network and south through New York City over the ex-Pennsylvania network, keeping the cars almost entirely on their system and earning more of the haulage fees. This caused a loss of traffic over the L&HR, whose whole existence was as a bridge line between Allentown and New England, and the Erie-Lackawanna, to a lesser degree. There were also complaints from shippers and New England railroads. Most notable was the Bangor & Aroostook, who relied heavily on moving the Maine potato crop for revenue. The yard staff at Maybrook had been well-versed in handling the carloads of potatoes and preventing them from freezing, but the crews at Selkirk didn't have that training and when the entire crop rotted in the cars at Selkirk, the Maine potato farmers swore to never move their potatoes by rail again. And they haven't until a couple years ago.
Eventually, the L&HR, and the railroads that the L&HR handed traffic off to (LV, CNJ, Reading) all pitched a fit to the ICC, and the ICC eventually mandated that Penn Central had to move a certain amount of traffic over Poughkeepsie Bridge and into Maybrook Yard. The PC complied but was not happy about that, since the Poughkeepsie Bridge was in poor shape and required 10mph speeds over it, and they had been bankrupt since 1970 and couldn't afford to repair the bridge and would much rather keep the interchanged traffic on their own lines and pocket more of the money.
Where the controversy lies began on May 1st. Citing cost-savings, Penn Central removed the bridge watchmen, who were to watch for fires on the wooden decking of the bridge, and had the fire hydrant lines were disconnected. On May 8th, 1974, just one week later, the decking of the Poughkeepsie Bridge caught fire after an eastbound freight passed over it, and when fireman from the surrounding areas arrived, it wasn't until they had hooked their fire hoses up to the lines that they found the waterlines were inoperable. When it was all over, some 700 feet of the bridge's superstructure had been engaged; the rail showed extreme kinking, but the issue of structural weakening was never determined. Initial reports were optimistic regarding restoration of the bridge, but with final implementation of Conrail less than a year away, the plans eventually fell through.
Now, there's a couple of diverging theories here:
- Some say that the whole thing was just an honest accident; Poughkeepsie Bridge had always had a fire risk, hence why there were watchmen to begin with. Penn Central was bankrupt and bleeding cash and removing the watchmen was simply a cost-cutting measure, just an ill-advised one, and PC didn't intend for the bridge to burn. Lineside fires are known to occur from sparks from the exhaust or from the brake shoes, which is why railroads try to keep the weeds cleared back from RoW.
- Another theory is that Penn Central knew that removing the watchmen would result in a fire in pretty short order, and so did that as a cost-cutting manner, knowing that an accident would take the bridge out in short order and free them from the Maybrook interchange. Essentially, they didn't burn the bridge, but they intentionally created the conditions to cause an accident that would get rid of it.
- And the third theory is that PC intentionally set the bridge ablaze. Some people claim that before the fire, and before that final eastbound freight passed through, PC moved whatever power it had at Maybrook Yard east over the bridge, although this seems to be unsubstantiated. With only one eastbound and one westbound train from PC out of Maybrook, it seems unlikely they had any power stored there to work the yard.
W. Gifford "Giff" Moore, the president of the L&HR at the time and the railroad's final president, subscribed to one of the two last theories. He was alive until 2017 and folks said that at any NRHS convention or historical event he was at, he swore up, down, left and right that PC had intentionally taken actions that resulted in burning the bridge so that they wouldn't have to interchange traffic with his railroad. The book on the final years of the D&H recounts how on May 8th, 1974, the D&H, an L&HR interchange partner, got a call from Moore and someone came into the office and said "Giff Moore just called. Turn on the TV, Poughkeepsie Bridge is burning. He says his railroad is finished."
And the L&HR was. Bankrupt since 1972 due to PC's decision to move most of the traffic away from Maybrook and PC, under bankruptcy, no longer having to pay per diem charges to other railroads still while requiring those railroads to still pay them, the L&HR filed for inclusion into Conrail as soon as it became apparent that Poughkeepsie Bridge wouldn't reopen.
Today, Poughkeepsie Bridge has been converted into a walking path and still stands.
