Maybrook Freights

Freight Service > Holyoke Freights - Maybrook Freights - New Hartford Local - Speed Witch - Show Trains

Maybrook (including the nearby Campbell Hall) was a major interchange for the New Haven and New England. With direct interchange with the ERIE, Lehigh & Hudson River, and Ontario & Western, plus indirect connections B&O, DL&W, CNJ, RDG, and WM (via L&H) and DL&W, and LV (via O&W), the New Haven could bring freight to New England on an all-rail route over the Poughkeepsie Bridge. At its peak, there were two daily freights in each direction between Maybrook and Hartford via the Highland. Aside from being a more direct route, the main advantage was to reduce congestion on the Shoreline by routing freight that didn't need to go through Cedar Hill.

In 1947 this was reduced to a single pair of trains and eliminated altogether in 1949. However, due to an increase in freight traffic during the Korean War, they were reinstated from 1951 to 1953 before they were annulled permanently.

In 1945 the NO/ON (Maybrook-Cedar Hill) and BO/OB (Maybrook-Boston) freights would be hauled by DER-1 (Alco DL-109) locomotives for testing, a pair of which was 4,000 hp. In addition to being able to eliminate helpers on the run, the diesels were found to be capable of maintaining the fast schedules held by the R-class mountain 4-8-2 locomotives. But speed wasn't a requirement for the Highland Line, and the L-1 2-10-2 Santa Fe class of locomotives still dominated this Maybrook-Hartford run. 

The DER-1 tests were successful, and the New Haven was already rapidly dieselizing post-WWII. In 1947 the DER-2 (Alco FA-1/FB-1) locomotives in 4,500 hp A/B/A sets were delivered, dieselizing the Maybrook line entirely. 

Kent Cochrane and Tom McNamara

Kent Cochrane and Tom McNamara, both New Britain natives, documented the New Haven extensively in photos in the late '40s. Tom upgraded to a Kodak Tourist camera in 1947 and purchased a second-hand Kodak Retina 35 mm color camera in 1952. But Kent was using a Speed Graphic large format camera by 1946. Kent passed away in 1967 and left his photo, slide, and 16 mm film collection to Tom. As a result, Kent and Tom's photographs were merged into a single collection.

The large format black & white photos would have been taken by Kent. He took a great number of photos from 1946-1948, and the majority of the photos on this site are Kent's. He definitely focused on capturing the last few years of steam on the New Haven; there are far fewer pictures of the new diesels. 

Of course, when I settled on modeling New Britain, I had no idea that there was such a trove of fantastic photos taken at this time. What follows is a series of photos taken by Kent from 1946-7 capturing the L-1 class 2-10-2 locomotives (known across North America as the "Santa Fe" class) hauling Maybrook freights on the Highland.

AO-3 at Newington

AO-3 at New Britain

OA-3 at Terryville Tunnel