Hike #1421; Hopewell Junction to Beacon

Hike #1421: 6/11/21 Hopewell Junction to Beacon with Kirk Rohn, Jason W. Briggs, Professor John DiFiore, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Wieder, Diane Reider, Jenny Tull, Robin Deitz, Stephen Argentina, and Eric Pace

This point to point hike would tie in to two previous hikes we had done, one into Beacon NY, and the other one where we had passed through at Hopewell Junction NY in our series on the Maybrook Line.

Our route would involve a bunch of different things, but the main one would be the old Beacon Line. We met at the trail head for Mt Beacon where we had finished a hike a couple of years prior. We would then shuttle from that point to the east to near Hopewell Junction, and parked off of Turner Street on a new trail head parking lot near Daddy O's restaurant. We would then walk the old Maybrook Line to the north just a bit to the former junction site itself.

This first bit we were walking, the Maybrook Line, we had followed from Ohioville west of the Hudson all the way to Hopewell Junction already. We just had to it to the southeast of that point.

The Dutchess County Railroad arrived from Poughkeepsie in 1892, and linked with the new Poughkeepsie-Highland Bridge in 1889. This became part of the New York and New England Railroad. Lines were consolidated by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad as the Maybrook Line in 1904.

The yard here stored powerful locomotives that pushed trains up substantial grades from Brewster area. Steam switched the diesel by 1950.

The line remained reasonably busy until the Poughkeepsie Bridge burned in 1974.

The last freight train passed through on the Maybrook Line in 1992 I have read, although claims in photography is that the last one was 1984. The Maybrook Line has seen a lot of changes in the very recent years. It has been a trail for a while from Poughkeepsie to this point, but the rails have been in to the south of here to Brewster, where we somewhat recently had completed the New York Central Putnam Division. When we did that, there was no trail complete to Hopewell Junction from Brewster, but in this short period of time, they did a rail with trail project and it goes all through.

It was part of a project to close all of the gaps for the completion of the Empire State Trail, a multi use route that goes all the way from New York City to Albany, and then splits to two routes across the rest of the state. So, we are working on all of these little series things, but it also all fits into the Empire State Trail series, of which I had now done all of it from Manhattan to Brewster. The next priority would be to connect Hopewell Junction to Brewster, but then this one happened.

Before the 1889 Poughkeepsie-Highland Bridge completion, the Beacon Line was far more important, and would have served as more of a main line.

The former Dutchess and Columbia Railroad, which later became known as the Beacon Line, was built first in 1869.

This line, later the Newburg, Dutchess, and Connecticut Railroad (ND&C), completed between 1860s and 70s, connected the Hudson River in Beacon where there was a car float operation to the Erie's Newburg Branch, up through Hopewell Junction and beyond to Millerton and the Connecticut line.

The junction here was established when the New York and New England Railroad was built out from Connecticut in 1881.

The Newburg, Dutchess, and Connecticut, or ND&C, wasn't doing so well and earned the name "Never Did & Couldn't", and abandonment of sections began in 1925 with the piece to Millerton. All of the rail at Hopewell Junction became part of the New Haven system in 1927, and all of the former ND&C northeast of Hopewell Junction was abandoned by the end of the 1930s.

From Beacon to Hopewell Junction recently had some of the only remaining rails cut, and through connection has been severed.

It is now going to become a rail trail, although time frame on this is to be announced.

There are many places where "rail with trail" could work on this one, but will take further planning because it was mostly a single track line. The uncertain future of this line, and the fact that some of this destruction was already happening, was the reason that this hike shoved other things out of the way and became a priority trip for us to do as a group. We started walking the now paved old Maybrook Line to the north from the parking area, past Daddy O's, and then a bit further to the actual site of Hopewell Junction. The handsome station was then to the left, with a very nice tower building to the right. The depot once stood a short distance to the east, when the Beacon line was built, but was moved for more convenience to the junction after that was developed.

The depot building, built in 1873, served passengers here until 1933. Following the decline, it suffered a devastating fire from an arsonist in 1986. Fortunately, the fire was put out and the perpetrator was caught. Thanks to dedicated volunteers of the Hopewell Depot Restoration Corporation, it was restored between 1995 and 2012.

Today, it is open as a wonderful museum along the Maybrook Trailway, part of the Empire State Trail. A reproduction of the historic tower has been erected close to original location and houses restrooms and vending machines.

The museum was open when we went by this time, and they weren't all mask crazy people, so we actually went in for the tour which was extremely nice (since we were hiking and didn't expect to go in anywhere, not all of us had one handy). The guy working the museum kept telling us he was giving us the abbreviated versions of the history, which I did appreciate, but I wouldn't have minded spending a lot more time looking around there. The place was beautifully kept. After the very nice tour, we headed out of the station to start tracing the Beacon Line to the south. We went through the open parking lots that used to have tracks through them parallel with Railroad Avenue to the south, and soon were beside tracks as they came off of the connection with the former Maybrook Line. We soon crossed Railroad Avenue, and made our way to the southwest through some splendid woods. The first hints that we would see no trains while on this route was the weeds growing through, and then pretty soon after, a fallen pine tree over the tracks. They were free of weeds mostly though.

Pretty soon, we crossed over the Whortlekill Creek, and just after that the rails were both cut and bent, and removed for a short stretch. We would find this to be the case more along the way.

There was one industrial spur to our left that is obviously out of service now that the line is cut.
Ahead, we crossed over Rt 82, and then continued back into the woods where we crossed some of the headwaters to the Fishkill Creek.
One of these crossings looked so inviting, and I was getting so hot already, that I decided to go down and lay in the water for a few moments.
We continued southwest, crossed Helin Road, a wide power line, Broadway, Fishkill Creek Road, and Lomala Lane, then Mountainview Road and McGrath Terrace.
Despite being in these developed areas, it never felt like we were really close to development at all. After that last road, the railroad came very close to the Fishkill providing us with some very lovely views as well.

We took a little break from the railroad tracks when they went parallel with Doug Phillips Park. There, we turned left from the tracks to parallel them through the grassy area, and down directly along the Fishkill, which was quite nice.

We goofed off on the playgrounds a bit, and there was an enormous Silver Maple growing.
We moved on through the park out to the bridge that carries Rt 52 over the Fishkill. We walked beneath the bridge, and some of us climbed back up the other side to get back to the road, but others went back.
We all got back together when we got to a deli mart just to the north and got some snacks and drinks.
We got back on the tracks here, but there was also a good parallel path in the woods down to the left, which went right along the Fishkill. We followed this instead for a time.
We crossed over Rt 9 next, all four lanes but with a wide enough median that we could safely pull it off, and then passed through some industrial area for a bit.

Ahead, we passed beneath Interstate 84, and the tracks had been cut again at this point, on either side of the bridge underpass. I don't know why it was deemed necessary through here, but this was a major section of rail to be cut.
There was graffiti under the bridge tempting us about tacos.
This was a particularly hot area because the tracks followed closely to a utility clearing and we had no shade like we did in other areas.
We crossed Petticoat Lane ahead, and then crossed over the Fishkill again, this time on a through girder bridge.
Ahead, the rails were again bent and damaged, and we crossed Washington Ave adjacent to Van Pelt Park. Just a little west of this point, there was a path where the tracks went into a cut, leading uphill a bit to the right parallel. We decided to check it out.

Just up the hill the trail split off and headed to the abutment to a large dam over the Fishkill, and an old mill converted to other uses it seemed. Quite an awesome little spot.

Down to the left, a trail led to a deep, lovely spot below rock outcroppings perfect for swimming. I took a dip but not so many of the others were into going in there.

We headed back to the tracks, and soon came to the highest bridge we would cross of the entire day.
It went over a very narrow spot on the Fishkill with high cliffs, and there was a big group of kids there jumping off of it. It looked too much fun and I took my shirt off and decided I was going to do it too.

One of the things about getting older that I have a love/hate relationship is the perception. The kids looked shocked that I was just going to get out there and do it without further question.

On the other hand, I can at least be the "cool older guy" who still does cool stuff as well. Really, I just want to have fun, not to have any kind of perception at all about it and it looked great.
Brittany and Kirk both jumped off the bridge as well, and it was really great. I might have done it twice but I don't quite remember.
I got a video of Kirk doing it, which is great. He had some apprehension but didn't hesitate. A couple of the kids that were in line to do it simultaneously with him faked him out and didn't jump at all that time.
From here, we continued across the bridge and into a deep cut on the tracks. This emerged onto a large fill, and then came out very close to Fishkill Avenue heading into Beacon.

Up to the right from here was the Industrial Arts Brewing Company, which I had planned for a lunch stop. We had to go up a bit of a slope to get up there, but I figured it would be a good stop.

The place had a full arcade some some interesting sounding brews.
I chose the Lower Da Boom Barleywine style ale, which was quite delicious.
All of the beers I noticed seemed to have some sort of industrial name to it like Torque Wrench or something like that. There weren't as many stronger ones, but the barleywine was exactly what I wanted.
The place had a really nice seating area outside with views of the mountains around.
After the break, we headed back down to the railroad tracks to the west. This soon took us to the overlook area over the bit dam on the Fishkill in town.
There were some old brick buildings along the way that were certainly once workers houses, maybe built by the industries themselves.

The tracks through this area were getting much more overgrown than some of the stuff we'd passed to the east, with some of the brush being deeper than the knees.
It seemed that several mill buildings through the town had been converted and gentrified into upscale facilities.
Just below the dam at Main Street, we could see picnic benches with umbrellas were set up within the gauge of the tracks. This was the biggest indication that it had been quite a long time since any trains had passed through there.
We turned left on Main Street just a bit, and then there was a greenway trail that went along the Fishkill just a little while. This skirted the Hudson River Valley brewery parking lot.

I had considered going in and trying something else from this place, but it was so incredibly expensive for anything that I'd have interest in that I decided against trying anything at all.

The greenway trail took us across Churchill Street and then past a tall building that I think is apartments. It then ended just ahead, south of the tracks, in an area where they were building a new building. We couldn't just walk by it. We had to go and walk right through it of course. It looked shiny and futuristic compared to all of the old brick work buildings we had been seeing just before this. We turned left onto the tracks near the end of the building to continue to the west, and soon passed beneath the Route 9D bridge. In this area, there were survey stakes within the gauge of the tracks with marks on them. I wondered if this was quietly some part of the trail plan, and the line that whatever pavement or surface would use.

Our next step would be to follow the tracks just a little bit more, and then cut downhill via a path into Madam Brett Park. This features some stone ruins and a dam built on the top of a waterfall on the Fishkill, which fed the mills of the Tioranda Hat Works just a bit down stream.

We headed somewhat steeply to the creek on this trail that was obviously informal, heading to the formal ones. We reached some of the infrastructure of the dam, and had to climb up a ladder and down a bit of a wall to get on the concrete berm wall of the mill race. This took us eventually out to a good crushed stone trail, and then to the Madam Brett Park parking area.

There was an abandoned bridge, now undecked, across the Fishkill to the left, and the ruins of the old hat factory to the right and straight ahead. A splendid walkway led out over the creek, hugging the edge of the abandoned mill.

Tioronda Hat Works dates back to 1879, when industrialist Lewis Tompkins established Beacon New York as the hat manufacturer center of the state.

The property changed hands, and it was the Merrimac Hat Company when it finally closed in 1948. Atlas Fibers Company established a textile facility on the site in 1949, and more recently Beacon Terminals Corporation utilized it as a warehouse until the 1990s.
It was acquired by a real estate developer, but suffered a devastating fire in 2017.
Today, the crumbling ruins can be seen from a boardwalk trail along the Fishkill. 
I was quite shocked to get such an intimate view of these ruins from a public trail.

Some of us really wanted to see this place a bit more up close and personal. We crossed the long bridge along the Fishkill that skirted the factory, and then we turned off to the right where it ended on an informal path. This brought us out to a clearing adjacent to the old buildings.

We first walked along the right side of it, which had a ramp and several little bridges going toward doors and such, but we weren't finding a way in that way. We had to walk around the building just a bit and found our way into an area where it was like a courtyard in the middle, although this was probably once roofed and in much better shape.We made our way into the building, which amazingly had not one single no trespassing sign we could see. It was just wide open to walk into. I actually couldn't believe that there were no homeless people living in there, although we did find the "homeless not hopeless" art on the wall of the thing. The light was shining through the openings in the deteriorating structure making for some really interesting ambiance.

I told Justin to stand in one of the rays of like and make believe he was praying for a funny and cool shot. We walked through just about as much of this structure was was possible from our entry point, and then returned to the trail where the rest of the group was still waiting for us.

The character of the trail changed quite a lot from this point. We passed over a puncheon and closer to the widening Fishkill as it approached the Hudson. There was a very nice viewing platform, and then the trail weaved back to the north and soon approached the Beacon Line. The trail passed under it adjacent to the tracks of the Metro North line, and we climbed up and got back on the tracks of the Beacon Line. We then crossed the Metro North line on the through girder bridge of the Beacon line. We followed the tracks from here out to Dennings Road, which is the entrance to Dennings Point State Park. This would be a little side trip on the hike.

Dennings Point State Park is a long peninsula out onto the Hudson River at the confluence with the Fishkill. The trail loops all the way down one side to the tip and back the other. The route didn't seem to fit very well into most any other hike, so I figured it was the perfect side trip for this one. We headed out and made our way around it in a sort of counter clockwise fashion, but first reached the ruins of the Denning Point Brick Works, which closed in 1939. This interesting ruin was almost fully accessible. Only the framework of the roof was still there, and some of it had chain link fence around it, but the rest of it we could easily just walk under. So, we went out and back through the ruins.

From there, the first section of trail was like a woods road down the west side of the peninsula. There were nice views along the way out onto the Hudson River. The full loop down and back would only be a bit more than a mile added to the entire hike.

When we reached the very end, the trail didn't go all the way to the point, so we had to take an informal route down to check out the amazing views of the Fishkill joining the Hudson.

There was an outstanding view where Mt Beacon could be seen to the west, and down the Hudson, the twin sentinels, Breakneck Ridge and Storm King Mountain stood on other side like the Hudson's version of the Delaware Water Gap. An amazing site to behold.

Out in the Hudson River was Pollepel Island, where Bannerman's Castle could be seen from this vantage point. Frank Bannerman was a munitions dealer who, in 1901, began constructing the simulated Scottish castle on the island as a simple residence and storage place. The place has faced fire and deterioration over the years, and is in pretty bad shape now, although incredible to see.

This narrows of the Hudson River has been an important spot going back as far as people, when Native Americans used it as a sacred site, and local lore has it that those running from hostile natives would be safe on the island.
In 1777, wooden cribbing was placed in the Hudson near the island with metal tips meant to damage British ships that might attempt to sail up the Hudson. 

We enjoyed the view and had a very nice break before heading back around the loop up the peninsula. This brought us to some nice big trees, and more ruins of the Denning Point factories. We passed by the ruin we'd explored before, and then reached the Denning Road where we headed back to the tracks.

This section of the line, in the last stretch before the former car float operation, was an odd rail trail project that had already been developed. The Riverfront Trail is built on and next to the tracks. To the left, there is a surfaced path along the Hudson, but the rails themselves were also filled in for pedestrian walking route to the right.

The latest incarnations of the Beacon line used to connect just up ahead with the Metro North line, but that hasn't seen any service obviously in years.
The trail continued to the left when the overgrown tracks turned away from it to the right toward the junction site. 
This last bit of the trail must have been the right of way to the car float operation.
The area widened out to another little peninsula that remains of this once important site, now Scenic Hudson's Long Dock Park. The Newburgh-Beacon Ferry still operates out of this vicinity as well, adjacent to the Beacon Station on the Metro North line. One of these days I'd like to ride that ferry as well.

We went under Long Dock Road bridge, and then up the slope to the left to reach Beekman Street.
We followed this to Wolcott Ave, and Kirk was falling behind the rest of the group with me around the slope up.

There was a house under construction to our right as we continued, and I went in to check out the view from the upper level of it.
Kirk joined me there, and the two of us, well behind the entire remainder of the group that powered ahead, continued to stroll on through Beacon, then across the tracks we had been on before by way of Wolcott/Rt 9D, in such a way that it felt like we had not even been to that point before.
We were pretty tired by the time we got up to the trail lot, but overall pretty happy that we'd had such a full and interesting day.