Beginnings The
Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railroad was chartered April 13, 1866 to be built from
Poughkeepsie on the
Hudson River northeast to
Boston Corners in Ancram, Columbia County, NY, and then southeast to the Connecticut state line, where it would connect with the
Connecticut Western Railroad, which would continue east to
Hartford, Connecticut. The line opened on January 24, 1871, and ran from Poughkeepsie to
Stissing. At
Stissing the P&E had
trackage rights to use that portion of the
Dutchess and Columbia Railroad line that ran from Stissing to
Pine Plains. On October 1, 1872, the remainder of the P&E line was opened from Pine Plains to the state line. The P&E's main yard and engine facilities were at the Smith Street Yard in Poughkeepsie, where there was a passenger station, a freight house, turntable and engine house. The local trolley line on Smith St. also served the station. From the Poughkeepsie yard P&E trains traveled east through Pleasant Valley, Salt Point, Clinton Corners, Stanfordville, Stissing, Pine Plains, Boston Corners and State Line near Millerton. It was anticipated that in addition to passenger service, the railroad would make money hauling iron ore from the ore beds of Columbia County, and milk from local dairy farms; however, revenues were not as great as expected.
Receivership On June 24, 1874, the company went into
receivership. It was sold in April 1875 and reorganized May 15 as the
Poughkeepsie, Hartford and Boston Railroad. It again went
bankrupt and on January 26, 1884, the
Hartford and Connecticut Western Railroad bought the section southeast of Boston Corners, to which they already had track rights. The rest was sold in late 1886 and on January 22, 1887, it was reorganized as the
New York and Massachusetts Railway. Profit was still hard to come by, and it entered receivership for a third time in February 1893. It was sold under
foreclosure March 2 and reorganized April 13 once under the name, the
Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railway Company. Yet again, on June 17, 1898, the company went into receivership. On July 12, 1904, P&E had a wreck at Salt Point when a passenger train was mistakenly switched to a siding where a freight train was waiting. The conductor on the passenger train was injured. In 1907 the
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad bought it and on June 25 merged it into the
Central New England Railway. The CNE had been forced to build the parallel
Poughkeepsie and Connecticut Railroad in the late 1880s due to the Poughkeepsie and Eastern's refusal to sell. In 1910 the P&C was abandoned between
Salt Point and
Pine Plains, with trains rerouted over the P&E. With the 1925 abandonment of the P&E from
Ancram Lead Mines northeast to
Boston Corners, the P&C served as the sole route east of Pine Plains (it too was closed in 1932). Abandonment came in 1938 to the rest of the P&E. ==Station listing==