Originally Posted by
UniChris
It's been months since I've been up the former Putnam route, as the section through Van Cortlandt Park was fenced off in late August for the long awaited paving. But facing a winter's briefer bundled up rides more locally, I got to thinking about aspects of the trail that never quite made sense, and doing some research, first on railroad history forums, and finally with old USGS topo maps.
on - but perhaps that's actually an artificial rise to support the rails.
EDIT: For clarification;
Your 1930's topo will not show the Taconic Parkway, which was built up the east side of Echo Lake in the 1960's. My memory of the early Taconic was a road much like the sections north of Rt6., I.E 2 lanes each direction. It was subsequently expanded in the late 70's, 80's ?, can't remember, to a 3 lane ea. direction, divided. The current Google map shows that the Taconic is right on top of where the Putnam RR right-of-way existed. Note that the Old Put had stopped passenger service in the late 50's, was freight only till '75 but only as far as north Elmsford and had been abandoned north of that. Thus it's easy to see where the planners for the Taconic put it right on top of the railbed. Thus the planners for the NCT decades later had no rail-trail right-of-way to put the trail and had to resort to on road route on Rt 100 to Millwood.