The Delaware & Northern (started in 1905 as
the Delaware & Eastern, and renamed after an early bankruptcy) connected
with the Ulster & Delaware at Arkville, following the East
Branch of the Delaware River through Margaretville, largely along the
route of present New York Highway 30 to East Branch, NY where it met the
main line of the Ontario & Western; there was also a branch
up the hill from Union Grove to Andes. (Incredibly, the Andes station
survives today, 70 years after the branch was abandoned, as part of a
lumberyard). While there were at one time grand ambitions to extend the
D&N south to the Pennsylvania anthracite regions, and north to the
Mohawk Valley - and, astonishingly, enough money was actually spent
to leave bridge abutments that survived into the 1960's, and grading that
survives today - nothing ever came of that scheme, and the road languished
for less than 40 years from birth to death along the East Branch of the
Delaware. Its claim to fame was the Red Heifer, a Brill gas-electric
that handled almost all the business from 1926 until the railroad's end
in 1942.
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