Originally Posted by
Papa Tom
OK, so my trail geography is getting foggy the more I keep staying closer to home. Can somebody bring me up to speed? Does the Dutchess Rail Trail connect to the Westchester County Trail?
No, its further north. The current section runs from Hopewell Junction, NW to just north of Poughkeepsie where it meets the bridge trail over the Hudson. I think the Duchess trail is now 12 miles. The bridge adds 1.3, then you can continue west in Orange County another 4 miles on the Hudson Valley trail, so a bit over 17 one-way.
The Maybrook rail line does run down to Brewster (from Hopewll Junction) and east to Danbury and Waterbury. I believe some of the CT. section is rail trail. I don't think Duchess County has any current plans to make it all rail trail as there might still be commercial rail use from Brewster (there's a link to Metro North) to Wappingers Falls/Fish kill, not sure though.
In theory, the line gets abandonded, they could link to the Old Put rail trail to the NCT/SCT.
I belive that Orange County intends to link/complete all the Hudson Valley trail SW to Walden. South of that the line is still running trains, but you could see a really long trail some day, like 50-60 miles one way.