My father was the ticket agent at the Pelham station, which was located at 5th Avenue and Third Street, and is sadly not depicted in this video. He worked for the NY W&B until they went out of business at midnight December 31, 1937. He rode on the last train that night.

Brings a tear to my eye when I think of the possibilities nycta could have done with that line. Also special note of eternal thanks to Roger Arcara for his rail passions on video. Rest in peace.

I'm a rail fan and in my city where I grew up (mount vernon) I always wondered what train line crossed these abandoned bridges, and now I know, freaking awesome

Thank you for bringing my cousin Roger back to me. His interest in streetcars and model trains were contagious in my youth and I relived it briefly but joyfully in this video. To hear his voice again was a wonderful surprise. Again, thank you. I'm now discovering many more of his videos which I'm sharing with the family.

I grew up (late 12:34 70's & 80's) less than a block from where the tracks ran between the Quaker Ridge and Heathcote stations. Many of the houses had rails piled up in their backyards kind of hidden out of sight. However, during games of manhunt we would always come across these old rails.

Up until about 14 years ago, you could still see the remnants of the Wykagyl station under North Street in New Rochelle. I did some work on the project that removed the platforms and bridge and replaced them with a filled in roadway. The station is still standing, although it has now been extended and retrofitted to provide retail space, so it's not as easily recognizable.

This is a very historical video. I hope there is more footage of the NYW&B still around just waiting to be viewed.

Yes I do! My favorite railroad, and I am thankful I live on the part that was saved.

Yep! I worked there from 1972 to 1989...I always wondered what the operator had to do to hand up orders to the NHRR Trains? Did they have signals on the NYW&B to protect them?? It was not on the model board or the machine, no one could tell me, not even Tommy Donahue who worked there when the NYW&B was running..A great historical mystery for former operators to contemplate in retirement, I guess!! Dale in Alabama

The tracks ran behind my house in White Plains...now the White Plains Greenway. The Gedney station was a block away. Fun video, thanks! 🎉

👍👏😊❤️ I enjoyed this video very much...... thanks for posting

I dated my present wife back in the 70’s She lived only a few blocks from 219th street and White plains rd station. And I was coming from Brooklyn. That was a long haul. Must’ve been love (LOL) Great train memories.

Nice work thanks. I have been a fan of rail transit since a kid in the 50's and The New York Central, Penn Central and so on love the nostalgia

Very interesting and informative.🇺🇸

I can't help but think the NYW&B would have been worth it's weight in gold when WW2 came, considering the gasolene and rubber rationing during the war years. But who knew? Several years ago I read an article about the NYW&B in "Railfan and Railroad" magazine, very well written by an gent who grew up in Westchester County. He said when he was a boy the best way to liven things up at family gatherings was to ask about the NYW&B. His older male relatives would explode in rage at the lines abandonment and rant for at least an hour! They loved that 'road! He said it was very entertaining!

Kool video, I love the history Thx, ,,,,, I lived around this area for over 37 years, ,,222 street blow my mind, also Boston rd, ,,wish I could go back into time, 1939 ,

What a treat to have this back! I saw Roger Arcara narrate this live when it was first discovered at a NYWB celebration at the New Rochelle NHRR station; I'd heard it was "lost" afterward. Happy that it's been found! What a sad waste scrapping this line was! By the way, a projected extension was to go north to Danbury and connect with an inland route to Boston. It was once also proposed to tunnel under the Harlem River and terminate the line at 125th St. Obviously, neither happened..

Most excellent; old NY, Westchester & Boston ril barn became the first NY Ranger practice facility. I got this from my uncle Edward P. Murphy (Fordham 41') who spent his first 5-10 years living in West Farms area of the Bronx

I hope this line exists in heaven, so I have something to look forward to.

Thanks for the great narration of a very interesting film. I grew up in New Rochelle, NY and i remember one time as a boy my uncle Ralph took me up to where the old Webster Ave Station once stood. All that was left was the concrete foundations. As a youngster what i most enjoyed then was the bunches of wild raspberries we found there.

Most railroads had dreams of going a lot further than they did. Despite it's name, it never left New York State.

You have the Unionport repair shops confused with the Van Nest shops on what is now the Amtrak NE Corridor (formerly the NHRR Harlem River Branch). The Van Nest shops became Con Ed. The former NYWB Unionport shops were used by the NYCTA's track department for many years, until the Unionport Yard (technically, the Unionport extension of the E. 180th Street yard complex aka the "new yard") was built in the 1990's. Sadly, the shop building was demolished.

Yes, but there seems to be some taboo in having nyc transit lines travel beyond the city limits. In most other large American cities, transit lines DO cross city & county lines. The old Hudson & Manhattan RR (today's PATH) did (and does) travel between New York & New Jersey but this line was privately built.

That may be one of the two truss spans that are on the IRT Pelham Bay line (the 6 train) just north of the Whitlock Avenue station.

That was amazing video. I sometimes see remnants in Westchester and New York City from the old Boston Westchester railroad

There is a fairly a large stretch and a concrete train bridge span North Highbrook Avenue still standing in Pelham NY. There is talk of turning it into a Hi-Line Park.

Very cool and informative video. Enjoyed it very much and thank you for creating/uploading it !

It is sad to watch the end of the railroad. Just sad.

I love seeing the Van Nest and Morris Park areas of The Bronx on film from this era

I have been so tempted to explore the abandoned NYNH&H spur in Port Chester - the one that still goes over Highland Street to the driveway/parking lot at the Strauss Warehouse on Horton Ave. - though I am conscientious abut not trespassing, and all that stuff. So tempting though - to be able to walk an abandoned line right in my own neighborhood... a few years ago I almost did it - climbing the embankment on Highland Street - too many spider webs though. ~_~ ugh...

This is the only known film of the NYWB, shot in 1937.

Definitely gonna use this vid as a reference when I build the NYW&B for the Trainz train simulator. :D

This sure would be handy and highly desired now if still in existence. ..the lack of a Manhattan terminal did cause grief for the line...very sad

Loved it!

Also very cool that the 'abandonded' platform/station at Westchester ave is still there, I assume to be part of the NYW&B line!

WOW! I never knew that the unused E180st station where they use as a layup now for the 2/5 trains was part of the Westchester and Boston line! I remember the elevated bridge that use to travel south almost to the Cross Bronx Expressway but it was torn down right before it reached the highway. I never knew that it kept going and connected to the Amtrak line.

this footage is very depressing though

It's sad that this fine railroad had to be dismantled, today this would have been a great way to travel this has got to be one of the city's biggest mistakes they ever made second only to the removal of the 3 rd Ave elevated.

I live near the former 6th Street (now Sanford BLVD) station which was demolished to put in a MacDonald's and the bridge for my street was removed and then filled in with soil then paved but they did not wait long enough for the soil to settle and part of it sags almost a foot or so. The rest of the former rail line space is occupied by a housing complex (I witnessed its construction), supermarket and various other businesses starting at Kingsbridge Road to Columbus Ave. The Third Street Station house still exists and is (ironically) used as (or was) a club for local transit (bus) workers. The Mount Vernon Public Library used to have a wall mounted map of the city with the route of the railroad and its stations.

Remembering the family car rides on the Hutchinson River Pkwy parallel to the NH tracks in Westchester county. Also the Gun Hill Station to go to HS and Yankee stadium in 67-71

Very cool .!!!!!!

Grew up in white plains, went to school just up the hill from where the mamaroneck Ave station on white plains was. This footage makes me wonder what could have been

Amazing.

Very interesting🙂

1:51 Bascule bridge closed permanently due to a new pedestrian bridge next to it blocking Bronx River vessels. No Port Morris, Casanova or Hunts Point Station.

My Mother and I would ride the train up to Mamaroneck station to visit folks my mom worked for as a housekeeper when I was still a baby. We just called it the Boston & Westchester at the time. Possibly someone can tell me where that huge cavernous station was located in the Bronx after we took the Third Avenue el up there to get on the NYW&B. I remember walking down a long outdoor ramp from the el into this very large station - possibly in Hunt's Point somewhere?

6:22 stupid question, but is he sure that is Larchmont, and not Mamaroneck station? Between the layout, some of the houses in the background, the station building, and the overpass abutment visible right before the shot changes to the Hutchinson River viaduct), it looks a LOT like Mamaroneck, but I could be wrong.

Interesting to see Port Chester in 1937.

It's wild that you can kinda sorta see where I-95 eventually ended up. Also, it would have been so neat if the White Plains branch still existed.

I have a friend that has videos of some of the ruins its pretty cool this is amazing you have a great piece here! I love the history of it, it went Broke becuase JP morgan spent 1,000,000 a mile in 1912. which is 20million a mile today

It is a narrow river that runs through Westchester County and the Bronx.

Man I wish I could ride the NYW&B

Very informative. But painful to watch.

This video is extremely difficult for me to watch. You get into "what-if's", and "why didn'ts", and "if only's" and a whole lot of questions. Clearly, the builders of the NYW&B had the future growth in the area pegged to a tee.

5:07 PIKE tower in the distance before it cuts to pulling into Rye station?

Strange, but nice looking old MU cars, they look almost like they're part of the much newer Steampunk thing. Would've loved to hear the sound they made, growling traction motors, ticking air compressors, just my sort of thing. Worked with old MU cars here in England for British Railways Southern Region, they ran on a 3rd rail at 750V DC. Happy days. Sadly practically all the old MU cars we had were remorselessly scrapped around the early 2000's. With their maually operated swing doors the health and safety nazis said they were "unsafe" and had "crashworthiness issues" utter crap. All replaced by souless plastic trains.

Can you imagine having to walk across local tracks to get to an express train today?

Do you have any footage re: New Rochelle?

If you're a fan of the NYW&B or just curious, this is THE film about the railroad, and Roger Arcara was THE authority. Read on for some additional details about its operation. Several commenters have asked why the NYW&B's terminal was at the bottom of the Bronx is an industrial area instead of in Manhattan. When the NYW&B was designed there was no real zoning in NYC; "downtown" continued to move uptown and was expected to make it to 125th Street shortly after the NYW&B opened. But zoning came in, "downtown" never made it to Harlem, and the NYW&B didn't have the money to bridge over or tunnel under the Harlem River to go under 125th to meet with other subways. Note that the NYW&B's terminal would have been an standalone orphan by 1955, when the 3rd Avenue El was removed south of E. 149th in the Bronx. The 2nd Avenue El was decades gone by then as well, and those lines were the Westchester's terminal connections. A wiser idea for the Westchester's survival and usefulness would have been to route their trains over the Hell Gate to Penn Station, but the PRR was a major New Haven and New York Central competitor in those pre-Penn Central times (and that forced merger didn't really work very well!). Also, despite being initially thought of as the main line, the branch to North Avenue/New Rochelle was probably ultimately extraneous. (More below.) The line to White Plains made more sense as it competed with the New York Central's Harlem Division. Getting into Penn Station, had that been possible, would have been the key to success for the Westchester. An alternate plan would have been to use existing construction track rights-of-way at the Columbus Avenus station in Mount Vernon to join with the NH and run Westchester trains to Grand Central. Answering the question about paralleling the NHRR to Port Chester east of New Rochelle, NHRR trains were overcrowded as development in Westchester was initially close to that right-of-way. NHRR's ROW was six-tracks, but the NH only used four, so a parallel line owned by the NH with lower fares and a departure time about ten minutes before New Haven trains seemed to be a reasonable supplement to service. The idea never caught on because of the transfer to the El at a forlorn terminal and the additional time it added to the commute; the cost savings per trip just wasn't worth it. By the way, originally the NYW&B tracks joined with the NHRR at a long gone tower east of the North Avenue station. I've seen one photo of the junction and the tower, said to be the only photographic documentation. The initial idea may have been a car interchange (remembering that the Westchester also had a little freight service as well), or perhaps an overlapping passenger service. However, no revenue trains were run through the junction, which was removed when the cheaply-built Port Chester extension opened, station by station, throughout the 1920s.

This sad scene was duplicated all over the United States in the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s.

I stop the video at 9:37 out of respect for the former employee. Anyway, it was an I'll conceive from.the start! as Metro North (or companies operating these these divisions, came before Westchester Boston railroad.

I don’t live too far from North Avenue in New Rochelle I live in the town of Eastchester

That is correct. I failed to mention that New York City's subway motormen are PATH's engineers, befitting a label given to all conventional railroad "drivers".

What?! No 233rd and 241st stations?!?

I wonder if the railroad was necessary considering its short life.

Theyre currenty doing a lot of digging on Quaker Ridge road where the old Fountain Head catering hall used to be. Approximately 1,000 feet following the ROW from where the North Ave station was. Im thinking of sneaking onto the property as there absolutely has to be remnants buried…. ties, concrete structures, rail spikes, etc. Fascinating but always kind of sad.

No wonder Westchester went out of business. They did the exact same thing, except Metro north did more. The only thing it appears that Westchester had over Metro north was the fact it had high platforms.

Worthington station was on this line ??

Thanks but this is not in 2022? Wow b and w still works out there!

00:45 I DON'T REMEMBER SEEING A CLICK THERE ON THE WALL WHEN I WAS THERE NUMEROUS TIMES. 02:00 N. Y. COLISEUM I ALWAYS KNEW THAT SITE AS A HUGE CITY BUS GARAGE .

They really should have kept the catenaries when the line was purchased by the IRT. Just my opinion.

This was a costly and adventurous scheme, the equipment all appears to have been of the highest standard, yet the line seems to have been fatally flawed from the outset in lacking a direct Manhattan route? The builders clearly hoped that traffic would follow, and no doubt it did - but in insufficient numbers or on other lines and in automobiles. Unfortunately the raw economics of profit or die prevailed at the time, which add the line's fascination. There are many "What if" scenarios, had it been able to survive at least partially?.To those in the know, I'd ask would it have been a successful or viable operation today? We in the UK saw government squander a similarly high capital cost project when they closed the Woodhead route in 1981. Whilst never viable for passenger traffic in its own right, it would have been a massively useful line for freight paths today.

PATH is technically a railroad.

A well-built line, too bad it did not last?

Thanks alot the union port repair station became con ed

With all the people and traffic we have today along this area this railroad would have been a godsend to the people who now live here, but why build a railroad that closely follows another railroad line is beyond me and no direct connection into NYC is another stupid decision this line might still be in operation if these decisions were different.

N O it goes into Westchester also it just gets smaller

WEST ST. STATION RIGHT BEHIND MY HOUSE

This narrator sounds like Dennis Prager.

pbatommy likes this.

This film is depressing.

Apparently NYC Mayor LaGuardia urged a state takeover to continue service but NY Gov. Lehman vetoed the idea.