Maybrook Trailway (Putnam Trailway - CT Border)

About this trail

This roughly 4.4-mile paved segment is the southern, older portion of the Maybrook Trailway, running east from the village of Brewster in the Town of Southeast, Putnam County, New York, to the Connecticut state line at Danbury. News coverage of the 2021 trailway opening describes it as an existing 5.5-mile scenic route along the East Branch Reservoir in Southeast. The corridor is the Beacon Line, the former Maybrook Line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, which opened in 1892 as the first all-rail freight link across the Hudson River north of New York City, running from Derby, Connecticut, to Maybrook, New York, over the Poughkeepsie railroad bridge. Passenger service ended in 1927; a May 1974 fire on the Poughkeepsie bridge cut the route west of Hopewell Junction, Conrail rerouted New England freight through Springfield in 1992, and Metro-North bought the line in 1995 for $4.2 million. The Connecticut portion from the state line to Danbury is owned by the Housatonic Railroad.

At Brewster the trail meets the Putnam Trailway, a 12-mile paved path on the former Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad (the "Old Put," 1881–1958) that runs south to Baldwin Place and connects there to Westchester County's North County Trailway toward New York City; Metro-North's Brewster station on the Harlem Line also provides access. Northwest from Brewster, the 23-mile Maybrook Trailway segment completed by Metro-North in January 2021 with $42 million in state funds continues to Hopewell Junction and the Dutchess Rail Trail, closing the final gap in the 750-mile Empire State Trail. TrailLink lists the southern endpoint as 123 Mill Plain Road, Danbury, with parking at Southeast Town Park on Pumphouse Road near Lake Tonetta.

The surface is asphalt and the grade is nearly flat. Reviewers note a river bridge in Brewster that reopened after a period of closure. In February 2024 the Surface Transportation Board approved Metro-North's abandonment of 41 miles of the Beacon Line between Beacon and the Connecticut border for interim trail use.

Sources checked Oct 12, 2026 · CC BY 4.0