There’s talk of allowing bicycles on the rail trail. What’s the history of this train bed?
The four-mile line from Branchville to the village of Ridgefield was a challenging and probably unprofitable enterprise of the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad, itself a very successful business of its time.
Started in 1869 and opened June 25, 1870, the branch line was designed to beat competing railroads that were planning to serve Ridgefield center from the southwest and the north.
The railroad’s first venture, the line from Norwalk to Danbury, opened in 1852 and was very successful. The company by 1870 was issuing stock dividends of 16%.
But the Ridgefield branch was not so profitable. While the main line was fairly easy to build, following the mostly gentle elevations along the Norwalk River and Simpaug Brook, Ridgefield was a challenge. The elevation at Branchville is 342 feet above sea level while up in the village, it is more than 700 feet. That grade of up to 120 feet per mile was “one of the most difficult operations in the state,” said L. Peter Cornwall in In the Shore Line’s Shadow, a history of the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad.
Construction cost about $250,000 ($4.2 million in today’s dollars), which was “as much as the entire main line had cost 19 years earlier,” Mr. Cornwall wrote. This, to serve the center of a town that had only 1,900 people. But it did succeed in keeping out the competition.
For many years the line had three trips a day. Each train included a passenger coach, a mail car, and whatever number of freight cars might be needed to bring such things as coal and lumber to town.
The engine was at the head coming up the line, and remained there as the train backed down to Branchville. The trip up the line took at least 15 minutes while returning — without even using the engine’s power other than to brake — took 10.
Along the way there were little shelters at Cooper Road and Florida Road where passengers could flag down a ride. (In the early 1900s, these might be students going to school in the center.)
Both Branchville and Ridgefield stations still exist; Ridgefield Station is now a storage building at Ridgefield Supply on Prospect Street.
The automobile and the truck spelled doom for the costly branch line. The last passenger service was in 1925. Freight service continued until 1964 — probably the last customer was Ridgefield Supply, which got its lumber by rail. But trucks by then were cheaper and probably faster transportation.
The rails were soon removed, and the bed remained empty till the 1970s when CL&P acquired most of it to run a high-voltage transmission line into town. Only three of the four miles are CL&P’s — private owners bought most of the bed between where it meets Florida Road and Branchville Station.