Re: PC: Internet Message & ex-PC station - Dover Plains, NY

[NYC4600@xxxxxxx]

It is true that much can be found in all of those old padlocked, run down
stations out there.  One of them is the station in Dover Plains, NY, at the
rural northern end of the Harlem Line of the Metro-North Railroad, formerly
the train order station for the New  York & Harlem Railroad, then the New York
Central when it began leasing the NY&H, then later for Penn Central, and
Conrail.  I have a few questions about the station, that maybe someone out
there knows the answers to.

Does anyone know what's left inside the station from the NYC/PC/CR days? Are
the waiting room benches still intact?  Is the agents office still intact?
Anyone know what it's used for now, or who owns it?

The station sits right in the middle of the tiny town (that will hopefully
keep its rural identity, and keep the mini-van driving, shopping mall
patronizing suburbanites out).  The post office was right opposite it, until
the postal service moved it south of town in 1997, adjacent the tracks, but in
the middle of a field.  It was built in 1850, and desperately needs to be
restored.  I can only imagine what's inside it.  I don't know who owns it, or
if the MNR uses it for storage, but someone needs to save it.  Penn Central
kept the station open even in the hard times.  It survived the New York
Central station closings of 1958, but it ended up being a stingy public agency
that closed it - the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Obvioulsy they "couldn't afford it" (yeah right) then, but now they use up NY
taxpayers dollars left and right, installing flower pots and bike racks at the
new high level platforms.  As one old engineer once told me, "they have the
money for flower pots and landscaping at the new platforms and parking lots,
but not for station agents."

At the time it was closed as a station in 1981, the MTA was paying Conrail to
run the commuter service, and this is where it ends on the Harlem Line, in
Dover Plains.  For a while, the station wore an ugly brown, but is now painted
in New York Central green (which needs to be repainted again), with a green
roof.  The station is located at the very south end of the new high level
platform built in 1997, and is in the ideal spot to serve once again as a
station.  It would be a shame to see it destroyed by anyone, vandals, local
government or the RR for any reason.

Thanks ahead of time to anyone out there who knows the answers, or some of
them, to these questions.

John W.