Rye station is a

commuter rail Commuter rail or suburban rail is a Passenger train, passenger rail service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Central business district, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter town ...

stop on the

Metro-North Railroad The Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company , also branded as MTA Metro-North Railroad and commonly called simply Metro-North, is a suburban commuter rail service operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a New York State publ ...

New Haven Line The New Haven Line is a commuter rail line operated by the Metro-North Railroad in the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and Connecticut. Running from New Haven, Connecticut, to New York City, the New Haven Line joins the Harlem Line ...

, located in the city of

Rye, New York Rye is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, within the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area. It received its charter as a city in 1942, making it the most recent such charter in the state. Its area of ...

. The station has two

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms, ...

s, each ten cars long, serving the outer tracks of the four-track line.

History

Railroad service through Rye dates back to the 1840s when the

New York and New Haven Railroad The New York and New Haven Railroad (NY&NH) was a railroad connecting New York City to New Haven, Connecticut, along the shore of Long Island Sound. It opened in 1849, and in 1872 it merged with the Hartford & New Haven Railroad to form the New ...

laid tracks through the town and the city. The NY&NH was merged into the

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated principally in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

in 1872. In 1907 the main line was electrified through a major power plant across the state line in

Cos Cob Cos Cob is a neighborhood and census-designated place in the town of Greenwich, Connecticut, United States. It is located on the Connecticut shoreline in southern Fairfield County. It had a population of 6,873 at the 2020 census. Cos Cob is lo ...

built by Westinghouse. Beginning on July 1, 1928, Rye became the northeastern terminus of the New Haven Railroad's affiliate, the

New York, Westchester and Boston Railway The New York, Westchester and Boston Railway Company (NYW&B, also known to its riders as "the Westchester" and colloquially as the "Boston-Westchester"), was an electric commuter railroad in the Bronx and Westchester County, New York from 1912 ...

, on a separate platform from the rest of the station. By December 7, 1929 the line was extended to

Port Chester Port Chester is a administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the largest part of the town of Rye (town), New York, Rye in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County by populati ...

and Rye served as the penultimate stop on the Port Chester Branch. The NYW&B station closed on October 31, 1937, and the New Haven removed the rails in 1940. The

New England Thruway Interstate 95 (I-95) is part of the Interstate Highway System and runs from Miami, Florida, to the Canada–United States border near Houlton, Maine. In the US state of New York, I-95 extends from the George Washington Bridge in New York ...

was built on the site of the NYW&B station during the 1950s. In 1955, architect

Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981) was a Hungarian-American modernist architect and furniture designer. He moved to the United States in 1937 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1944. At the Bauhaus he designed the Was ...

designed new stations at Rye and for the New Haven Railroad as part of a design program overseen by Knoll Associates. Neither station was ultimately built. As with all New Haven Line stations in Westchester County, the station became a

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals, the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

station upon acquisition by Penn Central Railroad in 1969. The station was updated in 1972 from low-level to high-level platforms. This was done to accommodate the arrival of new rail cars known then as Cosmopolitans, now more commonly known as M2s. The new cars did not include boarding steps, or traps, as their predecessor 4400 Pullman "Washboard" cars did, and could only board passengers at stations with high-level platforms. The update was done in two phases, with the eastern half of the station upgraded first: then the western half. Due to the railroad's continuous financial despair throughout the 1970s, they were forced to turn over their commuter service to the

Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a New York state public benefit corporations, public benefit corporation in New York (state), New York State responsible for public transportation in the New York metropolitan area, New York Ci ...

. For many years, Rye was the eastern Westchester County station for

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

, with trains such as the '' Connecticut Yankee'' and '' Mail Express''. MTA transferred the station to Metro-North in 1983, and Amtrak moved to

New Rochelle New Rochelle ( ; in ) is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is a suburb of New York City, located approximately from Midtown Manhattan. In 2020, the city had a population of 79,726, making it the 7th-largest city and 2 ...

in October 1987.Amtrak October 25, 1987 Schedule (Museum of Railway Timetables)
/ref>

References

External links

{{Amtrak New York stations Metro-North Railroad stations in New York (state) Stations on the Northeast Corridor Former New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad stations Former Amtrak stations in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Rye, New York Railway stations in Westchester County, New York Railway stations in the United States opened in 1848