The Central New England Railway was a railroad from Hartford, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, west across northern Connecticut and across the Hudson River on the Poughkeepsie Bridge to Maybrook, New York. It was part of the Poughkeepsie Bridge Route, an alliance between railroads for a passenger route from Washington to Boston, and was acquired by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad in 1904. History Hartford west: 1868-1889 The Connecticut Western Railroad was chartered June 25, 1868 to run from Hartford, Connecticut, west to the New York state line, where it would meet the Dutchess & Columbia Railroad just east of Millerton, New York. The line was completed December 21, 1871; the previous month the company had leased the easternmost bit of the D&C to gain access to the New York & Harlem Railroad at Millerton. The only branch was a short one in Connecticut, south into Collinsville, which would not be completed until December, 1874. The Connecticut Western became bankrupt on April 27, 1880, and on March 31, 1881 it was reorganized as the Hartford & Connecticut Western Railroad. In the meantime, the Rhinebeck & Connecticut Railroad was organized in New York on June 29, 1870 to build from Rhinecliff on the Hudson River east to the Connecticut state line to join the Connecticut Western. The line opened to the public on April 14, 1875, running from Rhinecliff east to Boston Corners, New York. From Boston Corners to the state line, the R&C obtained trackage rights over the track of the Poughkeepsie & Eastern Railroad, which junctioned with the Connecticut Western and Dutchess and Columbia at the state line. On July 1, 1882 the Hartford & Connecticut Western bought the Rhinebeck & Connecticut Railroad, giving it a line from Hartford to the Hudson River. The Poughkeepsie, Hartford & Boston Railroad, the successor to the Poughkeepsie & Eastern, went bankrupt in the 1880s, and on January 26, 1884 the H&CW outright bought the line east of Boston Corners that it had operated under trackage rights. Poughkeepsie Bridge: 1871-1899 Over the years, several plans had been made for a fixed span across the Hudson River south of Albany to replace the numerous car float operations. One of the most persistent was originally chartered in 1868 as the Hudson Highland Suspension Bridge Company, and would have crossed from Anthony's Nose to Fort Clinton, now roughly the site of the Bear Mountain