There were three main yards in Bridgeport, the East and West Yards in East Bridgeport, the East Yard being the one that Metro-North uses for their equipment and the West Yard which is pretty much history, it might be completely gone by now.

The third main yard in Bridgeport was the Lower Yard just west of the station which was accessed by the East Ramp off track 4 and the West Ramp off track 3. There was a tunnel under the line from the West Ramp. This was used by switchers to and from East Bridgeport with drags of cars for the Lower Yard and also by the Naugy to change ends with the Budd Cars.

The East Yard at East Bridgeport was mostly used for set off and pick up by eastbound trains and for local cars in Bridgeport.

The West Yard was the more important of the two in the NHRR days. A good number of westbound trains worked this yard on their trips west either a set off or a pick up or both. Years ago there were always hot PRR cars out of both Hartford and Waterbury and instead of going through Cedar Hill they had at one time a job out of Hartford (ANE-1) which moved the PRR's from Hartford and Waterbury where they would be picked up by the regular NE-1 out of Cedar Hill. Even earlier the Hartford and Waterbury train would operate all the way to Bay Ridge with a pick up and power and crew change at East Bridgeport. In later NHRR years the Hartford cars moved to Cedar Hill and the Waterbury cars moved to East Bridgeport on DN-3 where NE-1 would still stop and pick them up. There were also Oak Points and Harlem Rivers out of Waterbury and they would go on either NH-3 or later on NH-1 or NE-1 which eventually had to stop at Oak Point to drop anyway. As business declined through the 50's and 60's trains were combined and one train would do the work formerly done by two trains.

As business declined out of both Hartford and Waterbury the railroad did not attempt to make connections with NE-1 at East Bridgeport but moved the cars through Cedar Hill for later trains. As the brass industry, machine shops, meat packers and other stuff declined in Waterbury, so did railroad operations in both Waterbury and elsewhere and train after train came off. There were towers at both ends of East Bridgeport, SS-62 which was where Central and now CP-257 is located today and at SS-63 (Bishop Avenue) about a mile or so east of that location. SS-63 was closed by Penn Central not too long after they took us over and everything was done at SS-62. Under the NHRR more work took place at SS-63 than at SS-62 and SS-62 was only open on the last trick most of the time.

The Lower Yard handled mostly local business for Bridgeport which included meat, coal for the power plant and cars for Bridgeport Brass and other stuff in North Bridgeport (the old Berkshire). Switchers out of the Lower Yard also went west and did the Hole Track and State Street at Burr Road as well as Bullard's off track 4 and McKesson's and one or two others off track 3. The shortest regular revenue freight move on the entire New Haven Railroad was most likely a regular two car move from the Jenkins factory by the curve to another Jenkins operation off track 3 west of Burr Road and there was a regular day job out of the Lower Yard that did that move on the middle trick 5 days a week.

Between the bridge and the yard, on the north side of the track, there is a site that someone told me used to be a ammunition manufacture. Is that accurate?

Remington Arms, once a very busy place and now a ruin like so many other old Connecticut factories. They had an intra-plant railroad that used, among other things, an ex-NH Mack rail-bus to transport gunpowder from a bunker to the manufacturing area. That was in service into the 1970s.

How many tracks did the east yard have?

Both sides had a lot of tracks but I seem to think that the west side had more. There was a lot of switching that took place in that yard in years past, today it's gone completely.

What was the location of Bridgeport Brass and also did the new haven have a icing facility in the lower yard?

Here is an aerial shot taken 1949 of the subject area. Note Seaview Avenue at the extreme left and a train running down the street!

HistoricAerials.com is the source.

Here is an aerial shot taken 1949 of the subject area. Note Seaview Avenue at the extreme left and a train running down the street!

HistoricAerials.com is the source.

If I remember correctly, the state of Connecticut digital archives would have - from the 1934 aerial survey of the state - a good shot of the yard from 1934 [and - if you search - track diagrams from that time period, or not too far after it, in other parts of the site]

Bridgeport Brass was on the old Berkshire. They also had access to water transportation and got barges of sand among other things.

I believe Bridgeport Brass was on Housatonic Avenue. Did they receive the sand via rail cars and what other type of rail cars did they receive?