The D. & H. Trains

D. & H. Train ready for departure from CP Rail's Windsor Station in Montreal. (photo borrowed from internet)

The first time I learned about the D. & H. trains was the day Leslie McLeod gave me my first Canadian Pacific Railway employee timetable. While reading through the schedule and finding the page with the Adirondack Subdivision, I noticed daily passenger trains numbered 220 and 222 southbound and 221 and 223 northbound operating between Montreal and Delson, Quebec, which CPR identified only as D. & H. trains. 

From the Canadian Pacific Railway employee timetable effective October 27, 1968

When I asked Leslie what trains these were, he told me they were the Delaware & Hudson Railroad’s Montreal to New York passenger trains. These trains operated into and out of Montreal via the CPR from the junction with the Napierville Junction Railway at Delson. The origin of the CPR station name is a contraction of Delaware & Hudson.

From the CP Rail public timetable effective October 26, 1969

While I did see the D. & H. trains once in a while, I never had an opportunity to travel on them.

These trains may have been discontinued with Amtrak’s birth in 1971; they disappeared from the CP Rail public timetables that year, however a few years later, Amtrak re-established a daily Montreal-New York passenger train over the D. & H. route which Amtrak named the Adirondack.

In 1981 Kie and I rode Amtrak’s Adirondack from New York to Montreal, however, the Amfleet equipment did not possess the appearance and character of the former D. & H. trains.

The Oddblock Station Agent