Actually, the end came about 40 years ago. When I was a kid freight cars still shuffled through here almost daily.

View is looking north towards Newington Junction (Newington, CT), where the NY, New Haven RR ran side by side with Hartford, Providence & Fishkill for nearly 120 years. The NY, NH (to the right) opened in 1839, and is now Metro North. Where you see fresh pavement was once the proud HPF. The end came around 1975 or so.

And now we have the Pork Barrel deal to end all Pork Barrel deals: a 9.5 mile $600 million dollar express busway from New Britain to Hartford...and the right-of-way is lost forever (and so is a favorite digging ground). They could've spent half that amount and totally refurbished the HPF from Waterbury to Hartford with a 30 mile commuter rail. I guess that made too much sense.