Beacon Falls (Metro-North New Haven Line Waterbury Branch)

Beacon Falls is a small Metro-North Station on the Waterbury Branch. It has extremely low ridership and is 2018 was Metro-North’s least used station based on average weekday ridership that receives regular train service throughout the day. The station is extremely simple. It consists of a single 35 foot long, low-level platform. When trains stop, just one set of doors are able to open. When I boarded the train here in 2024 I was surprised that the two conductors stay on-board in the vestibule and didn’t automatically climb down the steps off the train like most railroads require at stations especially those without level boarding.

This small platform contains a tactile warning strip, clearly retrofitted after the simple platform was built, a single double-wide white domed bus shelter with a bench running along the entirety of the back wall, a single Beacon Falls station sign, (red line on top, red italic letters) and green trash/recycling center bin with the Metro-North logo on it.

This shelter has an information panel attached to the outside of it (this one used to contain the train schedule until the MTA decided to abolish posting schedules at stations and assumed everyone has smartphones, replacing them with QR codes) and a second attached to the ground information panel just outside the shelter with the required Civil Rights Title VI information. (Title VI information that must be posted in a place where every transit rider can see it, whether it’s on all transit vehicles/cars, or posted at every stop/station, Metro-North does the latter).

To leave the platform are six steps or a ramp. These lead down to the level of the parking lot (slightly lower than the train tracks and platform). The platform is tucked into the southwest corner of the station’s 28 space parking lot. This parking lot (and the entire station) has a single access point in the middle of the parking lot on its opposite side out to Railroad Avenue, with some houses just blocking the Naugatuck River from view. The rest of the parking lot is surrounded by W-shaped highway guardrails. There are no connected sidewalks to the station, just the single driveway.

Just north of the parking lot, is the bridge across the Naugatuck River of Depot Street across to Main Street and the very small-town center of Beacon Falls with just 6,000 people.
All Photos: November 27, 2023

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A view north of the station's parking lot (there is truck parking just outside of it)

Cars in the parking lot and the blink and you will miss it platform at one corner

No sidewalks on the driveways to leave the parking lot

The tiny platform at one corner of the parking lot

The staircase of six steps up to the tiny platform

heading up the gentle ramp to the platform (there is no mobile-lift to allow ADA access onto trains)

The Beacon Falls platform sign

Title VI notices!

The Title VI notice sign and platform shelter

The double-wide bus shelter that is the only amenity for waiting passengers

The retrofitted tactile warning strip of the tiny platform

A No trespassing sign across from the platform

Looking down to the stop markers for trains and sidings south of the station

The Beacon Falls platform sign above a recycling center

The information panel where the Waterbury Branch timetable was once displayed, now just signs about New Fares, New Schedules both with QR codes, and a sign about Metro-North Care where you can pre-request station assistance for accessibility

A Southbound Waterbury Branch Shuttle train approaches the station

Shoreliner #6311 leads a southbound Shuttle train towards the station

Shoreliner #6311 passes cars in the adjacent parking lot as it approaches the station

The conductor opens one door and the trap, while the train is still moving, before its fully arrived in the station

The conductor stays in the vestibule of the train (not stepping off to offer any assistance for the steps or say watch your step) as the frontmost car stops at Beacon Falls

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