Construction has begun on major upgrades to four Metro-North Waterbury Branch Line stations in the Naugatuck Valley, part of a $193 million initiative to modernize all six stops along the corridor by 2028. Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration announced Friday that work is underway at stations in Derby-Shelton, Ansonia, Beacon Falls and Seymour, with completion expected […]
Construction has begun on major upgrades to four Metro-North Waterbury Branch Line stations in the Naugatuck Valley, part of a $193 million initiative to modernize all six stops along the corridor by 2028.
Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration announced Friday that work is underway at stations in Derby-Shelton, Ansonia, Beacon Falls and Seymour, with completion expected by spring 2028. The state Department of Transportation is leading the program in partnership with Metro-North Railroad, drawing on a mix of state and federal funding.
The upgrades will give each station new 350-foot platforms capable of accommodating full train boarding — a significant expansion from the current infrastructure — along with covered canopies, enclosed windscreens, real-time arrival displays, ticket vending machines, improved lighting and ADA-compliant pedestrian access.
The Derby-Shelton project includes the restoration of the station’s historic building as an indoor waiting space, along with new bus bays to improve connections with local transit service.
The remaining two stations on the line, in Waterbury and Naugatuck, are also receiving upgrades under the same program.
The Waterbury station work
includes converting the former baggage room at 389 Meadow St. — the former home of the Republican-American newspaper — into a 1,570-square-foot indoor waiting area with 21 seats and customer information displays.
The Naugatuck station, meanwhile, is being relocated roughly one-third of a mile from its current location to a site closer to the borough’s downtown. The new station is expected to open in summer 2027.
Riders should expect a significant service disruption beginning July 20, 2026: train service on the Waterbury Branch Line will be suspended and replaced by buses through May 31, 2027.
The state DOT said the outage is necessary because work at the Ansonia and Beacon Falls stations — which involves shifting track to align with the longer platforms — cannot be safely performed while trains are running on the single-track line. Suspending service allows crews to work simultaneously at both locations, compressing the construction timeline.
The agency plans to use the outage window to simultaneously advance bridge, signal and infrastructure improvements between Stratford and Bridgeport, where the branch line joins the New Haven Line, under the state’s Track Improvement Mobility Enhancement for Connecticut program.
By bundling the work into a single extended shutdown, the DOT said it expects to save more than $47 million and cut roughly a year from the overall project schedule.
Details on bus routes and schedules during the service suspension will be released in the coming weeks, the DOT said.
