New York Central Railroad

New York Central Railroad

New York Central system in 1918
Reporting mark NYC
Locale Northeast to Midwest
Dates of operation 1831–1968
Successor Penn Central
Track gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Headquarters New York City

The New York Central Railroad (reporting mark NYC), known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States. Headquartered in New York City, the railroad served most of the Northeast, including extensive trackage in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Massachusetts, plus additional trackage in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St.Louis in the midwest along with the intermediate cities of Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Detroit. NYC's Grand Central Terminal in New York City is one of its best known extant landmarks.

In 1968 the NYC merged with its former rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad, to form Penn Central (the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad joined in 1969). That company went bankrupt in 1970 and was taken over by the federal government and merged into Conrail in 1976. Conrail was broken up in 1998, and portions of its system was transferred to the newly formed New York Central Lines LLC, a subsidiary leased to and eventually absorbed by CSX and Norfolk Southern. Those companies' lines included the original New York Central main line, but outside that area it included lines that were never part of the New York Central system. CSX was able to take one of the most important main lines in the nation, which runs from New York City and Boston to Cleveland, Ohio, as part of the Water Level Route, while Norfolk Southern gained the Cleveland, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois portion of the line called the Chicago line.

At the end of 1925, the New York Central System operated 11,584 miles (18,643 km) of road and 26,395 miles (42,479 km) of track; at the end of 1967 the mileages were 9,696 miles (15,604 km) and 18,454 miles (29,699 km).[1]

History

Pre-New York Central: 1826–1853

The oldest part of the NYC was the first permanent railroad in the state of New York and one of the first railroads in the United States. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was chartered in 1826 to connect the Mohawk River at Schenectady to the Hudson River at Albany, providing a way for freight and especially passengers to avoid the extensive and time-consuming locks on the Erie Canal between Schenectady and Albany. The Mohawk and Hudson opened on September 24, 1831, and changed its name to the Albany and Schenectady Railroad on April 19, 1847.

The Utica and Schenectady Railroad was chartered April 29, 1833; as the railroad paralleled the Erie Canal it was prohibited from carrying freight. Revenue service began August 2, 1836, extending the line of the Albany and Schenectady Railroad west from Schenectady along the north side of the Mohawk River, opposite the Erie Canal, to Utica. On May 7, 1844 the railroad was authorized to carry freight with some restrictions, and on May 12, 1847 the ban was fully dropped, but the company still had to pay the equivalent in canal tolls to the state.

The Syracuse and Utica Railroad was chartered May 1, 1836, and similarly had to pay the state for any freight displaced from the canal. The full line opened July 3, 1839, extending the line further to Syracuse via Rome (and further to Auburn via the already-opened Auburn and Syracuse Railroad). This line was not direct, going out of its way to stay near the Erie Canal and serve Rome, and so the Syracuse and Utica Direct Railroad was chartered January 26, 1853. Nothing of that line was ever built, though the later West Shore Railroad, acquired by the NYC in 1885, served the same purpose.

The Auburn and Syracuse Railroad was chartered May 1, 1834, and opened mostly in 1838, the remaining 4 miles (6.4 km) opening on June 4, 1839. A month later, with the opening of the Syracuse and Utica Railroad, this formed a complete line from Albany west via Syracuse to Auburn, about halfway to Geneva. The Auburn and Rochester Railroad was chartered May 13, 1836, as a further extension via Geneva and Canandaigua to Rochester, opening on November 4, 1841. The two lines merged on August 1, 1850, to form the rather indirect Rochester and Syracuse Railroad (known later as the Auburn Road). To fix this, the 'Rochester and Syracuse Direct Railway was chartered and immediately merged into the Rochester and Syracuse Railroad on August 6, 1850. That line opened June 1, 1853, running much more directly between those two cities, roughly parallel to the Erie Canal.

To the west of Rochester, the Tonawanda Railroad was chartered April 24, 1832, to build from Rochester to Attica. The first section, from Rochester southwest to Batavia, opened May 5, 1837, and the rest of the line to Attica opened on January 8, 1843. The Attica and Buffalo Railroad chartered in 1836 and opened on November 24, 1842, running from Buffalo east to Attica. When the Auburn and Rochester Railroad opened in 1841, there was no connection at Rochester to the Tonawanda Railroad, but with that exception there was now an all-rail line between Buffalo and Albany. On March 19, 1844, the Tonawanda Railroad was authorized to build the connection, and it opened later that year. The Albany and Schenectady Railroad bought all the baggage, mail and emigrant cars of the other railroads between Albany and Buffalo on February 17, 1848, and began operating through cars.

On December 7, 1850, the Tonawanda Railroad and Attica and Buffalo Railroad merged to form the Buffalo and Rochester Railroad. A new direct line opened from Buffalo east to Batavia on April 26, 1852, and the old line between Depew (east of Buffalo) and Attica was sold to the Buffalo and New York City Railroad on November 1. The line was added to the New York and Erie Railroad system and converted to the Erie's 6 ft (1,829 mm) broad gauge.

The Schenectady and Troy Railroad was chartered in 1836 and opened in 1842, providing another route between the Hudson River and Schenectady, with its Hudson River terminal at Troy.

The Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad was chartered in 1834 to build from Lockport on the Erie Canal west to Niagara Falls; it opened in 1838. On December 14, 1850, it was reorganized as the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad, and an extension east to Rochester opened on July 1, 1852.

The Buffalo and Lockport Railroad was chartered April 27, 1852, to build a branch of the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls from Lockport towards Buffalo. It opened in 1854, running from Lockport to Tonawanda, where it joined the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad, opened 1837, for the rest of the way to Buffalo.

In addition to the Syracuse and Utica Direct Railroad, another never-built company, the Mohawk Valley Railroad, was chartered January 21, 1851, and reorganized December 28, 1852, to build a railroad on the south side of the Mohawk River from Schenectady to Utica, next to the Erie Canal and opposite the Utica and Schenectady. The West Shore Railroad was later built on that location.

Map of the Water Level Routes of the New York Central Railroad (purple), West Shore Railroad (red) and Erie Canal (blue)

Albany industrialist and Mohawk Valley Railroad owner Erastus Corning got the above railroads together into one system, and on March 17, 1853 they agreed to merge. The merger was approved by the state legislature on April 2, and ten of the remaining companies merged to form the New York Central Railroad on May 17, 1853. The following companies were consolidated into this system, including the main line from Albany to Buffalo:

  1. Albany and Schenectady Railroad
  2. Utica and Schenectady Railroad
  3. Syracuse and Utica Railroad
  4. Rochester and Syracuse Railroad
  5. Buffalo and Rochester Railroad
    The Rochester and Syracuse Railroad also owned the old alignment via Auburn, Geneva and Canandaigua, known as the "Auburn Road". The Buffalo and Rochester included a branch from Batavia to Attica, part of the main line until 1852. Also included in the merger were three other railroads:
  6. Schenectady and Troy Railroad, a branch from Schenectady east to Troy
  7. Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad, a major branch from Rochester west to Niagara Falls
  8. Buffalo and Lockport Railroad, a branch from the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls at Lockport south to Buffalo via trackage rights on the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad from Tonawanda
    As well as two that had not built any road, and never would:
  9. Mohawk Valley Railroad
  10. Syracuse and Utica Direct Railroad

Soon the Buffalo and State Line Railroad and Erie and North East Railroad converted to 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge from 6 ft (1,829 mm) broad gauge and connected directly with the NYC in Buffalo, providing a through route to Erie, Pennsylvania.

Erastus Corning years: 1853–1867

The Rochester and Lake Ontario Railroad was organized in 1852 and opened in Fall 1853; it was leased to the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad, which became part of the NYC, before opening. In 1855 it was merged into the NYC, providing a branch from Rochester north to Charlotte on Lake Ontario.

The Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad was also merged into the NYC in 1855. It had been chartered in 1834 and opened in 1837, providing a line between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. It was leased to the NYC in 1853.

Also in 1855 came the merger with the Lewiston Railroad, running from Niagara Falls north to Lewiston. It was chartered in 1836 and opened in 1837 without connections to other railroads. In 1854 a southern extension opened to the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad and the line was leased to the NYC.

The Canandaigua and Niagara Falls Railroad was chartered in 1851. The first stage opened in 1853 from Canandaigua on the Auburn Road west to Batavia on the main line. A continuation west to North Tonawanda opened later that year, and in 1854 a section opened in Niagara Falls connecting it to the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge. The NYC bought the company at bankruptcy in 1858 and reorganized it as the Niagara Bridge and Canandaigua Railroad, merging it into itself in 1890.

The Saratoga and Hudson River Railroad was chartered in 1864 and opened in 1866 as a branch of the NYC from Athens Junction, southeast of Schenectady, southeast and south to Athens on the west side of the Hudson River. On September 9, 1867, the company was merged into the NYC, but in 1867 the terminal at Athens burned down and the line was abandoned.

Hudson River Railroad

See West Side Line for details on the section in Manhattan and Hudson Line for current Metro-North Railroad operations south of Poughkeepsie.
The Hudson River Railroad vignette used on the Confederate States of America $50 note in 1862.
An 1866 drawing of the Hudson River Bridge (Albany) in Albany.

The Troy and Greenbush Railroad was chartered in 1845 and opened later that year, connecting Troy south to Greenbush (now Rensselaer) on the east side of the Hudson River. The Hudson River Railroad was chartered May 12, 1846, to extend this line south to New York City; the full line opened October 3, 1851. Prior to completion, on June 1, the Hudson River leased the Troy and Greenbush.

Cornelius Vanderbilt obtained control of the Hudson River Railroad in 1864, soon after he bought the parallel New York and Harlem Railroad.

Along the line of the Hudson River Railroad, the High Line was built in 1934 in New York City as an elevated bypass to street running trackage on Tenth Ave. The elevated section has since been abandoned, and the tunnel north of 36th St, opened in 1937, is used only by Amtrak trains to New York Penn Station (all other trains use the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad to reach the Harlem Line). A surviving section of the High Line in the Chelsea section of Manhattan recently opened as a linear park.

Vanderbilt years: 1867–1954

1876 map
ca. 1893 map
1900 map
1918 map
Chronograph Pocketwatch (ca. 1910) – manufactured by the Gallet Watch Company for use by conductors and engineers of the New York Central Rail Road.
Mainline, 1890

In 1867 Vanderbilt acquired control of the NYC, with the help of maneuverings related to the Hudson River Bridge in Albany. On November 1, 1869 he merged the NYC with his Hudson River Railroad into the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. This extended the system south from Albany along the east bank of the Hudson River to New York City, with the leased Troy and Greenbush Railroad running from Albany north to Troy.

Vanderbilt's other lines were operated as part of the NYC; these included the New York and Harlem Railroad, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, Canada Southern Railway and Michigan Central Railroad.

The Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad was chartered in 1869 and opened in 1871, providing a route on the north side of the Harlem River for trains along the Hudson River to head southeast to the New York and Harlem Railroad towards Grand Central Terminal or the freight facilities at Port Morris. From opening it was leased by the NYC.

The Geneva and Lyons Railroad was organized in 1877 and opened in 1878, leased by the NYC from opening. This was a north-south connection between Syracuse and Rochester, running from the main line at Lyons south to the Auburn Road at Geneva. It was merged into the NYC in 1890.

in 1885, the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway, a potential competitor with trackage rights along the west shore of the Hudson River, taken over by the NYC as the West Shore Railroad, and developed passenger, freight, and car float operations at Weehawken Terminal. The NYC assumed control of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie and Boston and Albany Railroads in 1887 and 1900, respectively, with both roads remaining as independently operating subsidiaries. In 1914 the name was changed again, forming the modern New York Central Railroad.

Harold S. Vanderbilt stock certificate

The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, also known as the Big Four, was formed on June 30, 1889 by the merger of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway, the Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago Railway and the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railway. The following year, the company gained control of the former Indiana Bloomington and Western Railway. By 1906, the Big Four was itself acquired by the New York Central Railroad.

The generally level topography of the NYC system had a character distinctively different than the mountainous terrain of its arch rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad. Most of its major routes, including New York to Chicago, followed rivers and had no significant grades other than West Albany Hill. This influenced a great deal about the line, from advertising to locomotive design, built around its flagship New York-Chicago Water Level Route.[2]

Steam locomotives of the NYC were optimized for speed on that flat raceway of a main line, rather than slow mountain lugging. Famous locomotives of the system included the well-known 4-6-4 Hudsons, particularly the 1937–38 J-3a's; 4-8-2 World War II–era L-3 and L-4 Mohawks; and the postwar S-class Niagaras: fast 4-8-4 locomotives often considered the epitome of their breed by steam locomotive aficionados.

Despite having some of the most modern steam locomotives anywhere, NYC's difficult financial position caused it to convert to more economical diesel-electric power rapidly. All lines east of Cleveland, Ohio were dieselized as of August 7, 1953. Niagaras were all retired by 1956. The last steam was retired in 1957. But, the economics of northeastern railroading became so dire that not even this switch could change things for the better.

Bypasses

A number of bypasses and cutoffs were built around congested areas.

The Junction Railroad's Buffalo Belt Line opened in 1871, providing a bypass of Buffalo, New York to the northeast, as well as a loop route for passenger trains via downtown. The West Shore Railroad, acquired in 1885, provided a bypass around Rochester, New York. The Terminal Railway's Gardenville Cutoff, allowing through traffic to bypass Buffalo to the southeast, opened in 1898.

The Schenectady Detour consisted of two connections to the West Shore Railroad, allowing through trains to bypass the steep grades at Schenectady, New York. The full project opened in 1902. The Cleveland Short Line Railway built a bypass of Cleveland, Ohio, completed in 1912. In 1924, the Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge was constructed as part of the Hudson River Connecting Railroad's Castleton Cut-Off, a 27.5-mile-long freight bypass of the congested West Albany terminal area and West Albany Hill.

An unrelated realignment was made in the 1910s at Rome, when the Erie Canal was realigned and widened onto a new alignment south of downtown Rome. The NYC main line was shifted south out of downtown to the south bank of the new canal. A bridge was built southeast of downtown, roughly where the old main line crossed the path of the canal, to keep access to from the southeast. West of downtown, the old main line was abandoned, but a brand new railroad line was built, running north from the NYC main line to the NYC's former Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad, allowing all NYC through traffic to bypass Rome.

Trains

NYC Hudson locomotive built with iconic streamlining designed by Henry Dreyfuss, used to haul the 20th Century Limited starting in 1938. Photo courtesy SMU.

For two-thirds of the twentieth century the New York Central had some of the most famous trains in the United States. Its 20th Century Limited, begun in 1902, ran from Grand Central Terminal in New York to LaSalle Street Station Chicago and was its most famous train, known for its red carpet treatment and first class service. In the mid-1930s many railroad companies were introducing streamliner locomotives; until the New York Central introduced the Commodore Vanderbilt all were diesel-electric. The Vanderbilt used the more common steam engine.[3] The Century, which followed the Water Level Route, could complete the 960-mile trip in 16 hours after its June 15, 1938 streamlining (and did it in 15½ hours for a short period after World War II). Also famous was its Empire State Express through upstate New York to Buffalo and Cleveland, and Ohio State Limited from New York to Cincinnati. NYC also provided the Rexall Train of 1936, which toured 47 states to promote the Rexall chain of drug stores.

Famous New York Central Trains:

New York to Chicago

The Mercuries- All Mercuries ran between 1936 and 1959

New York to St. Louis

Other Trains

Trains left from Grand Central Terminal in New York, Weehawken Terminal in Weehawken, New Jersey, South Station in Boston, Cincinnati Union Terminal in Cincinnati, Michigan Central Station in Detroit, St. Louis Union Station, and LaSalle Street Station in Chicago.

The New York Central had a network of commuter lines in New York and Massachusetts. Westchester County, New York had the railroad's Hudson, Harlem, and Putnam lines into Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan (Putnam Division trains required a change at High Bridge, NY), while New Jersey and Rockland County, New York were serviced by the West Shore Line between Weehawken and West Haverstraw, New York, on the west side of the Hudson River.

Decline

The New York Central, like many U.S. railroads, declined after the Second World War. Problems resurfaced that had plagued the railroad industry before the war, such as over-regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which severely regulated the rates charged by the railroad, along with continuing competition from automobiles. These problems were coupled with even more formidable forms of competition, such as airline service in the 1950s that began to deprive the NYC of its long-distance passenger trade. The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 helped create a network of efficient roads for motor vehicle travel through the country, enticing more people to travel by car, as well as haul freight by truck. The 1959 opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway adversely affected NYC freight business. Container shipments could now be directly shipped to ports along the Great Lakes, eliminating the railroads' freight hauls between the east and the Midwest.

The NYC also carried a substantial tax burden from governments that saw rail infrastructure as a source of property tax revenues: taxes that were not imposed upon interstate highways. To make matters worse, most railroads, including the NYC, were saddled with a World War II–era tax of 15% on passenger fares, which remained until 1962, 17 years after the end of the war.[4]

Robert R. Young: 1954–1958

In June 1954 management of the New York Central System lost a proxy fight in 1954 to Robert Ralph Young and the Alleghany Corporation he led.[5]

Alleghany Corporation was a real estate and railroad empire built by the Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland in the 1920s that had controlled the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) and the Nickel Plate Road. It fell under the control of Young and financier Allan Price Kirby during the Great Depression.

R. R. Young was considered a railroad visionary, but found the New York Central in worse shape than he had imagined. Unable to keep his promises, Young was forced to suspend dividend payments in January, 1958. He committed suicide later that month.

Alfred E. Perlman: 1958–1968

Revenue freight traffic, in millions of net ton-miles[6]
Year Traffic
1925 35929
1933 20692
1944 51922
1960 32329
1967 38901
Source: ICC annual reports
Revenue passenger traffic, in millions of passenger-miles[7]
Year Traffic
1925 4261
1933 2238
1944 9292
1960 1797
1967 939
Source: ICC annual reports

After his suicide, Young's role in NYC management was assumed by Alfred E. Perlman, who had been working with the NYC under Young since 1954. Despite the dismal financial condition of the railroad, Perlman was able to streamline operations and save the company money. Starting in 1959, Perlman was able to reduce operating deficits by $7.7 million, which nominally raised NYC stock to $1.29 per share, producing dividends of an amount not seen since the end of the war. By 1964 he was able to reduce the NYC long term debt by nearly $100 million, while reducing passenger deficits from $42 to $24.6 million.

Perlman also enacted several modernization projects throughout the railroad. Notable was the use of Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) systems on many of the NYC lines, which reduced the four-track mainline to two tracks. He oversaw construction and/or modernization of many hump or classification yards, notably the $20-million Selkirk Yard which opened outside of Albany in 1966. Perlman also experimented with jet trains, creating a Budd RDC car (the M-497 Black Beetle) powered by two J47 jet engines stripped from a B-36 Peacemaker bomber as a solution to increasing car and airplane competition. The project did not leave the prototype stage.

Perlman's cuts resulted in the curtailing of many of the railroad's services; commuter lines around New York were particularly affected. In 1958-59 service was suspended on the NYC's Putnam Division in Westchester and Putnam counties, and the NYC abandoned its ferry service across the Hudson to Weehawken Terminal. This negatively impacted the railroad's West Shore Line, which ran along the west bank of the Hudson River from Jersey City to Albany, which saw long-distance service to Albany discontinued in 1958 and commuter service between Jersey City and West Haverstraw, New York terminated in 1959. Ridding itself of most of its commuter service proved impossible due to the heavy use of these lines around metro New York, which government mandated the railroad still operate.

Many long-distance and regional-haul passenger trains were either discontinued or downgraded in service, with coaches replacing Pullman, parlor, and sleeping cars on routes in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The Empire Corridor between Albany and Buffalo saw service greatly reduced with service beyond Buffalo to Niagara Falls discontinued in 1961. On December 3, 1967, most of the great long-distance trains ended, including the famed "Twentieth Century Limited". The railroad's branch line service off the Empire Corridor in upstate New York was also gradually discontinued, the last being its Utica Branch between Utica and Lake Placid, in 1965. Many of the railroad's great train stations in Rochester, Schenectady, and Albany were demolished or abandoned. Despite the savings these cuts created, it was apparent that if the railroad was to become solvent again a more permanent solution was needed.

Merger with the Pennsylvania Railroad

One problem that many of the Northeastern railroads faced was the fact that the railroad market was saturated for the dwindling rail traffic that remained. The NYC had to compete with its two biggest rivals: the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), in addition to more moderate-size railroads such as the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad (DLW), the Erie Railroad, the Reading Company, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, and the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Mergers of these railroads seemed a promising way for these companies to streamline operations and reduce the competition. The DL&W and Erie railroads had showed some success when they began merging their operations in 1956, finally leading to the formation of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad in 1960. Other mergers combined the Virginian Railway, Wabash Railroad, Nickel Plate Road and several others into the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) system, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), Western Maryland Railroad (WM), and Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) combined with others to form the Chessie System. Heavy streamlining and reduction in passenger services led to the success of many of these mergers.

Following this trend, the NYC began to look for a potential railroad to merge with as early as the mid-1950s and had originally sought out mergers with the B&O and the NYC-controlled Nickel Plate Road. Unlike the aforementioned mergers, however, a NYC merger proved tricky due to the fact that the railroad still operated a fairly extensive amount of regional and commuter passenger services that were under mandates by the Interstate Commerce Commission to maintain.

It soon became apparent that the only other railroad with enough capital to allow for a potentially successful merger proved to be the NYC's chief rival, the PRR: itself a railroad that still had a large passenger trade. Merger talks between the two roads were discussed as early as 1955; however, this was delayed due to a number of factors: among them, interference by the Interstate Commerce Commission, objections from operating unions, concerns from competing railroads, and the inability of the two companies themselves to formulate a merger plan, thus delaying progress for over a decade. Two major points of contention centered around which railroad should have the majority controlling interest going into the merger. Perlman's cost-cutting during the '50s and '60s put the NYC in a more financially healthy situation than the PRR. Nevertheless, the ICC, with urging by PRR President Stuart Saunders, wanted the PRR to absorb the NYC. Another point centered around the ICC's wanting to force the bankrupt New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, better known as the New Haven, into the new system, which it did in 1969, something to which both companies objected. Eventually, both points would ultimately lead to the new Penn Central's demise.

In December, 1967, the New York Central published its last public timetable. The final timetable revealed a drastically truncated passenger schedule in anticipation of its merger with the PRR. Most deluxe long-distance passenger trains ended on December 3, 1967, including the famed 20th Century Limited. Only those trains which were to be continued after the merger with the PRR were retained, along with the railroad's commuter trains.

Penn Central: 1968–1976

On February 1, 1968, the New York Central was absorbed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, forming the new Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company that was eventually renamed the Penn Central Transportation Company, with the NYC's Alfred Perlman as president. Penn Central was quickly saddled with debt when the ICC forced the money-losing New Haven into the railroad in 1969. In addition, the merger was handled in a haphazard manner with no formal merger plan implemented. The two companies' competing corporate cultures, union interest, and incompatible operating and computer systems sabotaged any hope for a success. Additionally in an effort to look profitable, the board of directors authorized the use of the railroad's reserve cash to pay dividends to company stockholders. Nevertheless, on June 21, 1970 Penn Central declared bankruptcy, the largest private bankruptcy in the United States to that time. Under bankruptcy protection many of Penn Central's outstanding debts owed to other railroads were frozen, while debts owed to Penn Central by the other roads were not. This sent a trickle effect throughout the already fragile railroad industry forcing many of the other Northeastern railroads into insolvency, among them the Erie Lackawanna, Boston and Maine, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Reading Company, and the Lehigh Valley.

Penn Central marked the last hope of privately funded passenger rail service in the United States. In response to the bankruptcy President Richard Nixon signed into law the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 which formed the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, better known as Amtrak, a nationalized government owned and subsidized railroad. On May 1, 1971 Amtrak assumed the responsibility of most regional and long distance intercity passenger trains in the United States. Amtrak would eventually assume ownership of the Northeast Corridor, a mostly electrified route between Boston and Washington, D.C. inherited primarily from the PRR and New Haven systems. Penn Central and the other railroads were still obligated to operate their commuter services for the next five years while in bankruptcy, eventually turning them over to the newly formed Conrail in 1976. There was some hope that Penn Central, and the other Northeastern railroads, could be restructured towards profitability once their burdensome passenger deficits were unloaded. However, this was not to be and the railroads never recovered from their respective bankruptcies.

Conrail and CSX: 1976–present

Conrail, officially the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was created by the U.S. Government to salvage Penn Central, and the other bankrupt railroads freight business, beginning its operations on April 1, 1976. As mentioned, Conrail assumed control of Penn Central's commuter lines throughout the Lower Hudson Valley of New York, Connecticut, and in and around Boston. In 1983 these commuter services would be turned over to the state funded Metro North Railroad in New York and Connecticut, and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Massachusetts. Conrail would go on to achieve profitability by the 1990s and was sought by several other large railroads in a continuing trend of mergers eventually having its assets absorbed by CSX and Norfolk Southern.

Conrail, in an effort to streamline its operations, was forced to abandon miles of both NYC and PRR trackage. Nevertheless, the majority of the NYC system is still intact and used by both CSX and Amtrak. Among the lines still used are the famed Water Level Route between New York and Chicago, as well as its former Boston & Albany line between these points, the Kankakee Belt Route through Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, and the West Shore Line between Jersey City and the Albany suburb of Selkirk where the old NYC – now CSX – Selkirk Yard is among the busiest freight yards in the country.

On June 6, 1998, most of Conrail was split between Norfolk Southern and CSX. New York Central Lines LLC was formed as a subsidiary of Conrail, containing the lines to be operated by CSX; this included the old Water Level Route and many other lines of the New York Central, as well as various lines from other companies. It also assumed the NYC reporting mark. CSX eventually fully absorbed it, as part of a streamlining of Conrail operations.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Totals include B&A, MC, CCC&StL, Cinc Northern and EI&TH, but not P&LE, Fulton Chain, Raquette Lake, Federal Valley, Kankakee & Seneca or Chicago Kalamazoo & Saginaw.
  2. ↑ http://www.american-rails.com/new-york-central-system.html
  3. ↑ "Streamline Steam Engine Attains High Speed", Popular Mechanics, February 1935
  4. ↑ "Brief History of the U.S. Passenger Rail Industry".
  5. ↑ TIME magazine, June 21, 1954
  6. ↑ Totals include subsidiary roads like B&A, MC, Big Four, EI&TH, K&M etc but not P&LE, Kankakee & Seneca, Fulton Chain, Raquette Lake or Federal Valley.
  7. ↑ Totals include subsidiary roads like B&A, MC, Big Four, EI&TH, K&M etc but not P&LE, Kankakee & Seneca, Fulton Chain, Raquette Lake or Federal Valley.

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