![]() ![]() One gain in this period, though, was control of the Central New England Railway, which included the Hudson River bridge at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and the link to Maybrook and nearby Campbell Hall. The New Haven was a financial powerhouse at the start of the 20th century, but from 1903 to 1913, the road was driven to near bankruptcy under President Charles S. Meanwhile its most dangerous threat, the partly parallel New York & New England, was absorbed by 1898, giving the New Haven an almost-total rail monopoly in southern New England. One was the fabled Old Colony, which secured the final Providence–Boston link of NH’s Shore Line route from New York. Under the 1887–99 reign of its most able president, Charles Peter Clark, the New Haven mushroomed in size and profitability by taking over railroads large and small. The fledgling NYNH&H owned just 85 locomotives and was surrounded by competitors, both rail and water. The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad was formed in 1872 by the merger of the Hartford & New Haven and the New York & New Haven. New Haven Railroad history: Formed by merger in 1872 A map from the 1940s shows how the New Haven’s compact system blanketed southern New England. Scenic country branch lines were another face of the New Haven, including trains through the Berkshire Hills to Pittsfield, Mass., which boasted parlor cars into the 1960s. Further, New Haven railroaders were at the helm of numerous steam and diesel tugs in New York Harbor, delivering car floats to connections west of the Hudson River. electric operations featured open cars and closed cars carrying the multitudes to Nantasket Beach, Mass., Providence, R.I., or New Britain, Conn. in the early 1900s, including the famous Fall River Boat Train which met palatial New Haven-owned steamships to and from New York for 90 years. The great glass and steel trainshed at Boston’s South Station saw the largest concentration of passenger traffic in the U.S. They would be succeeded by matched sets of Alco FAs, and finally by almost any mix of freight diesel power imaginable (including borrowed off-line units). New Haven’s freight artery across Connecticut and New York State to the Maybrook (N.Y.) gateway was heavyduty “mountain” railroading, with big L-1 2-10-2s pulling and pushing long drags across a sawtooth profile. The New Haven shared Grand Central Terminal with the New York Central, but the intercity trains to and from south of New York used Pennsylvania Railroad’s Penn Station by way of the giant Hell Gate Bridge. The four-track, electrified “West End” between New Haven and New York City was filled with intercity name trains and much suburban-zone M.U.-car activity. The double-track Shore Line between New Haven and Boston was home to famous trains such as the Merchants Limited and Yankee Clipper, hauled by streamlined I-5 Hudsons or members of the largest fleet of Alco DL109 diesels, or the later Alco PAs and Fairbanks-Morse C-Liners. New Haven Railroad history reveals that the New York, New Haven & Hartford was a railroad of many different faces, depending on which part you saw. Swanberg History of the New Haven Railroad A melodious Hancock air whistle is between 2044’s windshields. In the engine servicing area are more FL9s and an Alco PA. ![]() The original “McGinnis scheme,” resuscitated later on Connecticut DOT units, is fresh on FL9s 20 as they leave New Haven for New York on May 22, 1962. ![]()
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