Connecticut River Railroad
The Connecticut River Railroad (CRR) is a former railroad company based in Massachusetts , Vermont and New Hampshire ( United States ). It built and operated a main line in the Connecticut River valley and some branch lines and existed as an independent company from 1845 to 1919.
history
prehistory
The area north of Springfield, Massachusetts was still without a railroad in 1840. The most important traffic axis was the Connecticut River , which is only partially usable in winter due to the weather. Since most of the larger towns were along the river, it was decided to build a railway parallel to it. For this purpose, the Northampton and Springfield Railroad was founded on March 1, 1842 . Construction began a short time later.
On January 25, 1845, the Greenfield and Northampton Railroad was founded after the northern extension of the line under construction beyond Northampton to Greenfield had been decided. Since the operations of the two railways should be done jointly anyway, the two companies merged on July 8, 1845 to form the Connecticut River Railroad .
Construction of the network
At the end of 1846 the line to Greenfield was completed. Shortly afterwards it was decided to extend the line to East Northfield , which went into operation on New Year's Day 1849. The total route had a length of 80 kilometers.
In 1871 a 5.3 kilometer branch line was opened, which branched off from the main line at Mount Tom and connected it to Easthampton on the main line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad . Another branch line was built in 1906 in the city of Deerfield for freight traffic. It connected the CRR with the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad in order to be able to travel from south to east without shunting.
In the 1910s, the main line was extended via Fort Hill to Brattleboro . The route was originally supposed to be built in the 1870s by the Brattleboro and West River Railroad , which was founded in 1871 as a subsidiary of the CRR. Until this route opened, the trains ran on the former Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad , which had operated between South Vernon and Brattleboro since 1850.
Further development
On December 7, 1849, the CRR leased the Ashuelot Railroad , which wanted to build the northern extension of the CRR to Keene , for ten years. Since the railway, which opened in 1851, brought little profit, the contract was not extended. It was not until April 21, 1877 that the CRR took the Ashuelot Railroad under lease again.
In 1882 the Boston and Lowell Railroad and the Concord Railroad each acquired half of the shares in the CRR. The B&L leased the portion of the Concord Railroad from July 1, 1884 to December 1, 1885. In 1889, the portion of the Concord Railroad went to their legal successor, the Concord and Montreal Railroad . On February 9, 1890, the CRR merged with the Ashuelot Railroad to form a new Connecticut River Railroad. The Boston and Maine Railroad leased the new company on January 1, 1893 for 99 years and incorporated it as the Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers Division . The final merger with Boston & Maine took place on December 1, 1919, retroactively to January 1 of the same year. The main line between Springfield and East Northfield and the branch to East Deerfield are still in operation today and are used by Pan Am Southern . The remaining routes are closed.
Sources and further information
- literature
- George H. Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads 2nd Ed. Kalmbach Publishing Co., Waukesha, WI 2000, ISBN 0-89024-356-5
- Web links