New York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad , abbreviated as NYC , was an American railroad company based in New York City . The company was founded by Erastus Corning in 1853 through the merger of ten railway companies and existed until 1968 . The main destinations of the connections were Chicago and Boston .
In 1867 Cornelius Vanderbilt took control of the company. In 1869, the company was further expanded by integrating further, previously independent railway lines.
The routes of the NYC ran, as far as possible, in river valleys, so that hardly any major terrain difficulties had to be overcome. This also affected the design of the company's steam locomotives , all of which were designed for flat land routes and high speeds. With the class L “Mohawk” , class J “Hudson” and class S “Niagara” series , New York Central gave its name to several locomotive designations in North America. The twelve “Super Hudson” streamlined locomotives class J-3a designed by industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss for the 20th Century Limited and Empire State Express as well as the Niagaras are considered the highlights of American locomotive construction. Despite the modern and young steam locomotive park, the NYC quickly and comprehensively relied on the use of diesel locomotives after the Second World War .
Despite everything, the decline of NYC could not be stopped and the Vanderbilt family gradually withdrew from the railroad business. Robert Ralph Young with the Alleghany Corporation took control of the company, but could not achieve his goals. In 1958, for the first time, no dividend could be paid. In 1968 the company finally went on with the Pennsylvania Railroad in Penn Central .
history
The precursors: 1826–1853
The oldest section of the future NYC was the first railway line in the US state of New York and one of the first in the USA. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was founded in 1826 and connected the Mohawk River at Schenectady with the Hudson River at Albany , and thus formed an alternative to the Erie Canal for freight transport. The Mohawk and Hudson opened a line on September 24, 1831 and changed its name to the Albany and Schenectady Railroad on April 19, 1847.
The Syracuse and Utica Railroad was established on May 1, 1836, but also had to pay compensation to the state for freight that was taken from the canal. The entire route of this railway was opened on July 3, 1839, and represented an extension of the previous route, so that it now extended to Syracuse via Rome (and beyond to Auburn via the Auburn and Syracuse Railroad, which had already opened in the meantime). However, this line did not run on the direct route, but made a detour to follow the Erie Canal and thus pass Rome. Therefore, on January 26, 1853, the Syracuse and Utica Direct Railroad was founded. However, this railroad company never built its planned route, although the West Shore Railroad , which was taken over by NYC in 1885 , later operated the same route.
While the Auburn and Syracuse Railroad was founded on May 11, 1834, most of its route was not opened until 1838 - the last section of 6 km in length, however, not until June 4, 1839. One month later, the Syracuse and Utica Railroad, both railways together operated a line that operated the entire route from Albany west via Syracuse to Auburn, about halfway to Geneva . The Auburn and Rochester Railroad, founded on May 13, 1836, was an extension via Geneva and Canandaigua to Rochester . This opened on November 4, 1841.
The Auburn and Rochester and the Auburn and Syracuse merged on August 1, 1850 to form the Rochester and Syracuse Railroad . To round off the Rochester and Syracuse Direct Railroad was launched, which merged with the Rochester and Syracuse on August 6, 1850. Their line, which established the direct connection between the two cities, parallel to the Erie Canal, was opened on June 1, 1853.
The Albany industrialist who owned the Mohawk Valley Railroad, Erastus Corning, managed to get the ten predecessor railroads to merge into a single system, and on March 17, 1853, they agreed to merge into a single company. The state assembly of New York approved the merger on April 2nd, which took effect on May 17th. The company thus formed was called the New York Central Railroad.
The Erastus Corning Years: 1853–1867
The first years of the newly merged company were marked by further takeovers.
In 1852 the Rochester and Lake Ontario Railroad was founded. Their route was leased to the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad , which also later became part of NYC, before it was completed (fall 1853) . In 1855, the Rochester and Lake Ontario were taken over by NYC and then served as a branch line that ran from Rochester north to Charlotte on the shores of Lake Ontario .
Cornelius Vanderbilt and descendants: 1867–1954
In 1867, Cornelius Vanderbilt gained control of NYC with the help of strategic maneuvers in conjunction with the Hudson River Bridge in Albany. From February 1, 1868, he restructured the management of the company and reduced costs. He restricted the number of free rides for employees and their relatives significantly and laid off numerous employees. His instruction to paint brass decorations on the locomotives black as part of the savings in order to save the time required to polish these fittings, received a strong response in the contemporary press. On November 1, 1869, he merged NYC with his Hudson River Railroad to form the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad . This increased the range of the system south of Albany along the east bank of the Hudson River to New York City . The rented Troy and Greenbush Railroad ran north of Albany to Troy .
Vanderbilt's other rail lines were the New York and Harlem Railroad , Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway , Canada Southern Railway, and Michigan Central Railroad , which later also joined New York Central.
The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway , also known as the Big Four , was created on June 30, 1889 through the merger of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway , Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago Railway and the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railway . By 1906, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad had acquired the Big Four.
In 1914, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad changed its name to the New York Central Railroad. At the same time, a number of subsidiaries were merged with NYC.
Robert R. Young: 1954-1958
The Vanderbilt family , which had steadily reduced their stake in NYC, lost a vote against Robert Ralph Young and the Alleghany Corporation , which he ran at the 1954 annual general meeting .
Although much has been done to streamline NYC operations, mergers with other railroad companies were believed to be the only recipe for success in those difficult times for the railroads. It was thought that this was the only way to achieve financial stability. In 1957, merger talks were started with direct competitor Pennsylvania Railroad.
Young was mistaken for a railroad visionary, but the run-down New York Central was in worse shape than he'd estimated. Unable to keep his promises, Young even had to suspend dividend payments in January 1958. He committed suicide that same month.
Alfred E. Perlman: 1958-1968
After Young's suicide, Alfred E. Perlman took over the reins of NYC. Perlman had worked for the company under Young since 1954.
Under Perlman, the merger negotiations with the PRR and the planning for the practical implementation of the merger were advanced.
Shortly before the merger with the PRR, test drives were carried out in 1966 with a railcar with jet engines . The M-497 , also known as the Black Beetle, achieved the unbroken train speed record for the USA of 183 mph (296 km / h). On the basis of a Budd RDC 3 diesel multiple unit , two General Electric jet propulsion units from Convair B-36 intercontinental bombers were assembled. The test arrangement, which was classified as technically feasible and successful, was not implemented. Problems were feared that the railways could not carry enough loads at such high speeds. In the Penn Central period, the railcar was dismantled and used in normal train traffic without its distinctive spoiler and scrapped in 1984.
Penn Central, Conrail, CSX: 1968-Present
On February 11, 1968, the New York Central Railroad merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad to form Penn Central , which in 1969 also took over the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad .
After a small loss was reported in the first year, bankruptcy had to be declared on June 21, 1970 . Penn Central had produced $ 325 million in debt. However, the company could not be handled that easily, as it operated a third of all passenger trains in the USA.
The first consequence was the establishment of the semi-state passenger transport company Amtrak , which on May 1, 1971 took over passenger train operations from Penn Central and 17 other railway companies in the United States, but stopped two-thirds of US passenger trains. Penn Central continued to operate freight and local passenger transport.
Five years later, Penn Central went with other bankrupt railway companies in the northeast corridor in the newly founded Consolidated Rail, Conrail for short . The rights to the main line in the northeast corridor have been transferred from Conrail to Amtrak. Passenger traffic was taken over by regional authorities on January 1, 1983.
On June 6, 1998, most of Conrail was split between Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation . New York Central Lines was then established as a subsidiary of Conrail to hold the Conrail lines that were to be operated by CSX. This also included the old Water Level Route, but only between Albany and Cleveland, the western part was taken over by Norfolk Southern. Other NYC rail lines are now part of the CSX, but also many regional railways (short lines).
Famous trains
The best-known NYC train was the 20th Century Limited luxury train between New York and Chicago , which ran from 1902 to 1967 . From 1938, NYC began using streamlined trains based on designs by Henry Dreyfuss in 20th Century Limited . In addition to sleeping cars and dining cars, there was a train secretariat, a hairdressing salon and a viewing car at the end of the train.
The Lake Shore Limited connected the metropolis of the Midwest Chicago via Albany - Rensselaer with Boston and New York City . It was so named because large parts of the route ran along the shores of Lakes Michigan , Erie and Ontario . The connection is still operated today by Amtrak under the same name .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ oV : Railroad Disasters and Railroad reform . In: The New York Times . February 9, 1868, ISSN 0362-4331 , p. 4 .
- ↑ a b Joseph R. Daughen, Peter Binzen: The Wreck of the Penn Central . 1973, ISBN 978-1-893122-08-6 , pp. 52-57 (English).
- ↑ Article Jet Fighter on Rails. In one day at spiegel.de on March 16, 2008 (About the test drive on July 23, 1966 between Butler (Indiana) and Stryker (Ohio))
- ↑ Ben Wojdyla: Retro: New York Central's M-497 Jet Powered Train at jalopnik.com
- ^ Amtrak: Lake Shore Limited