New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad
| New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1872 |
| resolution | 1968 |
| Reason for dissolution | Acquisition by Penn Central after bankruptcy |
| Seat |
New Haven , Connecticut United States
|
| Branch | Railway company |
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , abbreviated to NH or NYNH & HR , often just called New Haven , was a railroad company that operated its route network in the southern New England states of the United States .
history
Emergence
The first railway lines in the area that would later become NH were built in the early 1830s. The route network grew rapidly to follow the development of the local industry, which only came to a temporary end with the American Civil War . Up to the 1890s, four major railway companies had been established in New England: the Old Colony Railroad around Boston , the New York and New Haven Railroad around Hartford , the New York and New England Railroad around New York City and the Central New England Railway in the state of Connecticut . Through merging, merging and takeovers, these and 171 other smaller railroad companies formed the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad with a route network of 3,630 kilometers in 1872.
expansion
In the late 1890s, the expansion of the railway network began, which was mainly driven by the entrepreneur JP Morgan . It was then considered to be one of the most progressive of its time, so a signal system was used for the first time in North America at New Haven in 1899 , which used the colors red, yellow and green in the meanings customary today. The main line between New York City and New Haven was expanded to four tracks. From 1915 to 1918, the entire line was re-equipped with form signals after a collision between two trains occurred due to a defective stop-disc signal, killing 21.
electrification
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With the single-track branch line from Stamford to New Canaan, which was completed in 1898, New Haven began electrical operation with 500 V DC voltage from side busbars. In the further course of the electrification, however, a catenary system had to be used because the state of Connecticut considered the busbar operation to be too dangerous and prohibited it. The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad began their main line to electrify the New Haven Line with 11 kV and 25 Hz AC voltage. In 1907 the electrical operation between Woodlawn and Stamford could be started, whereby the electricity was obtained from the own coal power station in Cos Cob . Electric operation reached New Haven in 1914 and Hartford in 1929 . The trains now ran continuously electrically from Hartford to New York, reaching the Grand Central Terminal from Woodlawn with 700 V DC from the third rail on the New York Central Railroad (NYC) route .
While travel was increasingly being operated electrically, freight traffic initially remained with steam . A first supply contract for 35 type EP-1 electric locomotives was concluded in 1905 with Westinghouse Electric , which awarded the mechanical part to Baldwin Locomotive Works . The EP-1 were two-system locomotives that could be operated with both direct and alternating current. The direct current could be taken from a laterally arranged conductor rail, as well as from an overhead conductor rail arranged similarly to an overhead line above the track, the latter taking place via a small pantograph in the middle of the roof of the locomotive. The alternating current was fed to the locomotive via conventional larger pantographs. The switch between the traction current systems took place while driving.
Between 1918 and 1928, Westinghouse purchased 27 EP-2 electric locomotives with 2052 HP , which hauled important trains in the Boston area and heavy trains in New York and in the New Haven area. In 1930 New Haven in New York had more than 200 electric local railcars in use. In 1931 ten electric locomotives of the type EP-3 (with an output of 2700 HP) were purchased by General Electric for the transport of the heaviest trains.
In the 1930s, the New Haven Railroad also picked up on the trend towards streamlined vehicles with the purchase of the “Comet”, a three-part, diesel-powered multiple unit with aluminum superstructures. This train, developed by Goodyear Zeppelin in Akron, Ohio, had space for 160 passengers and was used on the 44-mile route between Boston and Providence. The Comet completed the route in 44 minutes.
In 1938 the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad developed the Trailer on Flatcar service, also known as the Piggy Pack . The farmers' truck trailers or semi-trailers are loaded onto flat cars to be sold in the cities. This type of transport was only introduced as combined transport on European railways around 60 years later .
The purchase of ten Hudson steam locomotives was the company's last purchase of steam locomotives. In the early 1940s, 87 "diesel switchers" (shunting locomotives) and 60 DL109 mainline locomotives were bought from Alco . In 1942/43 the company procured 15 electric locomotives for freight transport from Baldwin-Westinghouse (5) and General Electric (10), with the locomotives from Baldwin-Westinghouse with their steam heating systems also being used for passenger trains.
In the period after the Second World War, the dieselization was pushed further, so that in 1952 the last steam locomotive was shut down.
Decline
The decline of the New Haven Railroad began in 1955 due to an accident. A train derailed in Bridgeport in July 1955 and blocked the main line for two days. The flood of 1955, in which a storm with extreme rainfall undermined several stretches and interrupted them, also led to considerable financial losses. The repair lasted until the next year, the number of passengers declined and freight transport orders were canceled.
When Interstate 95 was completed in 1958 , it resulted in a 25 percent drop in cargo volumes in the years that followed. In 1961 NY, NH & H had to file for bankruptcy. The tourist traffic was then reduced. In 1965 the last locomotive was built for the company with a U25B from GE.
The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad came to an end in 1968. Penn Central took over the majority of the shares.
The NH color scheme and logo are used today by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (ConnDOT) for diesel locomotives that haul Metro-North trains on their non-electrified sections.
Web links
- New Haven (NH). In: Fallen Flags and Other Railroad Photos. Retrieved June 26, 2016 (English).
Individual evidence
- ^ Brian Solomon: Railroad Signaling . MBI Publishing Company, 2003, ISBN 978-1-61673-897-6 , pp. 48 ( Google Book [accessed June 26, 2016]).
- ↑ Getting Back on Track: Unlocking the Full Potential of the New Haven Line. January 2014, accessed November 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Pictures of locomotives of ConnDOT in NH design (railpictures.net)