New York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad (reporting mark NYC) was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. 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, Detroit, Rochester and Syracuse. New York Central was headquartered in New York City's New York Central Building, adjacent to its largest station, Grand Central Terminal.
Overview
New York Central Building, New York City
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Owner (1867–1877) & President (1869–1877)
Chauncey Depew
President (1885–1898) & Chairman of the Board (1898–1928)
NYC
May 17, 1853 – January 31, 1968
4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
11,584 miles (18,643 km) (1926)
The railroad was established in 1853, consolidating several existing railroad companies. In 1968, the NYC merged with its former rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad, to form Penn Central.[1] Penn Central went into bankruptcy in 1970 and, with extensive Federal government support, emerged as Conrail in 1976.[2] Conrail was broken-up in 1999, and portions of its system were transferred to CSX and Norfolk Southern Railway, with CSX acquiring most of the old New York Central trackage and Norfolk Southern acquiring most of the old Pennsylvania trackage.
Extensive trackage existed in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts and West Virginia, plus additional trackage in portions of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. At the end of 1925, New York Central Railroad 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).[a]
Demise[edit]
Merger with the Pennsylvania Railroad[edit]
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 1958, 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 Railway (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, Milwaukee Road and the NYC-controlled Nickel Plate Road. Unlike the aforementioned mergers, however, a NYC merger proved tricky due to the fact that it still operated a fairly-extensive amount of regional and commuter passenger services that was 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 was 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 on which railroad should have the majority controlling-interest going into the merger. Perlman's cost-cutting during the '50s and '60s put NYC in a more financially-healthy situation than the PRR. Nevertheless, the ICC, with urging by PRR President Stuart T. Saunders, wanted the PRR to absorb the NYC. Another point centered on 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 strongly objected (with excellent financial cause). Eventually, both points would ultimately lead to the new Penn Central's demise.
On January 26, 1968, the NYC's last passenger timetable became effective. The final timetable revealed a drastically truncated schedule in anticipation of its merger with the PRR. Most local and long-distance passenger service had ended on December 3, 1967, including that of the 20th Century Limited.[18]
Penn Central: 1968–1976[edit]
On February 1, 1968, the New York Central was absorbed by the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad was renamed Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company and then eventually renamed the Penn Central Transportation Company, with the NYC's Alfred E. Perlman as president.[19] 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 interests 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 up 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, 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 government-subsidized railroad system. On May 1, 1971, Amtrak took over the operation 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 toward 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[edit]
Conrail, officially the Consolidated Rail Corporation, 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 in 1999.
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 the 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 as far as Cleveland, Ohio (the Cleveland–Chicago portion going to Norfolk Southern since the ex-PRR Fort Wayne line had been downgraded under Conrail), the Big Four route between Cleveland and St. Louis, and many other lines of the New York Central, as well as various lines from other companies, and also assumed the NYC reporting mark. CSX eventually fully absorbed the subsidiary as part of a streamlining of Conrail operations.