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 A map of the New York Central system in 1918 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | New York Central Building, New York City |
| Key people | Cornelius Vanderbilt Owner (1867–1877) & President (1869–1877) Chauncey Depew President (1885–1898) & Chairman of the Board (1898–1928) |
| Founders | Erastus Corning John V. L. Pruyn Chauncey Vibbard |
| Reporting mark | NYC |
| Locale | Illinois Indiana Kentucky Massachusetts Michigan Missouri New Jersey New York Ohio Ontario Pennsylvania Quebec Vermont West Virginia |
| Dates of operation | 1853–1968 |
| Successor | Penn Central Transportation Company |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)standard gauge |
| Length | 11,584 miles (18,643 km) (1926) |
TheNew York Central Railroad (reporting markNYC) was arailroad primarily operating in theGreat Lakes andMid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connectedgreater New York andBoston in the east withChicago andSt. Louis in theMidwest, along with the intermediate cities ofAlbany,Buffalo,Cleveland,Cincinnati,Detroit,Rochester andSyracuse. The New York Central was headquartered in theNew York Central Building, adjacent to its largest station,Grand Central Terminal.
The railroad was established in 1853, consolidating several existing railroad companies. In 1968, the NYC merged with its former rival, thePennsylvania Railroad, to formPenn Central.[1] Penn Central went into bankruptcy in 1970 and, with extensive Federal government support, emerged asConrail in 1976.[2] In 1999, Conrail was broken up, and portions of its system were transferred toCSX andNorfolk Southern Railway (NS), with CSX acquiring most of the NYC's eastern trackage and NS acquiring most of NYC's western trackage.
Extensive trackage existed in the states ofNew York,Pennsylvania,Ohio,Michigan,Indiana,Illinois,Massachusetts andWest Virginia, plus additional trackage in portions of the Canadian provinces ofOntario andQuebec. At the end of 1925, the 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]
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TheMohawk and Hudson Railroad (M&H) was the oldest segment of the railroad's merger and was the first permanent railroad in the state of New York and one of thefirst railroads in the United States. It was chartered in 1826 to connect theMohawk River atSchenectady, New York, to theHudson River atAlbany, providing a way for freight and especially passengers to avoid the extensive and time-consuming locks on theErie Canal between Schenectady and Albany. The M&H opened on August 9, 1831, with its first steam locomotive, theDewitt Clinton running on its tracks.[3][4] It would later change its name to theAlbany and Schenectady (A&S) on April 19, 1847. Until the 1840s, it used inclined planes at either end of the line to pull passenger cars up and down A&S' steep hills.[5] As locomotive technology progressed, the mainline was extended to the Mohawk River in downtown Schenectady and the Hudson River waterfront in Albany.[6]
TheUtica and Schenectady Railroad was chartered April 29, 1833; as the railroad paralleled the Erie Canal, it was prohibited from carryingfreight. Revenue service began on August 2, 1836, extending the line of the Albany and Schenectady Railroad west from Schenectady along the north side of the Mohawk River, paralleling the Erie Canal, toUtica. Of the ten early railroads bordering the Erie Canal, the U&S was the most profitable. It was headed byErastus Corning, future president of the consolidated New York Central.[7] On May 7, 1844, the railroad was authorized to carry freight with some restrictions, and on May 12, 1847, the ban was fully dropped, but the company still had to pay the equivalent in canaltolls to the state.
TheSyracuse and Utica Railroad was chartered on May 11, 1836, and similarly had to pay the state for any freight displaced from the canal.[7] The full line opened July 3, 1839, extending the line further toSyracuse viaRome (and further toAuburn via the already-openedAuburn and Syracuse Railroad). This line was not direct, going out of its way to stay near the Erie Canal and serve Rome, and so theSyracuse and Utica Direct Railroad was chartered on January 26, 1853. Nothing of that line was ever built, though the laterWest Shore Railroad, acquired by New York Central Railroad in 1885, served the same purpose.
The Auburn and Syracuse Railroad was chartered on May 1, 1834, and opened mostly in 1838, the remaining 4 miles (6.4 km) opening on June 4, 1839. A month later, with the opening of the Syracuse and Utica Railroad, this formed a complete line from Albany west via Syracuse to Auburn. TheAuburn and Rochester Railroad was chartered on May 13, 1836, as a further extension via Geneva andCanandaigua toRochester, opening on November 4, 1841. The two lines merged on August 1, 1850, to form the rather indirectRochester and Syracuse Railroad (known later as theAuburn Road). To fix this, theRochester and Syracuse Direct Railway was chartered and immediately merged into the Rochester and Syracuse Railroad on August 6, 1850. That line opened June 1, 1853, running much more directly between those two cities, roughly parallel to the Erie Canal.
TheTonawanda Railroad, to the west of Rochester, was chartered on April 24, 1832, to build from that city toAttica. The first section, from Rochester southwest toBatavia, opened May 5, 1837, and the rest of the line to Attica opened on January 8, 1843. The Attica and Buffalo Railroad was chartered in 1836 and opened on November 24, 1842, running from Buffalo southeast to Attica. When the Auburn and Rochester Railroad opened in 1841, there was no connection at Rochester to the Tonawanda Railroad, but with that exception there was now an all-rail line between Buffalo and Albany. On March 19, 1844, the Tonawanda Railroad was authorized to build the connection, and it opened later that year. The Albany and Schenectady Railroad bought all the baggage, mail and emigrant cars of the other railroads between Albany and Buffalo on February 17, 1848, and began operating through cars.
On December 7, 1850, the Tonawanda Railroad and Attica and Buffalo Railroad merged to form theBuffalo and Rochester Railroad. A new direct line opened from Buffalo east to Batavia on April 26, 1852, and the old line betweenDepew (east of Buffalo) and Attica was sold to the Buffalo and New York City Railroad on November 1. The line was added to theNew York and Erie Railroad system andconverted to the Erie's6 ft (1,829 mm)broad gauge.
TheSchenectady and Troy Railroad was chartered in 1836 and opened in 1842, providing another route between the Hudson River and Schenectady, with its Hudson River terminal atTroy.
The Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad was originally incorporated on April 24, 1834, to run fromLockport on the Erie Canal west toNiagara Falls; the line opened in 1838 and was sold on June 2, 1850. On December 14, 1850, it was reorganized as the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad, and an extension east to Rochester opened on July 1, 1852. The railroad was consolidated into the New York Central Railroad under the act of 1853. A portion of the line is currently operated as theFalls Road Railroad.[8]
TheBuffalo and Lockport Railroad was chartered on April 27, 1852, to build a branch of the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls from Lockport towards Buffalo. It opened in 1854, running from Lockport toTonawanda, where it joined theBuffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad, opened in 1837, for the rest of the way to Buffalo.
The Mohawk Valley Railroad was chartered on January 21, 1851, and reorganized on December 28, 1852, to build a railroad on the south side of the Mohawk River from Schenectady to Utica, next to the Erie Canal and opposite the Utica and Schenectady. The company didn't build a line before it was absorbed, though the West Shore Railroad was later built on that location.
TheSyracuse and Utica Direct Railroad was chartered in 1853 to rival the Syracuse and Utica Railroad by building a more direct route, reducing travel time by a half-hour. The company was merged before any line could be built.
Albany industrialist and Mohawk Valley Railroad ownerErastus Corning managed to unite the above railroads together into one system, and on March 17, 1853, executives and stockholders of each company agreed to merge. The merger was approved by the state legislature on April 2 and, on May 17, 1853, the New York Central Railroad was formed.
Soon theBuffalo and State Line Railroad andErie and North East Railroad converted to4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)standard gauge from6 ft (1,829 mm) broad gauge and connected directly with the railroad in Buffalo, providing a through route toErie, Pennsylvania.
TheRochester and Lake Ontario Railroad was organized in 1852 and opened in fall 1853; it was leased to theRochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad, which became part of New York Central Railroad, before opening. In 1855, it was merged into the railroad, providing a branch from Rochester north toCharlotte onLake Ontario.
The Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad was also merged into the railroad in 1855. It had been chartered in 1834 and opened in 1837, providing a line between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. It was leased to New York Central Railroad in 1853.
Also in 1855 came the merger with theLewiston Railroad, running from Niagara Falls north toLewiston. It was chartered in 1836 and opened in 1837, without connections to other railroads. In 1854, a southern extension opened to the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad and the line was leased to the railroad.
TheCanandaigua and Niagara Falls Railroad was chartered in 1851. The first stage opened in 1853 from Canandaigua on the Auburn Road west to Batavia on the main line. A continuation west toNorth Tonawanda opened later that year and, in 1854, a section opened in Niagara Falls connecting it to theNiagara Falls Suspension Bridge. New York Central Railroad bought the company at bankruptcy in 1858 and reorganized it as the Niagara Bridge and Canandaigua Railroad, merging it into itself in 1890.
TheSaratoga and Hudson River Railroad was chartered in 1864 and opened in 1866 as a branch of the railroad from Athens Junction, southeast of Schenectady, southeast and south toAthens on the west side of the Hudson River. On September 9, 1876, the company was merged into the railroad, but in 1876 the terminal at Athens burned down and the line was abandoned.
The primary repair shops were established in Corning's hometown of Albany along with a classification yard and livestock pens on 300 acres of land (known as West Albany). Facilities included locomotive shops, freight and passenger car shops, and roundhouse terminals. These were the New York Central's primary back shops until the end of steam in 1957.[9]
TheTroy and Greenbush Railroad was chartered in 1845 and opened later that year, connecting Troy south to Greenbush (nowRensselaer) on the east side of the Hudson River. The Hudson River Railroad was chartered on May 12, 1846, to extend this line south to New York City; the full line opened on October 3, 1851. Prior to completion, on June 1, it leased the Troy and Greenbush.
Cornelius Vanderbilt obtained control of the Hudson River Railroad in 1864, soon after he bought the parallelNew York and Harlem Railroad.
Along the line of the Hudson River Railroad, theWest Side Line was built in 1934 in the borough ofManhattan as an elevated bypass of then-abandonedstreet running trackage on Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. The elevated section has since been abandoned, and the tunnel north of 35th Street is used only byAmtrak trains toNew York Penn Station (all other trains use theSpuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad to reach theHarlem Line). The surviving sections of the West Side Line south of 34th Street reopened as theHigh Line, alinear park built between 2009 and 2014.
In 1867,Cornelius Vanderbilt acquired control of theAlbany toBuffalo-running New York Central Railroad, with the help of maneuverings related to theHudson River Bridge in Albany. On November 1, 1869, he merged the railroad with his Hudson River Railroad to form the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. This extended the system south from Albany along the east bank of theHudson River to New York City, with the leased Troy and Greenbush Railroad running from Albany north toTroy.
Vanderbilt's other lines were operated as part of the railroad included the New York and Harlem Railroad,Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway,Canada Southern Railway, andMichigan Central Railroad.
The Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad was chartered in 1869 and opened in 1871, providing a route on the north side of theHarlem River for trains along the Hudson River to head southeast to the New York and Harlem Railroad. Trains could head towardGrand Central Depot, built by NYC and opened in 1871, or to the freight facilities atPort Morris. From opening, it was leased by the NYC.
TheGeneva and Lyons Railroad was organized in 1877 and opened in 1878, leased by the NYC from opening. This was a connection between Syracuse and Rochester, running from the main line atLyons to the Auburn Road at Geneva. It was merged into the NYC in 1890.
In 1885, theNew York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway, a competitor since 1883 with trackage along the west shore of the Hudson River and on to Buffalo closely paralleling the NYC, was taken over by the NYC as the West Shore Railroad and developed passenger, freight, andcar float operations atWeehawken Terminal. The NYC assumed control of thePittsburgh and Lake Erie andBoston and Albany Railroads in 1887 and 1900, respectively, with both roads remaining as independently-operating subsidiaries. William H. Newman, president of the New York Central lines, resigned in 1909.[10] Newman had been president since 1901, when he replacedSamuel R. Callaway (who had replaced Depew as president in 1898).[11]
In 1914, the operations of eleven subsidiaries were merged with the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, re-forming the New York Central Railroad. From the beginning of the merger, the railroad was publicly referred to as the New York Central Lines. In the summer of 1935, the identification was changed to the New York Central System, that name being kept until the merger with thePennsylvania Railroad in 1968. To ensure a reliable coal supply for its steam locomotives in the early to mid-20th century, the railroad operated theClearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation as a captive mining subsidiary in central Pennsylvania.[12]
TheCleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, also known as the Big Four, was formed on June 30, 1889, by the merger of theCleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway, theCincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago Railway and theIndianapolis and St. Louis Railway. The following year, the company gained control of the formerIndiana Bloomington and Western Railway. By 1906, the Big Four was itself acquired by the New York Central Railroad. It operated independently until 1930; it was then referred to as the Big Four Route. In 1930, New York Central Railroad acquired a 99-year lease of both Michigan Central and the ''Big Four'' (Cleveland, Chicago Cincinnati & St. Louis Railroad).[13]
The back shops at West Albany, New York were unable to keep up with repairs to rolling stock, so additional shops were established east of Buffalo at Depew (1892), Croton-on-Hudson (Harmon Shops, 1907), and Oak Grove, Pennsylvania (Avis Shops, 1902). The Harmon Shops were particularly important as locomotive power was switched out from steam to electric at that point as trains approached New York City.[14]
The generally level topography of the NYC system had a character distinctively different from the mountainous terrain of its archrival, the Pennsylvania Railroad. Most of its major routes, including New York to Chicago, followed rivers and had no significant grades other than West Albany Hill and the Berkshire Hills on the Boston and Albany. This influenced a great deal about the line, from advertising to locomotive design, built around its flagship New York-Chicago Water Level Route.[15]
A number of bypasses and cutoffs were built around congested areas.
The Junction Railroad's Buffalo Belt Line opened in 1871, providing a bypass of Buffalo to the northeast as well as a loop route for passenger trains via downtown. The West Shore Railroad, acquired in 1885, provided a bypass around Rochester. TheTerminal Railway's Gardenville Cutoff, allowing through traffic to bypass Buffalo to the southeast, opened in 1898.
The Schenectady Detour consisted of two connections to the West Shore Railroad, allowing through trains to bypass downtown Schenectady. The full project opened in 1902. TheCleveland Short Line Railway built a bypass of Cleveland, Ohio, completed in 1912. In 1924, theAlfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge was constructed as part of the Hudson River Connecting Railroad's Castleton Cut-Off, a 27.5-mile-long freight bypass of the congestedWest Albany terminal area and West Albany Hill.
An unrelated realignment was made in the 1910s at Rome, when the Erie Canal was realigned and widened onto a new alignment south of downtown Rome. The NYC main line was shifted south out of downtown to the south bank of the new canal. A bridge was built southeast of downtown, roughly where the old main line crossed the path of the canal, to keep access to and from the southeast. West of downtown, the old main line was abandoned, but a brand-new railroad line was built, running north from the NYC main line to the NYC's formerRome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad, allowing all NYC through traffic to bypass Rome.
Steam locomotives of the New York Central Railroad were optimized for speed on that flat raceway of a main line, rather than slow mountain lugging. Famous locomotives of the system included the well-known4-6-4Hudsons, particularly the 1937–38 J-3a's;4-8-2 World War II–era 1940 L-3 and 1942 L-4Mohawks; and the 1945–46 S-classNiagaras: fast4-8-4 locomotives often considered the epitome of their breed by steam locomotive aficionados (railfans).
For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, New York Central Railroad had some of the most famous trains in the United States. The20th Century Limited (Century), begun in 1902, ran between Grand Central Terminal in New York City andLaSalle Street Station inChicago, and was its most famous train, known for its red-carpet treatment and first-class service. Its last run was made on December 2–3, 1967.
In the mid-1930s, many railroad companies were introducingstreamlined locomotives; until the New York Central introduced theCommodore Vanderbilt, all were diesel-electric. TheVanderbilt was the NYC's first streamlined steam locomotive.[16]
The railroad hosted the streamlined steam-poweredRexall Train of 1936, which toured 47 states to promote theRexall chain of drug stores and to provide space for company conventions.[17] The steam-poweredCentury, which followed the Water Level Route, could complete the 960.7-mile trip in 16 hours after its June 15, 1938 streamlining (and did it in 151⁄2 hours for a short period after World War II). Also famous were the NYC'sEmpire State Express, which traveled from New York City through upstate New York to Buffalo and Cleveland, and theOhio State Limited, which ran between New York City and Cincinnati.
At various times, beginning in 1946 and continuing into the mid-1950s, theCentury and other NYC trains exchangedsleeping cars in Chicago with western trains such as theSuper Chief and theCity of San Francisco. The cars, which containedroomettes,double bedrooms anddrawing rooms, provided through sleeper service between New York City and Los Angeles or San Francisco (Oakland Pier).[18][19]
Despite having some of the most modernsteam locomotives anywhere, NYC's difficult financial position caused it to convert to more-economicaldiesel-electric power rapidly. The Boston and Albany line was completely dieselized by 1951.[20] All lines east of Cleveland, Ohio were dieselized between August 7, 1953 (east of Buffalo) and September 1953 (Cleveland-Buffalo). Niagaras were all retired by July 1956. On May 3, 1957, H7e class2-8-2 Mikado type steam locomotive No. 1977 is reported to have been the last steam locomotive to retire from service on the railroad.[21] But, the economics of northeastern railroading became so dire that not even this switch could change things for the better.
Prominent New York Central trains:
Trains left from Grand Central Terminal in New York,Weehawken Terminal inWeehawken, New Jersey,South Station in Boston,Cincinnati Union Terminal in Cincinnati,Michigan Central Station in Detroit,St. Louis Union Station, and LaSalle Street Station and Central Station (for some Detroit and CincinnatI trains) in Chicago.
The New York Central had a network of commuter lines in New York and Massachusetts.Westchester County, New York had the railroad's Hudson, Harlem, and Putnam lines into Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan (Putnam Division trains required a change at High Bridge, New York), while New Jersey and Rockland County, New York were serviced by theWest Shore Line between Weehawken and Kingston, New York, on the west side of the Hudson River.
The New York Central, like many U.S. railroads, declined after the Second World War. Problems resurfaced that had plagued the railroad industry before the war, such as over-regulation by theInterstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which severely regulated the rates charged by the railroad, along with continuing competition from automobiles and trucks. These problems were coupled with even more-formidable forms of competition, such as airline service in the 1950s that began to deprive NYC of its long-distance passenger trade. TheInterstate Highway Act of 1956 helped create a network of government subsidized highways for motor vehicle travel throughout the country, enticing more people to travel by car, as well as haul freight by truck. The 1959 opening of theSaint Lawrence Seaway also adversely affected NYC freight business: container shipments could now be directly shipped to ports along the Great Lakes, eliminating the railroads' freight hauls between the east and the Midwest.
The NYC also carried a substantial tax burden from governments that saw rail infrastructure as a source of property tax revenues – taxes that were not imposed upon interstate highways. To make matters worse, most railroads, including the NYC, were saddled with a World War II-era tax of 15% on passenger fares, which remained until 1962: 17 years after the end of the war.[22]
In June 1954, management of the New York Central System lost aproxy fight in 1954 toRobert Ralph Young and the Alleghany Corporation he led.[23]
Alleghany Corporation was a real estate and railroad empire, built by theVan Sweringen brothers ofCleveland in the 1920s, that had controlled theChesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) and theNickel Plate Road. It fell under the control of Young and financier Allan Price Kirby during theGreat Depression.
Young was considered a railroad visionary but found the NYC in worse shape than he had imagined. Unable to keep his promises, Young was forced to suspend dividend payments in January 1958. He committed suicide later that month at his mansion inPalm Beach, Florida.[24]
| Year | Traffic |
|---|---|
| 1925 | 35,929 |
| 1933 | 20,692 |
| 1944 | 51,922 |
| 1960 | 32,329 |
| 1967 | 38,901 |
| Year | Traffic |
|---|---|
| 1925 | 4,261 |
| 1933 | 2,238 |
| 1944 | 9,292 |
| 1960 | 1,797 |
| 1967 | 939 |
After Young's suicide, his role in NYC management was assumed byAlfred E. Perlman, who had been working with the NYC under Young since 1954. Despite the dismal financial condition of the railroad, Perlman was able to streamline operations and save the company money. In 1959, Perlman was able to reduce operating deficits by $7.7 million, which nominally raised NYC stock to $1.29 per share, producing dividends of an amount not seen since the end of the war. By 1964 he was able to reduce the NYC long-term debt by nearly $100 million, while reducing passenger deficits from $42 to $24.6 million.[citation needed]
Perlman also enacted several modernization projects throughout the railroad. Notable was the use of Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) systems on many of the NYC lines, which reduced the four-track mainline to two tracks. He oversaw construction and/or modernization of many hump orclassification yards, notably the $20 million Selkirk Yard, which opened south of Albany in 1924 and was modernized in 1966. Perlman also experimented withjet trains, creating a Budd RDC car (theM-497 Black Beetle) powered by twoJ47jet engines stripped from aB-36 Peacemaker bomber as a solution to increasing car and airplane competition. This project did not leave the prototype stage.[citation needed]
Perlman's cuts resulted in the curtailing of many of the railroad's services; commuter lines around New York were particularly affected. In 1958–1959, service was suspended on the NYC'sPutnam Division in Westchester and Putnam counties, and the NYC abandoned its ferry service across the Hudson to Weehawken Terminal. This harmed the railroad's West Shore Line, which ran along the west bank of the Hudson River from Jersey City to Albany, which saw long-distance service to Albany discontinued in 1958 and commuter service between Jersey City andWest Haverstraw, New York terminated in 1959. Ridding itself of most of its commuter service proved impossible due to the heavy use of these lines around metro New York, where governments mandated that the railroad still operate.[citation needed]
Many long-distance and regional passenger trains were either discontinued or downgraded in service, with coaches replacing Pullman, parlor, and sleeping cars on routes in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. TheEmpire Corridor between Albany and Buffalo saw service greatly reduced, with service beyond Buffalo toNiagara Falls discontinued in 1961. On December 3, 1967, most of the great long-distance trains ended, including the famedTwentieth Century Limited. The railroad's branch-line service off the Empire Corridor in upstate New York was also gradually discontinued, the last being its Adirondack Division line between Utica and Lake Placid, on April 24, 1965. Many of the railroad's great train stations inRochester,Schenectady, andAlbany were demolished or abandoned. Despite the savings these cuts created, it was apparent that, if the railroad was to become solvent again, a more permanent solution was needed.[citation needed]
One problem that many of the Northeastern railroads faced was 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 theBaltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), in addition to more moderate-size railroads such as theDelaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad (DLW), theErie Railroad, theReading Company, theCentral Railroad of New Jersey and theLehigh 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 showed some success when they began merging their operations in 1958, finally leading to the formation of theErie Lackawanna Railroad in 1960.
Other mergers combined theVirginian Railway,Wabash Railroad,Nickel Plate Road and several others into theNorfolk and Western Railway (N&W) system, and theBaltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O),Western Maryland Railway (WM) and Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) combined with others to form theChessie 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 PresidentStuart 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 1970: 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 the20th Century Limited.[25]
On February 1, 1968, the New York Central merged with the bankrupt Pennsylvania Railroad and renamed Penn Central Transportation Company (PC), with NYC's Perlman elected as PC's president.[26] PC was quickly saddled with debt when the ICC forced the money-losing New Haven into the railroad in 1970.[24] Additionally, there was a conflict between Perlman and PC's CEOStuart T. Saunders, where the former requested $25 million to refurbish PC's freight car roster and the latter declined, thus leading to Perlman's resignation.[27][28]
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 1, 1970, Penn Central declared bankruptcy: the largest private bankruptcy in the United States up to that time.[28] 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.[28]
Penn Central marked the last hope of privately funded passenger rail service in the United States. In response to the bankruptcy, PresidentRichard Nixon signed into law theRail Passenger Service Act of 1970 which formed the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, better known asAmtrak: 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.[29] Amtrak would eventually assume ownership of theNortheast Corridor, a mostly-electrified route between Boston and Washington, D.C., inherited primarily from the PRR and New Haven systems. Penn Central was taking over byConrail in 1971 continuing to run under Penn central operate their commuter services for the next five years while in bankruptcy. in 1976 Conrail was official and the other bankrupt railroads were absorbed into Conrail that year.
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.[28] As mentioned, Conrail assumed control of Penn Central's commuter lines throughout theLower Hudson Valley of New York, Connecticut, and in and around Boston. In 1983, these commuter services would be turned over to the state-fundedMetro-North Railroad in New York and Connecticut, andMassachusetts 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 byCSX andNorfolk 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 Norfolk Southern, CSX, Amtrak, and other short line railroads. 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 NYCreporting mark. CSX eventually fully absorbed the subsidiary as part of a streamlining of Conrail operations.
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