The Meteoric Rise BY OTTO M. VONDRAK/PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR EXCEPT AS NOTED
WITH A STAGGERING SCHEDULE of 732 trains carrying more than 280,000 com- muters daily, today’s MTA Metro- North Railroad stretches more than 765 miles serving commuters on three main lines running out of Grand Cen- tral Terminal in New York City and two lines originating at Hoboken Ter- minal in New Jersey. The longest route by mileage is the 95-mile Port Jervis Line, the former Erie Railroad route from Hoboken to Port Jervis. The shortest route also originates in Hobo- ken, the 30-mile Pascack Valley Line to Spring Valley. Both are operated in co- operation
with NJ Transit. Three
routes are operated out of Grand Cen- tral, including the 74-mile Hudson Line to Poughkeepsie, the 82-mile Harlem Line to Wassaic, and the 72- mile New Haven Line to New Haven, Connecticut (in addition to the New Canaan, Danbury, and Waterbury branches).
After three decades of steady growth and improvement, Metro-North has surpassed sibling Long Island Road as the busiest commuter carrier
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in the nation. This success did not come overnight, however, as the railroad worked not only to repair its infrastruc- ture, but also its relationship with the customers they serve. Today’s Metro- North builds upon a long tradition of carrying commuters that dates back to the early 19th century.
New York’s Oldest Railroads
The earliest roots of today’s modern Metro-North system can be traced back to the New York & Harlem, New York City’s first railroad chartered in 1831. Originally constructed as a horsecar tram line to connect bustling lower Manhattan with the bucolic farming village of Harlem, by the 1840s the rail- road had switched to steam power and extended north into the Bronx and ru- ral Westchester County. In 1848, the New York & New Haven Railroad nego- tiated trackage rights over the NY&H for entry into New York City from Con- necticut. By 1852 the NY&H had con- tinued to push further north to a con- nection with the Boston & Albany. The Hudson River Railroad began con-
structing its route along its namesake waterway in 1846, reaching New York City in 1851. Cornelius Vanderbilt gained entry into the railroad industry with his purchase of the New York & Harlem in 1864. In 1867, he merged several of his holdings to form what would become the New York Central. With the railroads providing cheap
and easy transportation for goods and people, commuting patterns into New York City had been set by the turn of the century with New York Central’s Hudson and Harlem Divisions as well as the New Haven’s trains all funneling traffic into Grand Central. Only the Great Depression halted the growth of the suburbs, while wartime traffic boom and bust took its toll on the railroads. As Americans turned to the automobile and a new network of highways, ridership de- clined as operating costs continued to increase. The railroads appealed to state and local governments for assis- tance in the form of subsidy, but many attempts were blocked by powerful pro- highway lobbying efforts.
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