moving between the New Haven Railroad in southern New England and western cities via the Erie, the Lehigh & Hudson River, the New York, Ontario & Western, and the Lehigh & New England and their connec- tions. The L&HR provided all-rail New Eng- land access to the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Lehigh Valley,
the Reading, the
Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and the Jersey Central, all of which owned a piece of it. The PRR even had trackage rights over “the Hudson” and for a few years the Boston- Washington Federal Express ran via the L&HR and Maybrook; this was before the Penn’s North River tunnels were built under the Hudson to Penn Station. The O&W’s western connections were the LV and the DL&W, and the Old Woman handled a sur- prising amount of high priority eastbound perishable traffic, while the steeply-graded L&NE originated a fair amount of east- bound coal and cement but provided the least-desirable outlet for general freight de- spite its connections with the DL&W, LV, CNJ, and RDG.
Brill sets the stage by describing south- ern New England’s isolation from the rest of the country due to the Hudson River, which was crossed in just a few places: by a net- work of carfloats between New Jersey and Brooklyn in New York Harbor, by car ferries between Newburgh and Beacon and from Kingston to Rhinecliff, and by a New York Central bridge in Albany, N.Y., where the river narrowed. Carfloating was expensive and slow, with cars waiting a day or more to take their turn riding the barges, while the NYC bridge added about 140 rail miles in each direction for traffic running between North Jersey and New York City. And the NYC had a huge advantage over the New Haven with its all-rail route to New York and its Boston & Albany line to Boston. To set the stage, Brill describes the rail- road and canal network west of the Hudson before the Poughkeepsie Bridge opened in 1889 and then discusses the various schemes which led to the bridge’s construc- tion and opening in 1889. The history con- tinues with the story of the many Connecti- cut railroads that were swallowed by the New Haven and discusses the proposed South Mountain & Boston, which would have been a direct link between Harrisburg, Penn., and Boston. The L&HR later per- formed much of the SM&B’s function for its owners. Each railroad’s operations related to the
Maybrook gateway are examined in great detail. One table lists each railroad’s sched- uled freight service in 1938, 1947, 1952, 1956, and 1963, graphically showing the ebb and flow of traffic over the decades. One chapter discusses the pre-New Haven Cen- tral New England era and a companion chapter details the gateway’s changes under New Haven ownership. Another covers the agreements between the New Haven and its various tenants at Maybrook, there’s an in- teresting case study of the O&W/LV part- nership, and a chapter on operations on the western connections. There’s plenty of infor- mation about how the various western con- nections gained access to the yard in the somewhat complicated area around Camp- bell Hall, N.Y. The final chapter discusses of the route’s
decline under Penn Central, which turned the clock back almost a hundred years as it spurned the Poughkeepsie Bridge route in
favor of the former NYC route through the Hudson Valley to Albany and the B&A. There’s quite a bit of detail on PC’s efforts to downgrade the route and about the circum- stances surrounding the fire on the bridge that closed the route for good in 1974. Several period maps have rather small
type; readers of a certain age will find that a magnifying glass makes reading them much easier. And while the text dominates, a good selection of well-printed b&w photos illus- trates the story more than adequately. The first photo appears on page 53, a fine down- on roster view of an NH 2-10-2. Early and late NH power pictured runs the gamut from big steam through sets of Alco FA’s and pair of DL109s to latter-day NH power in- cluding EF4 electrics on the Hell Gate line and later diesels including RS11s, H16-44s, U25B’s and C425s. Lackawanna and L&HR power are shown on those roads’ joint line into Port Morris, N.J., including DL&W FT’s, H16-44s, and a 2-8-2 with L&H Alco road switchers, a Mikado, and pooled CNJ Train Masters. Then there are the L&NE, Erie, O&W and LV . . . Anyone who’s interested in the why’s and wherefores of Northeastern railroading will enjoy this book, a fascinating read about “the way it was.” —WALT LANKENAU
VIDEO REVIEW
Trains of the Florida East Coast Plets Express, P.O. Box 217, Altoona, WI 54720;
www.pletsexpress.com;
715/833-
8899. DVD only, 104 minutes. $34.95 plus $6.00 shipping; WI residents add sales tax) The catchy phrase “build it and they will come’”
applies to
many railroads in that once they were built, population and industry followed. The Florida East Coast embodies that concept,
since it
almost singlehand- edly created modern Florida by moving at
first seasonal passengers and tourists, and now exclusively freight, to the storied resort towns and cities, many of which the railroad built. Its visionary founder, Henry Flagler, once involved in Standard Oil with J.D. Rockefeller, bought existing rail lines and built new ones in the late 1800s and very early 1900s to create the FEC system. He built hotels along the way and the snowbirds followed. The line was extended to Key West by 1912 but did not survive a 1935 hurricane. Subsequently abandoned, the right of way served as the basis for a highway. Without Flagler and the FEC, we might not have Florida’s tourism and agricultural economies of today. Today’s 351-mile high speed main line, built on concrete ties and with heavy rail, runs about two dozen trains per day and interchanges with Norfolk Southern and CSX at Jacksonville. The route is so efficient that some trucking firms and container shippers use it to avoid highway congestion as well as to obtain exclusive rail access to the major ports. Infrastructure projects continue apace to improve intermodal service and prepare for the opening of the wider Panama Canal. This railfan visit to the FEC takes place
51
DAKOTAS RAILROAD MAPS BNSF, Canadian Pacific, Shortlines
Concise, clear maps of today’s railroading presented by subdivision for ease in following your favorite line.
Station index
Mainline Radio frequencies Detectors, major sidings & yards Major highways, rivers Sized to pocket or camera bag 4.25x11”, 62 pages
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