New Haven Map in Trains

[atsfan]

If you do not have a copy, the March 2010 has an excellent map of the New Haven system's track history and status.

A must for a fan.

[lajrmdlr]

This is about 5 years late isn't it. LOL

[atsfan]

Feb 26, 2015 8:18:15 GMT -8 lajrmdlr said:

This is about 5 years late isn't it. LOL

Well I just saw it.
Sorry to have offended.

[lajrmdlr]

Feb 26, 2015 8:44:44 GMT -8 atsfan said:

Feb 26, 2015 8:18:15 GMT -8 lajrmdlr said:

This is about 5 years late isn't it. LOL

Well I just saw it.
Sorry to have offended.

LOL means NO offense taken! LOL

[Spikre]

Am sure that Paul C3 is on top of this !!!
Spikre

[JohnJ]

I'm within sight distance of the old New Haven Canal Line which ran from New Haven to Northampton, MA. Even in its heyday, this line really never amounted to much. A few small segments remain in operation, but most of it has been turned into a really nice paved recreation trail. There are still a few gaps, most notably in my town. The section that runs near my house is still roughly graded and has plenty of old crossties, spikes, etc. in evidence. It was last used by Guilford (B&M) to access a lumber yard in Cheshire, CT. The section from Southington, CT up to the small Pan Am yard in Plainville is still in operation.

A bit of politics went on with the line a few years back. A company that manufactures driveway sealant in my town encroached on the railroad right-of-way as a driveway to gain truck access to its plant. This became a problem with the planning of the recreation trail, and the sealant company threatened to contract with the Naugatuck Railroad to provide freight service over the line if it couldn't continue to send trucks down the old railroad line. This action would have scuttled the trail through town. While having freight service in town would have been cool, by and large it was an empty threat, but the town backed down. Now they're having to build an expensive elevated section of trail through a wetlands section to the west of the sealant plant.

[Paul Cutler III]

Oh, I might have that map somewhere...

[atsfan]

Fascinating to see where tracks were.
In some cases more than one went to somewhere.
The maps in Trains mag are always interesting.

[JohnJ]

One of the reasons for the New Haven's woes was its insistence on completely dominating the region it served. Connecticut was nearly completely controlled by NH - off the top of my head, the Central of Vermont line down to New London was about the only non-NH incursion into the state during the latter part of NH's existence. I mentioned the NH Canal Line in my earlier post; it's just a few miles west of the parallel New Haven-Springfield line. And just a few miles west of the Canal Line was the line from Devon up through Waterbury and up into Litchfield County. And a few miles west of that was the Maybrook Line, and the line from Danbury up to Pittsfield, MA - all this in the 3rd smallest state in the country. Once the industrial base began to decline in the 1950s they were doomed.

[Spikre]

JohnJ,
at least the Maybrook Line went west to Campbell Hall N.Y.
it would have gone to Scranton or Harrisburg if NH could have
procured control of NYO&W.
but they seemed to have one of their financial collapses at an
inopertune moment.
at another time NH tried to grab L&HR,but 5 roads jumped in and
took control of L&HR to keep that from happening.
NH did have some sort of Joint Control over B&M so they didn't
expand northward too much.
and B&M had the Joint Control of MEC,so NH had a say in both B&M
and MEC into the 50s.
too much track in Connecticut was fine in the 1800s,but not after
the 1940s.
Spikre

[Paul Cutler III]

Most of the rail lines that duplicated other lines in Southern New England were built with the express idea of forcing a merger. The idea being that many railroads in that era did not pay for themselves at first. I think most of them went bankrupt shortly after completion as new businesses didn't develop overnight. It took years to pay back the initial investment. However, if you could force a bigger railroad to take you over, not only would the original investors all get paid off, but then the bigger RR pays you for decades afterwards.

The other issue was something like the Old Colony RR, which owned most of the rail lines in Southeastern Mass. They, too, wanted to force the NH to buy them, but under their own terms. Much of their business involved travel & freight to and from NYC via Long Island Sound steamships at Fall River. They knew that an all-rail route to Boston would cut off that pipeline, and the NH was building one. The last link the chain to Boston was the Boston & Providence RR, one of the original 3 big RR's in Mass. from the early 1830's. The B&P was very profitable and well kept. The OCRR leased them before the NH could, so if the NH wanted that all-rail route to Boston, they had to come to OCRR and pay an almost ruinous lease to do so, which they did.

J. P. Morgan and his people like the Mellons were convinced that monopoly was the best for the their company. This was in the days of the robber barons and pre-anti-Trust laws. They were right...of course it was best for them! But it pretty much stunk for everyone else. So the idea was that J. P. and Co. would buy any competitor or crush them...or both. The New Haven (or, as J. P. called it, the Hartford because he was from Hartford) was his pet project. In between US Steel and dealing with the giants of industry (and, while he was at it, single handedly saved the USA from monetary ruination once), he toyed with the NH and it's subsidiaries. His philosophy was that the NH could out-grow any acquisition cost, and for decades he was right. What he didn't foresee was the tableau and eventual plummet of New England industry. The electrification of the South by the US Gov't (TVA), the high taxes of the Northeast (the NH controlled the politicians in his day), government over-regulation, the high cost of living/labor, the high cost of heating, etc. drove industry away from the Northeast to cheaper areas of the USA. This was not good for the NH.

The NH made a ton of money on Conn. It was described as America's Ruhr Valley (the one in Germany) as it was heavily industrialized, and that's why they had lines everywhere. The NH lines in CT were money makers through WWII. The trouble was that when the industry left to go South, the NH was not allowed to abandon service by the Gov't. Even the traffic that is left today is still sufficient to maintain freight service as NH predecessor & successor Providence & Worcester RR is proving every day, but the NH was not allowed to become the much leaner P&W.

The NYO&W was always the weak sister of the Northeast, and the NH offered to merge them several times, but neither RR could agree to terms when both were healthy. The L&HR would have been better for the NH (and the L&HR), but not so much for the other Maybrook RR's like the Erie, LNE, etc. It's too bad what short sighted policies can result it, isn't it?

[atsfan]

The Trains map talks of industry moving away, govt regulations, and bad management leading to the demise.

[JohnJ]

The "Ruhr of America" is pretty much a wasteland today. If you could tear down the abandoned factories, the scenery would be pretty, but that costs money.

[Spikre]

Paul C3,
the L&HR was not as good a pick as NYO&W.
L&HR ended at Allentown on CNJ Trackage rites after coming off the PRR
Bel-Del on trackage rites.
but L&HR did have their own Delaware River Bridge.
still no easy way out of Allentown that wasn't used by CNJ,LV,L&NE,or DL&W.
the NYO&W at least got to Scranton,that was over 1 mountain range.
and there were several never built RR Line Charters they could have used to
get to Harrisburg or points west.
NYS&W had one of those Charters they possibly would have sold as they did
grade some towards Harrisburg,but never laid any permanent trackage.
there were other Charters for proposed lines also.
but it never did happen for New Haven or an Affiliate Line.
Spikre

[Paul Cutler III]

Spikre,
L&HR made it until the 1972 bankruptcy (and 1974 bridge fire) and was part of the Alphabet Route. NYO&W didn't make it past 1957. I don't see how the NYO&W would have been a better choice for a NH inclusion. It just didn't have the traffic.

[Spikre]

Paul C3,
Your missing the bigger picture here,NH goes West !!
NYO&W would have been better to take over,they did get to Scranton.
now from Burnside to Kingston could have been pulled up after
NH took over NYO&W.
then the line to Oswego could have been pulled up.
this would have left the line from Campbell Hall to Scranton,and
the Coal branches from Forest City to Scranton,the Profitable
core of the NYO&W until after 1945.
but with some Improvements that Line could have been a Bridge Route
for NH to get more of the Maybrook Traffic for itself,and the profits.
so that portion of the NYO&W would have survived past 1957 as an
Important part of an Expanded Westward NH.
Edit -- since NYO&W built the Scranton Extension it was used as a Brdge
Route to Campbell Hall Maybrook,but Coal was the main commodity
hauled on the Route until the late 40s.
L&HR sort of limped along until 4/1/76
Spikre

[atsfan]

All of those railroads eventually would have been absorbed into something larger eventually.
The NYOW was doomed post World War 2.
At least the New Hacen mainline had a reason to exist between New York and Boston.

[Spikre]

NYO&W Management fighting the NH takeover to save their Stockholders
investment in NYO&W eventually Doomed the RR to Oblivian.
by the time NYO&W realized they needed a Partner it was too late,no
other road needed a Bankrupt line that barely went any where worth
while by 1950.
by then NH had plenty of its own problems which set the stage for
McGinnis to walk in and totally ruin them.
while it took NH a bit longer to go Bust,they did so by 1960.
what ever McGinnis did to NH,they never recovered from it.
Spikre

[atsfan]

Mar 5, 2015 12:01:12 GMT -8 Spikre said:

NYO&W Management fighting the NH takeover to save their Stockholders
investment in NYO&W eventually Doomed the RR to Oblivian.
by the time NYO&W realized they needed a Partner it was too late,no
other road needed a Bankrupt line that barely went any where worth
while by 1950.
by then NH had plenty of its own problems which set the stage for
McGinnis to walk in and totally ruin them.
while it took NH a bit longer to go Bust,they did so by 1960.
what ever McGinnis did to NH,they never recovered from it.
Spikre

What did he do specifically or ruin it, versus what was already in place or inevitable?

[Spikre]

Atsfan,
one brilliant idea was to pull down the wires.
another was to replace the loco fleet with all EMD units,never happened.
FL9s were to replace the Passenger Electrics,that sort of happened,but
not in the way McGinnis planned.
will let Paul C3 expound on what else McGinnis did or didn't do,or
maybe should have done.
when the NH Board diposed Him,McGinnis brought his Circus to B&M amd
tried His best to 86 them also.
Spikre

[Paul Cutler III]

McGinnis was both right and wrong. He had some good ideas and some clunkers.

Pros:
The "new image" scheme (AKA "McGinnis" scheme) - still modern looking paint scheme on not only rolling stock but stations, too. The NH really did need an image makeover (from staid conservative to flashy futuristic), and the fact that it's still in revenue use today on ConnDOT speaks for itself.

Rt. 128 Station - The first and only RR station named after a highway, the success of this idea (with it's attached business park) after over half a century shows what a good idea this was; it's a very busy station for Amtrak today.

Railroad Deregulation - See: Stagger's Act. To be fair, all RR presidents were clamoring for this, but at least McGinnis tried.

Government Assistance for Passenger Trains - Considered a communist plot at the time by some, the idea of having the Gov't pay for the passenger trains they were forcing the RR's to run was radical for the 1950's. McGinnis was ahead of the curve (see: Amtrak, M-N, ConnDOT and MBTA...all Gov't RR's that run ex-NH trackage).

Going to all EMD - A good idea in concept because there are still ex-NH EMD's running in revenue service today (FL9's, GP9's and SW1200's). Meanwhile, ex-NH Alcos and GE's that still run are much more rare.

Cons:
Scrapping the catenary - A dumb idea. The NH paid for an independent study of updating the electric operation or going to diesels wherever they could. The study recommended updating the electric zone because New York City banned smoke (IOW diesels) so you had to have electrics anyways...might as well take full advantage of them. Not to mention that running electric freight was almost free due to the required load for commuter trains during the day. McGinnis went with diesels, even tho' he couldn't pull down all the wires because of government action. He saw dollar signs for all that copper scrap.

The FL9 - related to the above. They should have just bought more GP9's, really...or FP9's at worst. The added weight of the extra axle and car body length did not help their performance envelope.

The tin trains - the "John Quincy Adams", "Roger Williams", and the "Dan'l Webster". Three experimental high speed, low-center of gravity trains to recapture the BOS to NYC market. They all failed to do so, and only the "Roger"'s RDC-nature kept them it being a total failure like the other two. The lack of food service on all three trains was a huge mistake, and spending money on experiments in those days was foolhardy...especially when one of them caught fire on the press run.

There's far, far more.

[Spikre]

??
Paul,
didn't McGinnis let His Wife design the Paint Schemes for the Locos ?
and Interiors for the Passenger cars ?
Spikre

[Paul Cutler III]

Pat McGinnis wanted to remodel the NH's offices at GCT and at New Haven. Mrs. McGinnis was an interior decorator by training, and her advice to PBM was to use Knoll Associates that was founded by her friends Hans and Florence Knoll. Their work inspired PBM to think about the entire RR needing a new image, and again Mrs. McGinnis suggested Knoll Associates. They, in turn, put Herbert Matter in charge of coming up with the new image logo. After much design work, he came up with the N over H logo we know today. When the new EP-5's were up for painting at GE, Mrs. McGinnis again suggested that Knoll Assoc. and Matter should come up with a new paint scheme for them. When Matter couldn't make up his mind on weather he should choose black/white/yellow or black/white/red-orange, GE painted an EP-5 in each scheme. When Mr. & Mrs. McGinnis went to view the locos in Erie, she had apparently already made up her mind as she had worn a black and white dress with a red-orange scarf. PBM, OTOH, had concerns about how the yellow would show the dirt more than the red-orange. In either case, the red-orange was picked, and the yellow EP-5 was re-painted to match.

So, no, Mrs. McGinnis did not design the paint schemes. She did, however, suggest the design firm and had a hand in picking red-orange. Herbert Matter is the one that did all the work.

The passenger car interiors were, for the most part, untouched by McGinnis. Stations were part of the re-design, but not really the car interiors.

[atsfan]

The McGinnis paint on engines has withstood the test of time.
It still looks great.

[Spikre]

like the McGinnis B&M "Blue Bird" GP9s as delivered in 1957,think they were
the best of the McGinnis schemes.
while the B&M McGinnis Cab schemes didn't make the grade.
were any NH DL109s painted in a scheme similar to the McGinnis FA/PA scheme ?
Spikre

[Paul Cutler III]

Spikre,
There was only one DL-109 painted in McGinnis colors, and that was the 0759. That one got the so-called "reverse" McGinnis because it was the more rare type with the red nose and white bottoms on the sides. This was actually the original scheme as on the EP-5's, but it showed the dirt all too well. So when the FL9's were ordered, and the PA's (well, most of them) and FA's were painted they got the "normal" McGinnis scheme of the white nose and orange bottoms on the sides.

www.nhrhta.org/images/sl301.JPG

c2.staticflickr.com/4/3491/3968474986_4ee69293f0_b.jpg

[Spikre]

??
Paul,
wasn't NH 0759 the Last DL109 built ?
they should have put it in a museum somewhere like Southern
did with FT 109/6100.
Spikre

[Paul Cutler III]

As you can see in the photo, it was already Condemned by the "C" in front of the number. All the in-service DL-109's were scrapped shortly after the 1959 shutdown of Old Colony commuter service. The only one left was 0716, the power plant used to test 3rd rail gear in Boston. PC scrapped it, even tho' Jim Bradley tried to save it.

In the 1950's, not even steam engines were being saved from the NH (let alone diesels). Only one still exists, the Boston & Providence RR's 4-4-0 "Daniel Nason" which never wore NH paint as it was retired before 1893. No NH electrics exist except for a pair of EF-4's (neither in NH colors), a pair of "Washboard" MU's, and one tiny DC trolley motor. Who even wanted to save diesels back then? The only good thing is that NH diesels are being preserved today. There are a pair of FA-1's, an RS-11, an RS-1, 22 FL9's, a bunch of GP9's (but probably unrecognizable after rebuilds), several SW1200's (perhaps all 20?), several RDC's (including the "Roger Williams" A-B-A set), an RS-3, a U25B, and even some 44tonners. One C-425 is still in revenue service on the LA&L, and perhaps some old Alco S-1's or S-2's are still around. So the NH's diesel roster is well represented in museums and on RR's today. And of course, the cool CDOT NH paint schemes running in Conn. on modern engines.