The New York and New England Railroad (NY&NE) was a railroad connecting southern New York State with Hartford, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; and Boston, Massachusetts. It operated under that name from 1873 to 1893. Prior to 1873 it was known as the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad, which had been formed from several smaller railroads that dated back to 1846. After a bankruptcy in 1893, the NY&NE was reorganized and briefly operated as the New England Railroad before being leased to the competing New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1898.
Today, most of the original New York and New England lines have been abandoned. A segment in Massachusetts is now part of the MBTA's Franklin/Foxboro Line providing commuter rail service to South Station in Boston, and another segment near East Hartford and Manchester, Connecticut, is used for freight service on the Connecticut Southern Railroad. Other portions in Connecticut and Rhode Island have been converted to rail trails.
History
West from Providence: 1846-1863 The corridor from Providence, Rhode Island, west into New York was originally chartered as three companies. The Providence and Plainfield Railroad, chartered in June 1846, would run from Providence to the Rhode Island–Connecticut state line. The Hartford and Providence Railroad, incorporated in May 1847, would continue west to Hartford, Connecticut, and the New York and Hartford Railroad, chartered and incorporated in May 1845, would continue to the New York and Harlem Railroad at Brewster, New York. In 1849, the two Connecticut companies merged to form the Hartford, Providence and Fishkill Railroad, with a modified charter to continue past Brewster to Fishkill, New York, on the Hudson River, and in 1851 the Rhode Island company was merged into it. Later that year the first section opened, from Hartford east to Willimantic. Extensions opened east to Providence in 1854 and west to Waterbury in 1855. The HP&F went bankrupt on January 1, 1858, and was run by the trustees until 1863, when it was leased by the newly formed Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad.
Southwest from Boston: 1847-1867
At the Boston end, the earliest predecessor was the Norfolk County Railroad, chartered April 24, 1847. The line from the Boston and Providence Railroad's branch at Dedham, Massachusetts, southwest to Walpole opened on April 23, 1849, and an extension to the Providence and Worcester Railroad in Blackstone opened May 16. The company went bankrupt soon after. The short Medway Branch Railroad was leased in 1851, opening December 29, 1852.
On May 1, 1849, the Southbridge and Blackstone Railroad was incorporated to extend the line west from Blackstone to Southbridge. The Midland Railroad was incorporated May 2, 1850, to build a new entrance to Boston, merging with the existing one south of Dedham. The two companies were consolidated with the Norfolk County Railroad on December 12, 1853, to form the Boston and New York Central Railroad, which had the intent of continuing southwest through Connecticut all the way to New York City. The first section of this extension was incorporated in May 1853 as the East Thompson Railroad, forming the Connecticut portion of the Southbridge and Blackstone.
The extension from Blackstone southwest to Mechanicsville, Connecticut, on the Norwich and Worcester Railroad was completed in 1853. In January 1855 the new main line to Boston was opened, but was closed six months later until December 1856 because of an injunction due to the danger of the numerous grade crossings. The new line ran to a terminal at the foot of Summer Street in downtown Boston via South Boston. The full line was first operated as one on June 1, 1855, but again failed quickly. On August 6 operations were restarted on only the original Dedham-Blackstone line, operated by the Boston and Providence Railroad as a branch. On March 2, 1857, the trustees took repossession, ending the operation by the B&P. The East Thompson Railroad leased the line, reopening it again in full for about a year before another failure. At that time, all but the original Dedham-Blackstone line and Medway Branch were closed until 1867. The closed lines were sold in November 1858 to the Midland Railroad, but were not operated due to bad condition. The Midland Land Damage Company tried again in 1862, changing its name to the Southern Midland Railroad in 1863 without success.
Combined routes from Providence and Boston: 1863-1898
In May 1863, the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad was chartered to take over operations of the failed lines and continue the line west to Fishkill, New York, with a car float from there to the Erie Railroad at Newburgh. It quickly leased the Hartford, Providence and Fishkill Railroad from its trustees, giving it a line from Providence west to Waterbury. In September of that year it acquired the former Boston and New York Central Railroad, but did not operate it yet; the old Norfolk County Railroad continued operations by its trustees.
In the meantime, the New York and Boston Railroad had built a line from Brookline, Massachusetts (outside Boston) southwest to Woonsocket, Rhode Island, crossing the Norfolk County Railroad in Blackstone. On January 4, 1865, the BH&E absorbed that company, making its Woonsocket Division. On December 13 of the same year, various Erie Railway men were elected to the BH&E board, placing it under partial control of the Erie.
On February 11, 1867, the BH&E leased the Norfolk County Railroad, finally reopening the full line from Mechanicsville to Boston. That same year, the branch to Southbridge (part of the original Southbridge and Blackstone charter) opened. The Norwich and Worcester Railroad was leased in 1869, finally giving it a route to Boston, using the N&W from the Providence line at Plainfield north to the old Norfolk County Railroad at Mechanicsville. In August 1872 a direct connection from Willimantic on the line to Providence northeast to Mechanicsville opened, completing the direct line to Boston. The Willimantic stop also afforded a transfer to the New London Northern Railroad for Palmer, Massachusetts, and Brattleboro, Vermont, to the north, and for New London to the south.
By 1869 the BH&E leased the Dutchess and Columbia Railroad, which was building a line roughly southwest-northeast in Dutchess County, New York. The BH&E planned to build west to the D&C at the future Hopewell Junction, but was not able to complete the line and lost the lease in 1870.
On September 9, 1872, the Long Island Rail Road's Boston Express began operations, using the BH&E from Norwich (at the south end of the N&W) to Boston. This was later replaced around 1891 with the Long Island and Eastern States Express, using the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad from Wilson Point to the BH&E (then the NY&NE) at Hawleyville (east of Danbury).
The New Haven, Middletown and Willimantic Railroad was leased in 1873, giving a line to New Haven. Later that year, the BH&E went bankrupt and was reorganized April 17 as the New York and New England Railroad; the N&W lease was kept but the NHM&W lease was forfeited (prior to its opening August 12), becoming part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad system in 1879.
Various sources note the Boston Hartford & Erie as failing and falling into receivership in 1870, yet it was during the Panic of 1873 that 89 of the country's 364 railroads went bankrupt. The New York and New England Railroad Company was chartered by special act of the Massachusetts legislature on April 17, 1873. Such was the mess of the Boston Hartford & Erie's mortgages and land titles that the NY&NE did not enter into possession of any of the BH&E "system" until sometime in 1875. Alvin F. Harlow in Steelways of New England states that the NY&NE did not get possession of the Hartford Providence & Fishkill line until 1877.
Through its entire existence (1873–1895) the NY&NE was always bedeviled by uncertainty in its land titles. Symptomatic of this: the $20 million common stock of the NY&NE originated as the $20,000,000 principal amount of the "Berdell Bonds"; the chartering legislation said the NY&NE was to "succeed to the rights of the Berdell Bondholders". There was a 10% assessment levied on the Berdell Bondholders as part of the chartering legislation, which also appropriated the necessary monies for the state to pay its assessment on its $3 million of Berdell Bonds. For some reason $1,000 of Berdell bonds were never issued so for years the NY&NE had $19.999 million of common stock outstanding.
Through all this the receivers of the BH&E and the later management of the NY&NE continued to hold on to the BH&E's Norwich & Worcester lease which was a major part, if not the principal prop to the entire system's existence. The N&W and its related Norwich Line steamers (passenger and freight) made money, enough that the NY&NE could afford to pay 8% (reduced from 10% by negotiation ca. 1885) on the N&W's capital stock.
In 1881 the extension from Waterbury west to Hopewell Junction on the Newburgh, Dutchess and Connecticut Railroad opened. Along with trackage rights over the ND&C southwest to Beacon, and a short line built by the NY&NE to the Hudson River at Beacon, this completed the main lines from Boston and Providence to the Hudson River, where a train ferry took cars to the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad's Newburg Branch at Newburgh. Part of the line in New York was built along the never-used grade from the failed Putnam and Dutchess Railroad.
Also in 1881 the New York, Westchester and Putnam Railway was completed, running north and east from New York City to the NY&NE at Brewster. This company had been previously involved with the BH&E in building a through line between New York and Boston, even being called the New York and Boston Railroad at first, and with its opening such a through line was formed. For some time such a traffic arrangement was made, lasting through the NYW&P's absorption into the New York Central Railroad in 1894.
The Poughkeepsie Bridge opened in 1888, providing a fixed crossing of the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, north of the NY&NE car float at Beacon. The Central New England and Western Railroad, which owned the bridge, chartered the Dutchess County Railroad in 1890 and completed it in 1892, providing a branch from the bridge to the NY&NE at Hopewell Junction.
There was a December 31, 1883/January 1, 1884, receivership that got referred to at the time as the "Midnight Receivership" which featured the NY&NE officers trying to find a federal judge to issue a receivership order before the end of the year. This receivership was over by 1886.
Cyrus W. Field had become a major figure behind the NY&NE by 1886 but after the state of Massachusetts refused to sell him the $3 million in stock it held (instead disposing of the shares to a rival group because of concern about Field's close association with Jay Gould) Field sold his holdings in the NY&NE. The Massachusetts sale of NY&NE stock was part of a deliberate policy on the part of Massachusetts to get out of owning railroads; the sale of the Hoosac Tunnel line to the Fitchburg in 1887 was also done under this policy, a declared policy of Massachusetts Governor Andrew.
The new NY&NE President in 1887 was Jabez A. Bostwick, a Standard Oil partner of John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller's brother William sat on the board of the New Haven. With Rockefeller lieutenants in both camps one wonders whether the NY&NE-NYNH&H "rivalry" may have been a Standard Oil "Divide & Conquer" policy to get low rates and other benefits out of both roads who together controlled nearly all rail business in New England south of the Boston and Albany Railroad (running through Massachusetts from Boston to Worcester, to Springfield, Pittsfield and on to Albany, New York).