Search:
Type the text to search here and press Enter.
Separate search terms by a space; they will all be searched individually in all fields of the database. Click on Search: to go to the advanced search page.
Classifieds Only: Check this box if you want to search classifieds instead of the catalog.
Please help support TroveStar. Why?
Transportation Company - Boston & Albany - Railroad
Add a comment about this item.
It will be visible at the bottom of this page to all users.
Comment
Company NameBoston & Albany
CategoryRailroad
Year Founded1867
Final Year of Operation1961
TerminationAcquired
Successor/ParentNew York Central (Details)
CountryUnited States (Details)
Source of TextBluford Shops
Text Credit URLLink
Transportation Company - Boston & Albany - Railroad



Company History: The B&A was the result of two mergers accomplished in phases between 1867 and 1870. The merged lines included the Hudson & Boston Railroad, the Albany & West Stockbridge, the Western Railroad (by that time a paper railroad operated by the A&WS), the Hudson & Berkshire and the Boston & Worcester. Construction continued until late in the century. The result was a line running from Boston, Massachusetts west to Worcester, Springfield, Pittsfield and on to Albany, New York, plus a number of branches. In 1900 the B&A was leased for 99 years by the New York Central & Hudson River, In 1914, the lease passed to New York Central Railroad. As during the NYC&HR period, Boston & Albany retained their own corporate identity during NYC’s lease although locomotive and rolling stock design practices followed those of parent NYC. Lima Locomotive Works worked with Boston & Albany to develop the 2-8-4 wheel arrangement for locomotives in fast, heavy freight service. This wheel arrangement was named the Berkshire in honor of B&A’s route through the Berkshire Mountains. Commuter traffic on the Boston end was extensive with a 4 or more track mainline required from the city as far as Riverside and triple track all the way to Framingham. For many years, tank engines were used for commuter operations so the power could run in reverse at speed to return to their home terminal. The largest of these were 4-6-6T’s. Around 1951, New York Central lettering began to replace Boston & Albany lettering on locomotives and cars. The B&A was officially merged into NYC in 1961 but many freight cars assigned to specific services continued to receive B&A reporting marks for many more years.
Successor/Parent History:
The New York Central Railroad (reporting mark NYC), known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States. Headquartered in New York City, the railroad served most of the Northeast, including extensive trackage in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Massachusetts, plus additional trackage in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St.Louis in the midwest along with the intermediate cities of Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Detroit. NYC's Grand Central Terminal in New York City is one of its best known extant landmarks.

1853 company formation: Albany industrialist and Mohawk Valley Railroad owner Erastus Corning managed to unite ten 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 by May 17, 1853 the New York Central Railroad was formed.

In 1867 Vanderbilt acquired control of the Albany to Buffalo running NYC. On November 1, 1869 he merged the NYC with his Hudson River Railroad into the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. Vanderbilt's other lines were operated as part of the NYC.

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 merge, 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.

In 1968 the NYC merged with its former rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad, to form Penn Central (the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad joined in 1969). That company went bankrupt in 1970 and was taken over by the federal government and merged into Conrail in 1976. Conrail was broken up in 1998, and portions of its system was transferred to the newly formed New York Central Lines LLC, a subsidiary leased to and eventually absorbed by CSX and Norfolk Southern. Those companies' lines included the original New York Central main line, but outside that area it included lines that were never part of the New York Central system. CSX was able to take one of the most important main lines in the nation, which runs from New York City and Boston to Cleveland, Ohio, as part of the Water Level Route, while Norfolk Southern gained the Cleveland, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois portion of the line called the Chicago line.

At the end of 1925, the New York Central System 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).

Read more on Wikipedia.
Brief History:
The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.

Item Links: We found: 2 different collections associated with Boston & Albany - Railroad
Item created by: gdm on 2017-10-12 16:26:17. Last edited by gdm on 2023-05-18 09:26:03

If you see errors or missing data in this entry, please feel free to log in and edit it. Anyone with a Gmail account can log in instantly.