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.

The Midland Railroad was incorporated May 2, 1850, to build a new entrance to Boston, merging with the existing one south of Dedham.

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.

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 closed lines were sold in November 1858 to the Midland Railroad, but were not operated due to bad condition.

On February 11, 1867, the BH&E leased the Norfolk County Railroad, finally reopening the full line from Mechanicsville to Boston.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For some time such a traffic arrangement was made, lasting through the NYW&P's absorption into the New York Central Railroad in 1894.

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).

The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad leased the company for 99 years from July 1, 1898, at 3% on the preferred (normal dividend) and common stock.

Both parties apparently wound up together buying more NY&NE common than actually existed; worse, the New Haven had had to pay high prices for near worthless shares.

It caught the romantic imagination of New Englanders and even after it was long gone, Lucius Beebe, a Bostonian and noted railroad writer, felt compelled to memorialize it.

[2][page needed] Famed author Rudyard Kipling memorialized the train in a popular verse: Much of the major foundation of the line of the NY & NE was the legacy of the Hartford, Providence and Fishkill Railroad, whose mainline ran from Providence, Rhode Island, west to Plainfield, Connecticut, to Willimantic, to Vernon, to Hartford, to New Britain, to Waterbury, to Danbury, and finally to Brewster, NY.

[4] Several portions of the line in Connecticut, including Danbury to Hawleyville and Waterbury to Bristol, were double-tracked in the late 1910s.

Until 1955 the NY, NH & H ran passenger trains from Boston to Blackstone, to Putnam, joining the above line at Willimantic and continually finally to Waterbury.

[12] Neither of these companies had built any railroad but the new one proceeded to build one from Norwich, Connecticut (later New London) north to Worcester, Massachusetts, including the Taft Tunnel at Lisbon, CT.

The Meriden, Waterbury and Connecticut River Railroad was formed in 1888 as a consolidation of two smaller companies, opening in 1885 and 1888.

The New York and New England Railroad leased it in 1892, as a branch from the main line in Waterbury east to Cromwell on the Connecticut River.

As January 2014, the easternmost segments spanning from Garfield Avenue/Cranston Street (near Amtrak's Northeast Corridor), West Warwick (former Riverpoint/Hope Railway spur point) and Coventry have continuous pavement totaling to approximately 14.2 miles[17]