Railroads in New England
[1][2] Powered by horses and built with wooden rails and stone ties, it was primitive compared to today's railways, but it was soon followed by many others.
Poor recognized railroads' ability to extend a seaport's commercial control of interior markets, and rivalry soon arose between Boston and Portland, Maine.
His efforts resulted in Portland being selected as the seaport for the Canadian transcontinental Grand Trunk Railway in 1845.
[3] In more sparsely populated Northern New England, a number of smaller companies maintained their independence through this time, such as the Bangor and Aroostook, the Rutland Railroad, and the Grand Trunk Railway.
[13] In the final decades of the 1800s, the New Haven rapidly expanded by leasing or purchasing other railroads, to the point it had a near complete monopoly on rail transportation in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and southern Massachusetts.
[19]The war saw the peak of United States rail mileage, with a total of 254,000 route miles.
[18] After the war, railroad mileage in New England began to shrink, in line with national trends.
The New Haven went bankrupt in 1935, due to significant debt largely brought about by the effects of the depression.
[20] Under pressure by reduced traffic to cut costs, many redundant or low-traffic lines were abandoned during and shortly after the depression.
[21] After World War II, railroads in New England faced strong competition from automobiles, aircraft, and trucks.
[22] After nearly a decade of financial troubles, the Interstate Commerce Commission forced the newly formed Penn Central Transportation Company to take over the New Haven's operations on December 31, 1968.
The Boston and Maine fared little better than its southern counterparts, declaring bankruptcy the same year as Penn Central.
[16] The Rutland Railroad shut down in 1963, with the state of Vermont purchasing most of its lines to prevent them from being abandoned.
[24] Concerned by the precipitous decline of railroads in the Northeastern United States, the federal government responded by creating the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in 1976.
The new company inherited the lines of Penn Central with an agenda to turn around several decades of decline, neglect, and unprofitable operations.
In 1971, the state of Connecticut leased its portion of the New Haven Line from Penn Central, along with its three branches, before purchasing it outright in 1985.
[31] Massachusetts purchased a number of railroad lines from freight operators for commuter rail service under the MBTA, beginning in the 1970s.
CSX became the new operator of Conrail's main line between Boston and Albany across southern Massachusetts, along with Cedar Hill Yard in New Haven, Connecticut.
