The New York, Ontario and Western Railway, commonly known as the O&W or NYO&W, was a regional railroad founded in 1868. The last train ran from Norwich, New York, to Middletown, New York, in 1957, after which it was ordered liquidated by a U.S. bankruptcy judge. It was the first Class I U.S. railroad to be abandoned in its entirety.[11]
In 1866, the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad was chartered under the direction of Dewitt C. Littlejohn, who envisioned a railroad serving a direct connection from the docks opposite New York City to Lake Ontario at Oswego. Construction on the line north of Middletown began in 1868 and was completed in 1873. Branches were also constructed to Ellenville, Delhi and New Berlin, New York; a branch was begun to Auburn from Norwich, but it only was constructed to Scipio Center before being sold to the Utica, Ithaca and Elmira Railroad in 1876.[12] Access to New York City was provided by the Middletown, Unionville and Water Gap Railroad and the New Jersey Midland Railway beginning in 1872. On September 3, 1869, the NY&OM began using the Pennsylvania Railroad's station at Exchange Place in Jersey City, New Jersey, which provided its passengers with ferry access to the Cortlandt Street Ferry Depot in lower Manhattan and the Desbrosses Street Ferry.[13] With the Panic of 1873, the company began to fold, and it severed its ties with the NJM and the MU&WG.
In 1886, O&W acquired the operations of both the Utica, Clinton & Binghamton and the Rome & Clinton railroads from the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company. By acquisition of these assets and construction of a new line to Sylvan Beach on the east shore of Lake Oneida, the O&W extended its operations into new market areas, and the Sylvan Beach Loop became a seasonally-significant corridor by providing transportation to central New York's recreational resort area. By 1889, the O&W added two new branches, New Berlin to Edmeston, and Port Jervis to Monticello, connecting to the main line at Summitville, New York.
The most significant addition occurred in 1890, when the O&W constructed a 54-mile branch from Cadosia, New York, to Scranton, Pennsylvania, through the rich anthracite coal reserves in Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley. Revenues from this new Scranton Division strengthened O&W's revenues and provided the means for future improvements to the railroad. The railroad's W-in-O logo first appeared in 1892.[15]
Revenue freight traffic, in millions of net ton-miles.
Year
Traffic
1925
688
1933
830
1944
957
1956
353
Source: ICC annual reports
20th century
Engine 405A stock share of the New York, Ontario and Western Railway, issued October 7, 1921
The 1940s saw a receding of passenger service. In the early years of the 1940s, the Summitville-Kingston branch was reduced to a Sundays and holidays, summer-only service.[16] Improved highways ended the O&W's passenger service to the resort areas of the lower Catskill Mountains (the "Borscht Belt") and lightly populated portions of Upstate New York, with the last train from Walton, New York, to Weehawken operating in the summer of 1948. The O&W's Walton-Delhi branch service, all in Delaware County, was also eliminated in this period.[17] The last passenger train (from Roscoe, New York, just north of Livingston Manor, to Weehawken Terminal) operated on September 10, 1953.[18]
By 1948 the operating losses had accumulated to over $38 million[11] (over $69 million in 2024).[19] The decrease of coal as a heating fuel for other than major power plants damaged its primary freight business, as did the end of rail transport of high-priority dairy products from Upstate New York to the Metro New York City area. The New Haven offered to purchase the company in 1952, but later withdrew its offer, citing its own financial problems.[20] Abandonment was loudly-protested by towns along the line, which considered unpaid back taxes as an investment in the railroad. The New York State legislature approved a $1 million aid bill, citing the O&W as essential for civil defense, but the state civil defense commission rejected it.[20]
The bankruptcy court finally ordered complete abandonment, and the last freight train ran from Norwich to Middletown on March 29, 1957. Liquidation proceeded shortly thereafter. Three large scrap dealers bought the entire right-of-way from the bankruptcy court soon afterward, and removed nearly all of the rails and bridges in 1958 and 1959. All O&W assets were auctioned. The diesel locomotives found new owners, but most of the other, antiquated rolling stock and equipment was scrapped.[20] Certain sections of track serving shippers, many of which were industrial factories, were transferred by the bankruptcy court to other railroads, allowing continued rail access to the plants. The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad received track from Utica to New Hartford, New York, and track in Norwich, New York and Scranton, Pennsylvania. The New York Central took over sections of O&W New York track between Fulton and Oswego, and the tracks in Rome, Oneida, and Kingston. These transfers were approved before operations ceased at midnight on March 29, and the transfer of other sections to the Erie Railroad was approved later.[21] A section of the track in New Hartford was still in operation in 2018 by the Northern Division of the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway.
Rail historian George Drury later commented that the O&W "had always been sickly and should not have been built" at just "541 miles".[20]
Parts of the Summitville - Kingston division,[22] ending at Kingston, have become a rail trail. Some of the stations have been converted into residences, including the Alligerville station in High Falls, New York, owned by Gerry Leonard since 2001 and used as a recording studio.[23] The Starlight station in Wayne County, Pennsylvania was acquired by Buckingham Township and servies as its Municipal Building.
On September 27, 1955, a 50-car O&W train in Hamilton, New York, traveling on a mainline approached a switch set for a siding which led to a coal trestle. Although the engineer fully-applied the brakes, the train continued up the siding at more than 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) and through the trestle. It was learned that the 213-ton EMD FT diesel locomotive at the head of the train "flew" a distance of 150 feet (46 m) beyond the coal trestle from an elevation of 15 feet (4.6 m). Two of the crew were seriously injured, but no crewmen were killed in the wreck.
An investigation by New York state police as to why the switch had been thrown resulted in no arrests. A dinner was later given in honor of the crew, who each received a plaque proclaiming them to be members of the O&W's new "Flying Diesel Corps." Each plaque was topped with a cast presentation model of their F-unit locomotive; the castings were provided by EMD.
One of the freight cars involved in the accident was loaded with chocolate bars from the Nestlé plant in nearby Fulton, New York. It was said that when the younger residents of Hamilton learned of the spilled candy, they raced to collect what they could, and that as a result candy sales in the town were for some time afterward very low.[24]
When Savannah and Atlanta 750 was restored for excursion service in 1964, it received a new tender and other parts from an ex-NYO&W Y-series 4-8-2 which the S&A had bought in 1945. This engine, the last surviving steam locomotive from the NYO&W, was scrapped afterward.
^Railroad Ferries of the Hudson: And Stories of a Deckhand, by, Raymond J. Baxter, Arthur G. Adams, pg. 69 ,1999, Fordham University Press, 978-0823219544
^"New York, Ontario and Western Railway, Table 5". Official Guide of the Railways. 74 (1). National Railway Publication Company. June 1941.
^"New York, Ontario and Western Railway, Table 2 -freight only". Official Guide of the Railways. 82 (3). National Railway Publication Company. August 1949.
^"CPI Inflation Calculator". US Bureau of Labor Statistics. US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
^ abcdDrury, George H. (1994). The Historical Guide to North American Railroads: Histories, Figures, and Features of more than 160 Railroads Abandoned or Merged since 1930. Waukesha, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing. pp. 91, 229–231. ISBN0-89024-072-8.
^"Trackage is Assigned Lackawanna and N.Y. Central Named to Serve Shippers". New York Times. March 29, 1957. p. 33.
^"New York, Ontario and Western Railway, Table 1". Official Guide of the Railways. 64 (9). National Railway Publication Company. February 1932.
Railroads in italics meet the revenue specifications for Class I status, but are not technically Class I railroads due to being passenger-only railroads with no freight component.
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