The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated principally in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of the New York and New Haven and Hartford and New Haven railroads, the company had near-total dominance of railroad traffic in Southern New England for the first half of the 20th century.
The Providence and Worcester Railroad is a Class II railroad operating 612 miles (985 km) of tracks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, as well as New York via trackage rights. The company was founded in 1844 to build a railroad between Providence, Rhode Island, and Worcester, Massachusetts, and ran its first trains in 1847. A successful railroad, the P&W subsequently expanded with a branch to East Providence, Rhode Island, and for a time leased two small Massachusetts railroads. Originally a single track, its busy mainline was double-tracked after a fatal 1853 collision in Valley Falls, Rhode Island.
The Central New England Railway was a railroad from Hartford, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, west across northern Connecticut and across the Hudson River on the Poughkeepsie Bridge to Maybrook, New York. It was part of the Poughkeepsie Bridge Route, an alliance between railroads for a passenger route from Washington to Boston, and was acquired by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad in 1904. The New Haven ran the CNE as a separate company until finally merging it in 1927. The vast majority of the system was abandoned by the 1930s and 1940s. Surviving portions of the Central New England Railway are operated by the Central New England Railroad and the Housatonic Railroad.
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.
The Norfolk County Railroad was a railroad in Massachusetts, United States. Chartered as two different companies in 1846 and 1847, it completed a rail line between Dedham and Blackstone in 1849. A branch to Medway, Massachusetts was built in 1852. The railroad was leased by the Boston and New York Central Railroad, succeeded by the Boston and Providence Railroad and the East Thompson Railroad, before the Norfolk County Railroad returned to independent operation in 1858. In 1866, the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad leased the Norfolk County. The Rhode Island and Massachusetts Railroad was completed in 1877 from Franklin southward to Valley Falls, Rhode Island, and became a branch of the Norfolk County mainline. The northernmost portion of the main line from Islington to Dedham was rerouted to the east in 1881, and the original alignment abandoned two years later. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad assumed operation of the Norfolk County lines in 1898.
The Shore Line Railway was a part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad system, running east from New Haven, Connecticut, to New London along the north shore of Long Island Sound. A segment is currently used for commuter service on CT Rail's Shore Line East and regional/express service on Amtrak's high-speed Northeast Corridor.
The New York, Providence and Boston Railroad, normally called the Stonington Line, was a major part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad between New London, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island. It is now part of Amtrak's high-speed Northeast Corridor.
The Connecticut Southern Railroad is a 90-mile (140 km) long short-line railroad operating in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The company was formed in 1996 as a spinoff of Conrail by shortline holding company RailTex and subsequently acquired in 2000 by RailAmerica. Since 2012, it has been a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming. CSO is headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, site of its Hartford Yard. The company also operates East Hartford Yard.
Air Line State Park Trail is a rail trail and linear state park located in Connecticut. The trail is divided into sections designated South, North a piece of the East Coast Greenway, and the Thompson addition. An additional 3.6-mile spur to Colchester is sometimes designated as part of the Air Line trail. At the Massachusetts state line, the trail connects to the Southern New England Trunkline Trail, a 22-mile-long trail to Franklin, MA built on the same right-of-way. Since 2018, the town of Portland, Connecticut has also maintained a 2.3-mile portion of the Air Line trail, connecting to the southern end of the state park at the town line with East Hampton.
The Connecticut Company was the primary electric street railway company in the U.S. state of Connecticut, operating both city and rural trolleys and freight service. It was controlled by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, which also controlled most steam railroads in the state. After 1936, when one of its major leases was dissolved, it continued operating streetcars and, increasingly, buses in certain Connecticut cities until 1976, when its assets were purchased by the state government.
The East Wind was a summer passenger train between Washington, D.C., and resorts along the southern Maine coast. Travel time was about 14 hours over the 700-mile (1,100 km) route to Portland, Maine. The route was over the Pennsylvania Railroad from Washington through Philadelphia to New York City, then the New Haven Railroad to Groton, Connecticut, where it left the Northeast Corridor to reach the Boston and Maine Railroad at Worcester, Massachusetts, whereby it continued northeastward, bypassing Boston. The train continued over the Boston & Maine to Portland, where a coach and diner continued to Bangor, Maine, on the connecting Pine Tree Limited. In contrast to the other Mid-Atlantic to Maine trains, it was the only day and evening train.
The Hartford and New Haven Railroad (H&NH), chartered in 1833, was the first railroad built in the state of Connecticut and an important direct predecessor of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The company was formed to connect the cities of New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts. It built northwards from New Haven, opening its first segment in 1838, and reaching Hartford in December 1839. The company reached Springfield in 1844 under the auspices of the Hartford and Springfield Railroad, a subsidiary chartered in Massachusetts. Branches were later built to Suffield, New Britain, and Middletown and operated by the Hartford and New Haven. The H&NH merged with the New York and New Haven Railroad in 1872, forming the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
The Norwich and Worcester Railroad (N&W) was a railroad in the U.S. states of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Its north-south mainline ran between its namesake cities of Worcester, Massachusetts, and Norwich, Connecticut,. The Providence and Worcester Railroad (P&W) owns the ex-N&W line and operates freight service.
The Rapallo Viaduct is a buried railroad trestle in East Hampton, Connecticut which carries the Air Line Trail across Flat Brook.
The Connecticut Valley Railroad was a railroad in the state of Connecticut founded in 1868. The company built a line along the Connecticut River between Hartford and Old Saybrook, which opened in 1871. It was reorganized as the Hartford and Connecticut Valley Railroad in 1880, and leased by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1887. Following partial abandonments by the New Haven Railroad and successor Penn Central Transportation Company between 1968 and 1972, the line south of Middletown was revived as the Valley Railroad, a heritage railroad, while the portion in Middletown and northward saw operation by several freight railroads. As of 2022, the Providence and Worcester Railroad and Connecticut Southern Railroad both operate portions of the former Connecticut Valley Railroad.
The Southbridge and Blackstone Railroad was a railroad company that was the precursor to the Willimantic, Connecticut–Blackstone, Massachusetts line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NYNH&H). It was chartered in 1849 to build a line from Southbridge, Massachusetts, to Blackstone. In 1853, with construction underway, it was merged into the Boston and New York Central Railroad (B&NYC). The B&NYC used the charter of the East Thompson Railroad, another of its constituent lines, to alter the routing: west of East Thompson, Connecticut, the merged line continued southwest to Mechanicsville, Connecticut, where it met the Norwich and Worcester Railroad. The Mechanicsville–Blackstone line opened in 1854.
Railroads have played an important role in New England ever since the Granite Railway, America's first commercial railway, began operations in Massachusetts in 1826. As industrialization spread across the region, hundreds of railroads were built throughout the 19th century. Railroad mileage peaked around World War I, and from that point on mileage began to shrink. Despite this, railroads continue to be important for freight and passenger transportation in the region, with the New Haven Line holding the title of busiest railroad line in the entire United States.
The East Providence Branch is a railroad line in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, in the United States. It connects Valley Falls, Rhode Island, to East Providence, Rhode Island, via South Attleboro, Massachusetts, and Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The branch was originally built by the Providence and Worcester Railroad (P&W) in 1874, connecting its main line to a coal dock in East Providence, and was 7 miles (11 km) in length. At East Providence, the branch also met the East Junction Branch of the Boston and Providence Railroad and the mainline of the Providence, Warren and Bristol Railroad. Built as a single-track railroad with bridges and the right-of-way prepared for future double-tracking, the line was fully double-tracked from 1892 to 1895; the second track was eventually removed.
The Southbridge Branch was a railway line in Connecticut and Massachusetts, United States. It ran 16.9 miles (27.2 km) between Southbridge, Massachusetts and East Thompson, Connecticut, via Webster, Massachusetts. Originally planned to be part of the Southbridge and Blackstone Railroad, it was ultimately built in 1866–67 by the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad. It became part of the New York and New England Railroad in 1875, and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1898. Passenger service ended in 1930, and the eastern portion of the line was abandoned in 1937. The western half continued to be used for freight service; it passed to Penn Central in 1969, and to the Providence and Worcester Railroad (P&W) in 1976 as the Southbridge Running Track. The P&W stopped serving the line in the 1980s, but did not abandon it until 2004. Much of the western half of the line in Massachusetts has been converted to the Quinebaug Valley Rail Trail.
