The Cobble Hill Tunnel is an abandoned Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) tunnel beneath Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, New York City, running through the neighborhoods of Downtown Brooklyn and Cobble Hill. When open, it ran for about 2,517 feet (767 m) between Columbia Street and Boerum Place. It is the oldest railway tunnel beneath a city street in North America that was fully devoted to rail. It's also deemed the oldest subway tunnel in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Lisbon is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States, 7.3 miles (11.7 km) by road northeast of Norwich. The population was 4,195 at the 2020 census. The town center is also known as the village of Newent. The town school is Lisbon Central School. Its only postal code, 06351, is Jewett City, Connecticut, which is a village of the town of Griswold, Connecticut and encompasses all of Lisbon and Griswold.
The Boston and Maine Railroad was a U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. It became part of what is now the Pan Am Railways network in 1983.
Summit Tunnel in England is one of the world's oldest railway tunnels. It was constructed between 1838 and 1841 by the Manchester and Leeds Railway Company to provide a direct line between Leeds and Manchester. When built, Summit Tunnel was the longest railway tunnel in the world.
The Hoosac Tunnel is a 4.75-mile (7.64 km) active railroad tunnel in western Massachusetts that passes through the Hoosac Range, an extension of Vermont's Green Mountains. It runs in a straight line from its east portal, along the Deerfield River in the town of Florida, to its west portal in the city of North Adams.
The United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company (UNJ&CC) was a railroad company which began as the important Camden & Amboy Railroad (C&A), whose 1830 lineage began as one of the eight or ten earliest permanent North American railroads, and among the first common carrier transportation companies whose prospectus marketed an enterprise aimed at carrying passengers fast and competing with stagecoaches between New York Harbor and Philadelphia-Trenton. Among the other earliest chartered or incorporated railroads, only the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad were chartered with passenger services in mind. Later, after mergers, the UNJ&CC became a subsidiary part of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) system in New Jersey by the later merger and acquisition of several predecessor companies in 1872; these purchases also included the PRR's main line to New York City. Prior to 1872, its main lines were the Camden and Amboy Rail Road and Transportation Company, the first railroad in New Jersey and one of the first railroads in the United States.
The Providence and Worcester Railroad is a Class II railroad operating in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, as well as New York via trackage rights. It was founded in 1844 to build a railroad between Providence, Rhode Island and Worcester, Massachusetts, and ran its first trains in 1847. The P&W operated independently until 1892, when the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad leased it.
The Boston and Albany Railroad was a railroad connecting Boston, Massachusetts to Albany, New York, later becoming part of the New York Central Railroad system, Conrail, and CSX Transportation. The line is currently used by CSX for freight. Passenger service is still provided on the line by Amtrak, as part of their Lake Shore Limited service, and by the MBTA Commuter Rail system, which owns the section east of Worcester and operates it as its Framingham/Worcester Line.
Alvin Adams was the founder of Adams and Company, a forerunner to Adams Express, one of the first companies to act as a carrier for express shipments by rail in the United States. Adams and Company provided shippers with a complete shipping solution, picking up goods at the shipper's location, carrying them to the railroad terminal, and then delivering them from the distant railroad terminal to the recipient's door.
The Michigan Central Railroad was originally incorporated in 1846 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan, and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the United States and the province of Ontario in Canada. After about 1867 the railroad was controlled by the New York Central Railroad, which later became part of Penn Central and then Conrail. After the 1998 Conrail breakup, Norfolk Southern Railway now owns much of the former Michigan Central trackage.
This is a list of the earliest railroads in North America, including various railroad-like precursors to the general modern form of a company or government agency operating locomotive-drawn trains on metal tracks.
The New York and New England Railroad was a major 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 by several smaller railroads dating back to 1846. After bankruptcy in 1893, the New York and New England Railroad was reorganized and became known as the New England Railroad before its 1898 lease to the competing New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Today, most of the original New York and New England lines have been abandoned; however a portion in Massachusetts is now part of the MBTA's Franklin Line providing commuter rail service to South Station in Boston. The Connecticut Southern Railroad operates freight service on a small portion of the former NY&NE line near East Hartford and Manchester, Connecticut. Other portions in Connecticut and Rhode Island have been converted to rail trails.
Founded in 1996, the Naugatuck Railroad is a common carrier railroad owned by the Railroad Museum of New England and operated by Naugatuck Railroad on tracks leased by Naugatuck Railroad from the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The original Naugatuck Railroad was a railroad chartered to operate through south central Connecticut in 1845, with the first section opening for service in 1849. In 1887 the line was leased by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and became wholly owned by 1906. At its greatest extent the Naugatuck ran from Bridgeport north to Winsted. Today's Naugatuck Railroad runs from Waterbury to the end of track in Torrington, Connecticut. From Waterbury south to the New Haven Line, Metro-North Railroad operates commuter service on the Waterbury Branch.
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 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 Hartford and New Haven Railroad (H&NH), founded 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. The Hartford and New Haven merged with the New York and New Haven Railroad in 1872, forming the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
The Worcester, Nashua and Rochester Railroad was a railroad line that was to link the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, to the city of Portland, Maine, via the New Hampshire cities of Nashua and Rochester, by merging several small shortline railroads together.
The Black Rock Tunnel is an active rail road tunnel of the old Reading Railroad. The 1835 tunnel was the third rail tunnel constructed in the United States, and is the third oldest still in use. The tunnel is also notable as being the first for which shafts were sunk during construction. The tunnel is cut through a hill in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, United States. The tunnel and line are now owned by Norfolk Southern as part of its Harrisburg Line.
The Pequabuck Tunnel, also known as the Terryville Tunnel, is a railroad tunnel in Plymouth and Pequabuck, Connecticut. It is located on a still-active segment of the Hartford, Providence and Fishkill Railroad used by freight trains running between New Britain and Waterbury. Although locally known as the Mile Long Tunnel, the Pequabuck Tunnel is just 3,580 feet long – 0.68 miles. The tunnel is 32 feet wide and 26 feet tall, with regularly spaced recesses in the walls to allow a person to seek safety while a train passes.
James Laurie was a prominent American engineer and one of the founders of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He performed surveying, bridge design, and route design for a number of railroads in New England.
