Trolley Thursday 12/24/20 - The New York State Railways

Throughout this month, we've been looking at New York City streetcars and rapid transit, but did you know there existed another, much larger interurban system in upstate New York? From 1909 to 1948, the mighty New York Central Railroad controlled several interurban railroads that connected the lakeside city of Rochester with the Finger Lakes Region towns of  Syracuse, Oneida (pronounced Ohn-Ida, trust me), Rome, and Utica. While its history is long and complex, this country interurban is sadly all mostly gone yet still has a compelling story to tell. On today's Christmas Eve Trolley Thursday, let's climb aboard the New York State Railways and explore the history of this fascinating interurban!

The Green-Eyed Monster

The "New York Central System" Logo of the 1930s.
(American-Rail)

The New York State Railways (NYSR) was originally formed by their parent company, the New York Central Railroad (NYC), as a means to capitalize on lucrative electric utility competition across upstate New York. At the time the NYSR was formed in the early 1900s, utility magnates like Samuel Insull and Henry E. Huntington used electric railways to both extend power grid connections and increase land value in otherwise uninhabited farmland. With the streetcars came new residents, and new residents brought with it increased demand for electricity and fare profits. It seemed like a win-win for the NYC if they played their cards right.

The Finger Lakes Region of New York State,
where our story takes place.
(Life In the Finger Lakes)

What the railroad did differently, though, was instead of forming a holding company to construct new railways, the NYC decided to start buying existing streetcar companies all around upstate New York under a new holding company. The Mohawk Valley Company was created in 1905 to handle most of NYC's new utility companies, including the Canandaigua Gas Light Company, Despatch Heat, Light & Power, and the Eastern Monroe Power Company. The Mohawk Valley also controlled three of NYC's first interurban holdings around the city of Rochester and rerouting their electricity into the railroad's own powerhouses. Thus began the NYSR, on the banks of Lake Ontario.

Streetcars by Lake Ontario

The Rochester Railway Company (RRC) was originally founded on January 21, 1890 by a group of Pittsburgh investors to both consolidate the city's streetcar companies and convert them all to electricity. Horsecars had been running in Rochester since May 31, 1862, and by 1889, some 183 cars were being pulled by 400 horses all over 40 miles of city track. However, the system always had problems with harsh weather coming from the north out of Lake Ontario, and after several winters of bad luck (both weather and labor disputes), the horsecar companies gave way to electricity and the RRC eventually controlled all public transit in the city. On May 26, 1904, the RRC became the Rochester Railway & Light Company when it combined with the Rochester Gas & Electric Company.

An electric Rochester Railway Streetcar from 1906.
(Electric Railway Review)

A US Mail streetcar, similar to the one used on the
Rochester Railway Company.
(Smithsonian Institution)

Uniquely, the RRC was one of the first street railways to go one man before the advent of the electric streetcar. After a vicious strike in the winter of 1868, the railway eliminated the use of a conductor on their cars and ended up one-manning the horsecars from then on. The railway also started their own bus service in 1882 with horse-drawn omnibuses, definitely predicting what would eventually happen in the future, but at the time the omnibuses served to reach the parts of town not served by streetcars. Finally, on October 5, 1896, the RRC inaugurated streetcar mail service with two all-white cars delivering local post to and from the main railway station. This service was later cancelled on February 28, 1909, at the behest of the local postmaster general. 

A Rochester & Eastern Rapid interurban races the NYC's
Auburn Division passenger trains, with speeds reaching a
blistering 60 miles per hour.
(Rochester News Co., 1908)

The other companies around the RRC were the Rochester & Sodus Bay Railway and the Rochester & Eastern Rapid Railway (R&ER) The latter was a local venture by Rochester investors to serve the short line between Rochester and the Finger Lake town of Canandaigua, some 27 miles southeast. After opening its new line in 1903, the railway quickly connected the next lakeside town of Geneva, some 16 miles east of Canandaigua, and was already planning for a spur line out to Fairport (a town on the southeastern fringe of Rochester). This latter line ended up curtailed, as by 1905 the railway came under the control of the NYSR and construction was abandoned.

The New York State Railways

Rochester streetcars clatter through the town district
of "Four Corners" in an undated postcard.
(Reconnect Rochester)

With its successful purchases of the Rochester electric railway systems, the NYSR seemed on point to take over much of upstate New York's trolleys. Not only did they control the interurban systems, but the local streetcar systems in Rochester and the local power utilities were also controlled by them. This meant that, as a Rochester native, your house used power from the Mohawk Valley Company and your commute to New York City meant buying a Rochester streetcar fare to your local NYC station to buy a ticket. In short, you were paying the New York Central Railroad three times on any normal day. For most, this would be considered a monopoly and absolutely unfair, but to the railroad it was just business.

A Rochester & Sodus Bay streetcar, bound for Sodus Bay.
Note that there's only one entrance per side and end on this car.
(Town of Sodus Historical Society)

A streetcar arrives at Dreamland Amusement Park in this 
circa-1907 postcard.
(HipPostcard)

The NYC also invested in trolley parks and new innovations to keep their trains safe and to keep their riders happy to be spending their money on them. Between 1913 and 1914 the Rochester & Sodus Bay line was upgraded with automatic block signaling, as its former status as a resort line to Sodus Bay meant it was always packed in the summer months. Sodus Bay cars also reached Glen Haven Park (then called Dreamland Amusement Park) in Irondequoit Bay on Rochester's East Side, which provided plenty of non-passenger revenue for the NYSR as alcohol sales proved to be a reliable income prior to Prohibition. 

The Canandaigua Street Railway's carbarn at 404
North Main Street, year unknown. 
(MPNnow.com)

The final piece of the NYSR prior to their rapid expansion was the former Canandaigua Street Railroad. Originally a horsecar line in 1887, it was converted to electricity by the Ontario Light & Traction Company in 1900 and leased to the R&ER in 1903. It originally served an important job serving the steamship wharf on Canandaigua Lake, but was later used to grant the R&ER trackage rights through the town on its way to Geneva. Even after becoming property of the NYSR, the "Dinky" as it was affectionately called never had any heavy traffic on it, with service provided by just two streetcars between the Orphan's Asylum and Canandaigua Lake. 

The "Dinky" after electrification. year unknown.
(Ontario County Historical Society)

The New York State Railways logo,
now found on all cars.
(Public Domain)

Heavy expansion of the NYSR resumed on October 31, 1912, when four more companies were folded into the large interurban: the Utica & Mohawk Valley Railway (U&M), the Oneida Railway (OR), the Syracuse Rapid Transit Railway (SRT), and the Rochester & Suburban Railway (R&S). Aided through WWI by its "booze trolleys" at Dreamland Amusement Park, the railroad maintained enough of a financially viable state to purchase the East Side Traction Company of Syracuse in 1919. This was the peak year of the NYSR, as it operated 338 miles of track across seven cities (including local streetcar service) and had a franchise valued at $2,407,000. 

But before we look at how the company died, let's get side-tracked for a moment.

Steamed Trams

A handsome Utica and Mohawk Valley electric trolley car.
(Unknown Author)

A later NYSR "Utica Line" car in about the mid-1930s.
(Unknown Author)

The first company we'll look at is the Utica & Mohawk Valley Railway (U&M), which was incorporated on November 21, 1901. At the time it was formed, Utica was a model industrial city along the New York Central and the U&M was designed to be a 56-mile, double-tracked interurban line between the "Leatherstocking Country" of Rome west of Utica and the small town of Little Falls to the East. With the U&M was the Rome Street Railroad, which was a 6.7 mile system around the city. Interestingly, the line didn't move to electrification at first, as compressed-air trolleys were trialed for two years after the end of horsecar operations. When the line moved to electrify in 1903, horsecars resumed running in the interim. 

A postcard view of North James Street in Rome,
New York, with a 5-window streetcar approaching
a convergence in the track.
(Unknown Author)

Unfortunately, the "Rome City Lines" of the NYSR were never profitable, and one-manned streetcars became an issue for the railway when, in 1924, one line that crossed the NYC tracks was completely removed as crossing a major railroad required both a conductor and a motorman (presumably for safety reasons when crossing). The interurban lines, on the other hand, remained a little more successful, with the "Utica Lines" maintaining 17 transit routes and more than 100 cars by the end of the interurban in 1938, then the end of the streetcars in 1941. Its public transit was eventually handled by the Copper City and Rome City Bus Lines, then the Utica Transit Authority in the 1970s, before transferring to the Central New York Regional Transportation Authority in 2005.

The Oh-Nee-Ders

Oneida's Main Street in the 1920s.
(Unknown Author)

The Oneida Railway (OR) was originally a small, 1.5 mile horsecar line within the city that started operating on July 4, 1889. It also had a humble purpose, being a short commuter line from the New York Central Station to the West Shore/Ontario & Western Union Depot via the town's Main Street. Thirteen years later, in 1902, a group of Cleveland, OH, investors purchased the little street railway and got themselves a deal to electrify the existing, heavy-rail "West Shore Railroad" (Buffalo to Weehawken, NJ, via Albany) between Utica and Syracuse, some 50 miles of track. 

The Oneida Railway in service in 1911, using wooden
interurban cars most likely from
the Niles Car Company of Ohio.
(Electric Traction for Railway Trains)

Uniquely among its contemporaries in upstate New York, the OR employed a third rail for much of its right-of-way, with trolley wire used whenever the cars had to dip into the towns like in Utica and Oneida. The railroad became a part of the NYSR in 1909 and ran mostly unchanged, complete with its wooden interurban cars, until the end of total operation in 1930. Public transit operation would not return to Oneida until the 1970s, when the Central New York Regional Transportation Authority began running buses along the lines formerly served by the OR. Control of the "West Shore Railroad" returned to New York Central and the line was returned to its heavy-rail form.

The Boys from Syracuse

A Syracuse Rapid Transit Company common bond
stock certificate.
(Ghosts of Wall Street)

The last company worth looking at is the Syracuse Rapid Transit Railway (SRT), which was formed on May 21, 1896 as a merger of three existing streetcar companies: The Syracuse Street Railroad, the Syracuse Consolidated Street Railway, and the People's Railroad Company. It seems prior to the formation, all three railways were at some point insolvent or downright bankrupt, and when the SRT was formed, it remained one of the smaller interurban systems connecting into the city. At one point, in 1924, eight different interurban and trolley companies connected through, serving other destinations such as Auburn, Rochester, Oswego through these eight companies. 

Under the "Syracuse Lines" of the NYSR, the interurban maintained a level history until the NYSR went into recievership in 1930, putting the interurban line at risk of closing. After a period of uncertainty in the 1930s, the Syracuse Transit Lines were formed in 1939 to take over local streetcar operations and ran as a private entity until 1941, when all streetcars were retired in favor of buses. The Syracuse Transit Lines themselves continued until 1972, when all buses were now operated by the Central New York Regional Transportation Authority.

Notable Streetcars

Utica Lines' new interurban cars, as featured in the 1917 Electric Railway Journal.
(Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum)

Despite being a hodgepodge of streetcars and interurban systems, there were some cars that stood out on the many lines of the NYSR. One of these was on the Utica Lines, which had new high-speed interurban cars designed by its master mechanic, J.R. Ayers, and delivered by Cincinnati Car Company in 1917. These cars, numbered 46-68 (with even numbers being "motors" and odd numbers being "trailers") was a unique blend of streetcar and interurban construction, possessing the high speed and gearing of interurban cars with the low-boarding end doors and steps and short length (49 feet, 8 inches) of a streetcar. The streetcar-style doors allowed quick loading and unloading compared to the traditional railroad-car steps of a larger car, and Ayers himself bragged in Electric Railway Journal,

An interior view of the car, showing its comfy
and modern lines for 1917.
(Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum)

"The arrangement was adopted to permit rapid loading and unloading at points of congested traffic, the service involving a run of about 10 miles without stop to a point where more than 60 per cent of the passengers are discharged."

For the passengers, the seats were comfy cloth and featured luxuries like call-stop buttons, forced-heat ventilation for those cold winter nights, and 1/4 inch thick battleship linoleum-lined yellow pine floors for ample sound insulation. The cars were also quite strong, with a roof made of steel riveted to the car's side-posts to create a solid almost-monocoque body. After the Utica Lines closed in 1936, the cars were resold to the Rochester Transit Corporation (RTC) for use in the Rochester Subway (detailed below). 

The Poles Come Down

Rochester Streetcars pose in later condition for yet
another postcard shot.
(Tramsstophere)

While the 1900s and 1910s were good to the New York State Railways, the 1920s were its death knell. Like almost all of its contemporaries, the interurbans of upstate New York could not compete with the car and thus their passenger numbers began to decline. New York Central, seeing this troubling trend, decided to sell its interurban rail holdings in 1928 to the Associated Gas & Electric Co, keeping the Mohawk Valley Company electrical utilities for themselves. The very next year, the NYSR was forced into receivership following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and applications for abandonment soon followed, with the first being granted to the lines out to Geneva in 1930. After exiting receivership in 1934, all of its street railway lines were spun off into their own companies.

How many postcards do I even have? Here's a shot
the Rochester Subway's Court Street station.
(Public Domain)

The biggest spin-off was the Rochester Transit Corporation (RTC) of 1938, which remained the private controller of all transit in the city from 1938 to 1968. One of the most significant pieces of rail infrastructure that was now owned by the RTC was the "Rochester Subway", which was constructed on what used to be the bed of the old Erie Canal. The "subway" moniker came from the system being grade-separated under Broad Street and run as a rapid-transit system instead of a traditional interurban or streetcar, and the "tunnel" under Broad Street was still at normal ground level rather than underground. The subway originally opened on December 1, 1927 under the NYSR, and continued operating with the RTC until 1955, when Rochester's City Council voted not to renew their service contract with RTC. The last "subway" ride was on June 30, 1956, with the last rail operations being turned over to the local NYC and Baltimore and Ohio. 

Let Us Ride Our Streetcars Into the Setting Sun Over Lake Ontario

The preserved Hubbard Place Bridge on the Oneida Rail Trail.
(Trail Link)

After the 1950s, no streetcars were left anywhere across the Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York. What was once a giant conglomeration of companies ended as spun-off franchises and city transit companies, all of which abandoned their systems before the 1960s. Of the remaining rail infrastructure, a 3-mile section of the Oneida Railway (as the West Shore Division) still exists as the "Oneida Rail Trail" along with the Hubbard Place Bridge of 1902. Additionally, the Rochester Subway under Broad Street still partly exists with the city still looking for options on how to retool it for modern use. 

Impressively, nine cars from three of NYSR's six divisions made it to preservation, with seven cars representing the Rochester Lines and one car each of the Utica and Syracuse Lines. The biggest collection is held by the New York Museum of Transportation in Rush, NY, 15 miles south of Rochester. Of their four Rochester Line cars, their oldest is a Rochester Railway Company wooden car from 1891, no. 162. It currently survives as a sand car, which it was rebuilt to in 130, but is on display as a streetcar woodworking exhibit at the museum. The other three Rochester cars are held by the Seashore Trolley Museum of Kennebunkport, ME, which owns the partially-damaged body of a 1916 "Peter Witt" car as well as a Jackson & Sharp suburban car of the Rochester & Sodus Bay and a 1906 "Semi-Convertible" Streetcar. 

New York State Railways No. 157, a perfect example of the later steel cars built by Niles.
(New York Museum of Transportation)

Original Utica Lines Car No. 60, now 103 years old
and getting back on her feet. Er, wheels.
(Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum)

Of the other two cars, the ex-Syracuse car is Peter Witt No. 1036, originally built by G.C. Kuhlmann in 1916. Though it's just a body, it can now be found in Central Square, NY, on display and restored to its original condition. The last survivor is also the most significant, as Utica Lines Car No. 60 is the only car used by the Rochester Subway left as well as the only Utica Lines car left in general. Originally preserved in 1967 and planned to be displayed at the Albany State Museum in 1968, the car has spent the last 50 or so years in storage before starting restoration in 2002 by the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum. Their goal is to one day have No. 60 operational to better showcase her uniqueness and significance to Upstate New York's long-gone transit history.

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included a review of John Taibi's book, "The Oneida Railway Company - From Horsecars to Interurbans, the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum's page on Rochester Car No. 60, Vizette's map and timeline of the Syracuse Interurbans, the Branford Electric Railway Association's historic railcar roster, and the Seashore Trolley Museum of Kennebunkport, ME. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by Brian Clough and can be found on his site, Banks of the Susquehanna. On Tuesday, we look at New York City's own lost interurban, the New York Westchester & Boston! For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!