Trolley Tuesday 12/28/20 - The New York, Westchester & Boston Railway

Up the Hudson River from New York City is Westchester County, which borders the Bronx to the south and the state of Connecticut in the North. The area slowly developed into one of New York's suburban counties, with towns such as Yonkers and Peekskill being served by New York Central & Hudson River steam trains ferrying commuters into the Big Apple. In order to better serve prospective commuters, one of the richest men in the world invested in the area's only significant electric railway that, for a brief period between 1912 and 1937, was quite simply the most expensive passenger railroad in America. Though it is now a mere memory that only exists in photographs and firsthand accounts, today's Trolley Tuesday aims to uncover the history and legacy of the New York, Westchester & Boston Railway.

Powered by Steam

A New Haven passenger train of the late 1890s, serving New Haven Union Station in Connecticut.
(Catskill Archive)

A map of the NYWB at its peak, just before closure.
(NYC Transit Forums)

The New York, Westchester & Boston Railway (NYWB) was first incorporated in 1872 to serve the area of what was, then, southern Westchester County from the Harlem River to White Plains. This route was originally incorporated under the Southern Westchester Railroad one year prior, but nothing ever happened to the company as it was foreclosed in 1875, then liquidated in 1881. Indeed, the NYWB was similarly denied in its venture by the Panic of 1873 and entered receivership in 1875. 

To make matters worse, parts of southern Westchester County was ceded to the Bronx from 1874 to 1898, placing most of the NYWB's route in New York City. This meant that the city now had a say in the NYWB's affairs, and soon another rival showed up after 1900, with the Harlem River & Port Chester Railroad (HR&PC) incorporated in 1901 to run more or less the same route, a route that was already run by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (NYNH&H, or New Haven for short). After the NYWB found a receiver through the Millbrook Company in 1906, the railroad then fell into the hands of the New Haven and was swiftly reorganized. This meant that not only was the HR&PC franchises folded into the NYWB by 1909, but new management was also assigned.

"I own the railroad/I run these tracks!"

John Pierpont Morgan, a robber baron's
robber baron, complete with a dastardly moustache.
(Library of Congress)

The man New Haven selected to run the newly-reorganized NYWB was the infamous "schnozzola" himself, John Pierpont Morgan. By this time in 1909, Morgan had acquired many of the New Haven Railroad's constituent companies and had branched out into purchasing related steamship lines for pleasure and commuter cruises. While he is more well known for being a railroad and steel baron, Morgan had his eye on electric interurban transportation all over southern New England and sought to capitalise on this, beginning with his newest acquisition. In his mind, having local streetcar and interurban connections to his railroad meant he had a monopoly on all public transit from New York to Boston, an incredibly lucrative market, and due to its lucricivity, would keep paying for its own operation despite the high construction costs. In short, it would be a money machine. At least, it looked that way on paper.

"One Million Dollars a Mile"

Morgan certainly put his money where his mind was when construction started on the new NYWB in 1909, and newspapers attracting prospective shareholders and investors bragged that the whole operation cost a "million dollars a mile". One look at the railroad's actual construction costs at the time basically confirmed this brag as fact, as the original section from 180th Street to White Plains, New York, via Pelham cost $1.2 million dollars a mile. (In 2020 dollars, that's $32.6 million a mile. Still some serious cash today.) 

A good view of the NYWB's flat and gentle mainline through North Pelham in 1912.
The neighbors did not take too kindly of the retaining walls and other infrastructure intruding on their backyards.
(Remembering North Pelham)

This cost was mostly accrued from the incredibly logistics in the railroad's design: grades were kept exceptionally modest with the steepest being a 1% grade linking the New Haven Line south of 180th Street, curves were similarly gentle with the sharpest being 6 degrees (or a radius of almost 1000 feet, for comparison a normal streetcar curve has a 400-foot radius), and the rails were an exceptionally-light 90 lbs a yard (normal interurban rail was 60lbs a yard, while the New York City subways used 100lbs a yard). Just by these metrics alone, it was as if Morgan was trying to replicate the Great Western Main Line in England (known as "Brunel's Billiard Table" for its exceptional flatness) in New England.

The immaculately styled Quaker Ridge Station on
the original line to White Plains, 1912.
(NYWBRY.com)

Further compounding the infamous "million dollars a mile" mark was the lack of any grade crossings along the line. Many interurban railroads usually do this to avoid crossing strikes and achieve higher operating speeds, but this comes at the cost of added tunnels, bridges, and viaducts that would drive any prospective investor or bean-counter insane. The stations were also lavishly outfitted, designed in classical and Italianate styles and built of cast concrete with terracotta tile, marble vaulted-ceiling interiors and high platforms to handle faster boarding schedules.  It was definitely a railroad like no other, built to expect a high volume of service, but did it actually?

Suburban Shortcomings

The Harlem River Terminal at 132nd Street and Willis Avenue
in the Bronx, taken in the late 1910s.
(NYWBRY.com)

To most outsiders, the New York, Westchester & Boston was a victim of its own design. The first 8 miles opened on May 29, 1912 between a temporary station at Adams Street in the Bronx and New Rochelle, out of the planned 22 mile line to White Plains. (If you're paying attention, that means this whole line cost, minus rolling stock, over $22 million in 1912.) It was initially thought that passengers would flock to the NYWB in droves to reach Bronx Terminal on a cheaper fare than to pay more on the New York Central (NYC) for a direct line to Grand Central Station. Even with the New Haven's connection to the IRT Third Avenue Line via the Harlem River Branch for easier access to Manhattan, which was added later that August, all of these expectations went up in smoke.

A New Haven steam passenger train in May 1937,
bound for New York City.
(Digital Commonwealth)

Passenger numbers from the mid-1910s to the late 1920s steadily rose for the NYWB, with 14.1 million riders at its peak in 1928, but as any New Haven Railroad fan will tell you, the electric interurban was screwed by its own limited nature. Thanks to J.P. Morgan, the New Haven depended heavily on local commuter and intercity passenger trains instead of freight like all other American railroads. Freight service was even tried on the Westchester line but customers were limited and the railroad's finances were never enough to recover the interest on its construction bonds. To New Haven, it not only meant that the new Port Chester line, which opened in 1929 from New Rochelle, would be more modest in construction, but that it would have to run its own direct heavy-rail trains to Grand Central to better compete with the NYC. 

Look, They Ran a Streetcar. That Makes Them Worthy of an Article, Okay?

A New York & Stamford streetcar, as depicted on a 1905 New York Stock Exchange sheet.
(Scripophily)

The New York & Stamford in later life, serving the
New Rochelle Station.
(Jim Maisano)

One of the most unique, and thus more obscure, features of the New York, Westchester & Boston was the New York & Stamford Railway (NY&S), a streetcar line that originally connected the towns of New Rochelle, Larchmont, Mamaroneck, Harrison, Rye, and Port Chester before the Port Chester line. This street railway originally started in 1888, when it was known as the Larchmont Horse Railway Company. This company, like many at the time, was a real estate venture by local developers to connect the New Haven Larchmont station to their plot of land 1.2 miles from town. A rival company, the Port Chester Street Railroad, began running in 1898 from Port Chester to Rye, with the two eventually meeting in Harrison in 1901 after a swift electrification. 

The "Larchmont", an 1891 St. Louis Car Company-built business car for one 
of the New York & Stamford's executives.
(Street Railway Review, 1891)

After meeting in Harrison, the two companies agreed to merge and form the New York & Stamford Railway. The New Haven first saw the value in the NY&S when the company was granted track rights through New Rochelle for the NYWB, and in 1905 the NY&S found itself leased to New Haven Subsidiary, Consolidated Railway of Connecticut, which handled all of the New Haven's streetcar assets. In the 1920s, the NYWB took direct control of the NY&S to serve as a feeder line for its own stations. However, this venture was short-lived, as the popularity of the automobile made the County Transportation Company (CTC, a subsidiary of the NY&S to replace streetcars with buses) shut down all streetcar service by 1927. New Haven continued to remain in control of the CTC until 1948.

Be Stillwell, My Heart

One of the NYWB's 95 Stillwell motor cars from Pressed Steel.
(NYWBRY.com)

Due to the specialized nature of the NYWB, it only ever ran one type of passenger car. Designed by Lewis Buckley Stillwell, an electrical engineer, and constructed by the Pressed Steel Car Company, 95 motorized rapid-transit passenger cars were delivered between 1912 and 1914 and dressed in the same sumptuous style as the stations they served. The impressive 70-foot cars featured arched windows (one of which held a train number and railroad name on either end) and were dressed in a dark Pullman green that was applied using a pressurized spray, one of the first railroads to adopt this method. Inside, the cars featured ivory-white clerestory ceilings and 80 blue plush seats per car. Combines were originally supplied to the railroad in 1912, but these were later rebuilt as 80-seat cars by 1922. The Erie Railroad ordered similar commuter coaches from Stillwell's designs in 1915, but these were never electrified.

A 1920 Electric Railway Journal article highlighting the Westchester Shops
where the Stillwells got their maintenance.
(Worthpoint)

An interior view of an Erie Stillwell commuter 
car, suggesting the same interior on the NYWB's.
(Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum)

Performance-wise, the cars were limited to a top speed of 56 miles per hour, running on an absolutely lightweight 350V AC wire supply. Each car had two 175HP motors, which was decent for a line so overbuilt and flat, but the NYWB actually ran them this low to save money on power purchased from the New Haven's powerhouse at Cos Cob, CT. Thus, motormen were "instructed to coast whenever possible in an effort to conserve energy." Despite the cars being fitted with three rows of high-level doors, low-level platforms on the Harlem River Branch necessitated adding steps and trap-doors on either end of the car. These cars ran from one car to as many as six in one train during peak service with no major mechanical mishaps to speak of. However, they often didn't look their best as the original dark grey roofs were rendered a brown steel oxide due to the steel dust generated from the catenary wire. 

Also worth noting on the NYWB was electric locomotive No. 701, a steeplecab originally built by Baldwin Westinghouse in 1911. It was originally numbered 01, then 301, then 701 and worked what little freight there was on the line. Joining it were four flat cars, a caboose, and a boxcar that basically filled in the NYWB's freight fleet, with boxcar No. 5 noted as having a pantograph mounted on its roof to power the transformer that ran the electrical tools within the car.

The NYOB's sole electric locomotive and work-boxcar No. 5. The locomotive later served under

the New Haven as No. 0224 by 1944, but was scrapped at an unknown date.

(NYWBRY.com)

Down the Tubes

A lonely Stillwell Car runs a service past Columbus Ave. Jct.
in Mount Vernon, New York, 1937.
(NYWBRY.com)

After John Pierpont Morgan died in 1913, the New Haven was left wondering what to do with its new electric railroad that was not paying the company exactly like it was designed. Some of the problems lay in the redundant alignment of the NYWB's routes, with the Port Chester Line paralleling the New Haven's Harlem Branch for "over half its length". Other problems lay in the name itself, as the line never once left New York State, let alone reached Boston at all like Morgan planned. Worse still, the self-labeled "Million Dollar a Mile" moniker ended up uncovering an additional missing $14 million dollars in construction costs after the New Haven reported spending more than $36 million on the entire line's construction. The Interstate Commerce Commission attempted to investigate this issue in 1914, but J.P. Morgan was dead by then and nobody else could answer where the money went.

The now-abandoned Westchester Avenue Station in the Bronx.
(Untapped New York)

The fact that the NYWB had to rent its own tracks from its parent company through the Port Chester Branch (to the tune of $150,000 a year) and buy its own electricity for them spoke volumes about how little faith the New Haven had its railroad by the end of the 1920s. The line was never profitable enough to overcome its debts, nor was it attractive to passengers to its own Bronx Terminal instead of a direct line to Grand Central. After the New Haven suffered a serious financial setback in the wake of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, a decision was made by 1935 to simply get rid of its most outstanding debt: the NYWB itself.

A notice of service discontinuation at the end of 1937.
(NYWBRY.com)

Not only was the NYWB such a massive liability to New Haven's finances, but they also owed so many back taxes to every single city served by a NYWB station. With the threat of the New Haven having to pay its 1911 construction bonds by 1946, which were valued at $60 million, the railroad placed the NYWB in immediate receivership and closed all operations by 1937. There were plenty of proposals to re-open the Westchester railway, first to forgive the back taxes and rentals, then to operate as a separate railroad around White Plains, but by this point the New Haven wanted out. By 1939, demolition began and that brought an end to the mighty New York, Westchester, & Boston. 

Looking south from the Westchester Avenue Station in 1942, as demolition was underway.
(Westchester County Historical Society)

Memories of the Westchester

The NYWB's Morris Park Station, in service on the IRT Dyre Avenue Line.
(Bebo2good1)

After all was said and done, parts of the line remained in use by other means. The Bronx section of the NYWB was purchased by the city of New York in 1940 to add onto the IRT/NCYTA Division A "5" train service from East 180th Street (the original southern terminal of the NYWB) to Dyre Avenue, which remains in service today as the IRT Dyre Avenue Line. The original headquarters at 180th Street and Morris Park Road is now a New York City Transit Authority office, while many of the former station buildings of the NYWB are now either abandoned, demolished, or reused as shops and houses. In Pelham, one of the many bridges now holds a blue plaque commemorating its service as the "Highbrook Highline", and is currently being restored and preserved by a local group of the same name.

The former "Highbrook Highline" bridge, as it appears today.
(RoySmith)

As for the fashionable Stillwell cars, the New Haven requisitioned 50 of them and had them rebuilt at their Van Nest Shops in the Bronx into normal commuter coaches, serving the Boston area for a number of years. In WWII, more redundant Stillwells were purchased for shipyard railways in Texas serving Houston and Pasadena, while others were sent to California for similar wartime duties. After the war, all but one of these cars were scrapped. The last remaining Stillwell motor car is, today, reported to be in Peru of all places, but only time will tell if it can be repatriated home. Plenty of Erie Stillwells do survive, however, including one at the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum.

An original, albeit Erie-built, Stillwell passenger car,
on display at the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum.
(Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum)

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included the book "Westchester's Forgotten Railway" by Roger Arcara, the New York, Westchester & Boston Railway Archive, the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum of Rochester, NY, and The Ghosts of Wall Street selling an original stock sheet of the New York & Stamford. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by Brian Clough and can be found on his site, Banks of the Susquehanna. On Thursday, we finish the year off with a cheesy message from my conductor and I. 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!