In 1846, a charter created the New York and Boston
Railroad Company. Charles Alsop of Middletown, Connecticut
was the first president, and he had already secured the rights for
a railroad between his home city and the town of Berlin,
Connecticut. Immediately, there was opposition to the Air
Line. Steamship companies with the lucrative Boston to New
York lines also steamed the Connecticut River all the way to
Hartford, to the north of Middletown. Not wanting to lose
passengers on their ships to the faster rail line, they influenced
the Connecticut legislature to block the permitting of a bridge at
Middletown by citing that it would be a danger to marine
traffic. Hartford merchants also opposed the railroad because
it bypassed that capital city completely. Governor Isaac
Toucey revoked the charter of the New York and Boston Railroad
Company at the behest of steamship companies, but the state General
Assembly later overrode this action. The railroad company
pushed on to construct the line.
Edwin Ferry Johnson, a railroad civil engineer who
had worked on the Erie and Champlain canals and the Erie and
Northern Pacific railroads, surveyed the route in 1846. He
recommended a draw bridge to cross the Connecticut River in
Middletown at an estimated cost of $100,0003. He
also foresaw the line passing through Reed's Gap in Wallingford to
bypass the high ridge west of the river, and then planned a series
of cuts and viaducts through the ridges of eastern Connecticut to
Willimantic. From Willimantic, Johnson planned the best route
through Hampton, Chaplin, Dayville to the Rhode Island state line
where the railroad would connect with the Woonsocket Union line,
linking with the Charles River railroad and ultimately into the
city of Boston. The cost of building the railroad, according
to Johnson's estimate, would be $2,565,000 or approximately $31,000
per mile.
In 1847, the state's General Assembly formed the
"Joint Select Committee on Railroads" to decide the fate of the
Connecticut River bridge at Middletown. Maritime concerns
felt the bridge would be hazardous to vessels, especially at night
and in poor weather. Farmers thought that ice would build up
and jam about the piers, flooding their fields and killing their
livestock. After a year, the committee passed a bill
prohibiting the building of a draw bridge in Middletown, and
instead granted them permission to erect a suspension bridge
farther down the Connecticut River at a point called 'the
Narrows'. It took until 1849 for the design of the suspension
bridge to be finalized and approved, however, it was unlikely that
the New York and Boston Railroad Company could raise the necessary
funds to construct such a structure.
The proposed suspension bridge at "The Narrows"
just south of Middletown. The design drawing exaggerated the
narrowness of "The Narrows"; the Connecticut River is approximately
1,300 feet wide at this point. That would make the tree on
the left bank about 400 feet tall!
In the meantime while the bridge debate was going
on, other problems kept interfering with the railroads
construction. A construction scandal, where Connecticut
stockholder money was diverted illegally for railroad work in
Massachusetts, halted construction for a time. This and other
construction delays caused the railroads directors to continuously
ask the legislature for extensions of their charter. By 1857,
the state declared that the New York and Boston Railroad Company
was "in a deranged condition"4 In 1862, the
railroad company had only completed track between Brookline,
Massachusetts and Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Nothing was
completed west of Woonsocket and only a small fraction had been
completed in Connecticut. The railroad company was then
ordered audited, but records were missing and presumed
destroyed. The company flailed until 1865, when it was bought
out by another faltering endeavor, the Boston, Hartford, and Erie
Railroad. Itself in trouble, this new company dropped the
idea of the Air Line Railroad until the charter expired in
1867.
That year, another Middletown entrepreneur, David
Lyman, revived the idea of the Air Line Railroad, and formed the
New Haven, Middletown, and Willimantic Railroad Company. His
new company persuaded the state to allow the construction of a
1,250 foot draw bridge across the Connecticut River in
Middletown. Construction began in earnest in Connecticut, and
by 1870, the line from New Haven to Middletown was constructed,
following Johnson's plan from 24 years earlier. Three years
later, the line was completed across the river and through the
rugged landscape to Willimantic. The cost, however, had far
exceeded Johnson's estimate of 1846, now a huge $7 million.
Crossing the ridges in East Hampton and Colchester had required
large cuts through hills, and several of the largest iron trestle
bridges in New England had been constructed across two valleys, all
of which had been understated and the costs underestimated in the
original design. Unable to pay the interest on their bonds,
the New Haven, Middletown, and Willimantic Railroad Company went
bankrupt and was reorganized as the Boston and New York Air Line
Railroad in 1875.
This portion from an 1895 map of railroads in
Connecticut shows the Air Line from Middletown to Willimantic, with
the railroad stations listed.
This portion from an 1895 map of railroads in
Connecticut shows the Air Line from New Haven to Middletown, with
the railroad stations listed.
The Lyman Viaduct (named for David Lyman)
crosses over the Dickenson Creek in Colchester, and is 1,000 feet
long and 137 feet high (courtesy of the East Hampton Public Library
Historical Collection)
The Rapallo Viaduct in East Hampton bridges the
Flat Brook, and is 800 feet long and 60 feet high. It is only 1.5
miles west of the Lyman Viaduct. (courtesy of the East
Hampton Public Library Historical Collection)
Bishop's Cut, about 35' deep through granite and
brownstone just east of the central village of East Hampton (from
Connecticut Railroads: an Illustrated History)
In the meantime while Lyman built the connection
from New Haven to Willimantic, another company had inadvertently
picked up the baton to connect Boston to Willimantic. Several
companies, including the Boston and New York Central and the
Norfolk County Railroad, had built lines from Boston to
Blackstone, Massachusetts. Another company, the Southbridge
and Blackstone was chartered in 1849 to build a railroad between
Blackstone and Southbridge, Massachusetts passing through the
northeast corner of Connecticut in East Thompson. After a
series of financial problems and scandals, many of these smaller
companies were absorbed into the Boston & New York
Central. The new company revised the ending point of the
Blackstone & Southbridge, moving the terminus from Southbridge
to Mechanicsville, Connecticut, just north of Putnam,
Connecticut. Here, the new line intersected an existing rail
line which traveled north-south from New London, Connecticut to
Worcester, Massachusetts. The railroad company had the dream
to continue building westward to Willimantic, but did not have the
funds nor the investor backing to do so. Despite its
pretentious title, the Boston & New York Central was a
"decrepit railroad".5 It saw little traffic
on the lines, and was reorganized several times, until acquired by
the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad Company in 1863 as part of a
multiple company purchase. The Boston, Hartford and Erie
planned to build a line which would run from the Hudson River to
Willimantic, and then branch to Boston and Providence, Rhode
Island. To complete this vision, they needed to build 77
miles of line between Waterbury, Connecticut to the Hudson River,
and 26 miles from Putnam to Willimantic. After raising millions in
grants and loans, the only line every constructed was a branch from
East Thompson to Southbridge. The remainder of the money was
looted and bilked by the unprincipled owners of the Boston,
Hartford and Erie.
From the now bankrupt Boston, Hartford and Erie
Railroad Company, a new railroad was born, the New York & New
England Railroad. Charles Peter Clarke was the General
Manager of the railroad, and under his leadership, it raised the
necessary funds to complete the Putnam to Willimantic link.
It followed Edwin Ferry Johnson's plan from Willimantic northeast
to Pomfret, Connecticut, where the line then curved northward to
cross the Quinebaug River into Putnam. A huge bridge was
built to span the river, which was prone to flooding and ice
dams. The last work on the Willimantic to Putnam line was
completed in August, 1872.
So, with the completion of the New York & New
England Railroad from Putman to Willimantic in 1872, and the New
Haven to Willimantic railroad by the New Haven, Middletown, &
Willimantic Railroad Company in the following year, the dream held
by so many in the 1840s had been meet. It had arrived 24
years late, had cost many times the original estimates, and
followed a path significantly different that the first design.
This portion from an 1895 map of railroads in
Connecticut shows the Air Line from Willimantic to the
Massachusetts state line, with the railroad stations
listed.
This bridge was built in Putnam to cross the
Quinebaug River. A footbridge now rests on the piers (from
the Dodd Collection, University of Connecticut Library)
With construction complete, an direct inland route
from New York City to Boston was now in place. For several
years, sporadic passenger traffic passed over the route. The
first regularly scheduled passenger train began in 1876, called
The Federal Express, sometimes known as The Washington
Night Express. It ran from Boston to Willimantic, then on
to Middletown, New Haven, and ultimately New York. However,
due to the frequent stops it made to take on passengers and water,
the train was not usually any quicker than the shoreline route.
In 1877, the Colchester Railway built a spur
between Turnerville (now called Amston) and the central village of
Colchester. The town of Colchester paid $50,000 for half of
the three mile long rail bed, and the leased the line to the New
York & New England. The spur carried passengers and
freight to the rubber plant in town.
The Colchester Spur ended in Colchester, and
the train station can be seen in the far background as this freight
locomotive with several boxcars pulls out of town (from Connecticut
Railroads: an Illustrated History)
Unusual in history, the legislature of Connecticut
proved right when the steamer City of Hartford rammed the
draw bridge in Middletown during a foggy night in 1876. It
has never been proven whether the crash was an accident or was
intentional. The western part of the bridge actually
collapsed on to the steamer and had to be re-built. It took
several months to restore the bridge to normal operations.
In 1885, the famous train New England
Limited was inaugurated. The Limited ran two
simultaneous trains, one leaving Boston and the other departing New
York City each day at 3 pm. A powerful steam locomotive
pulled two plush Pullman cars for the 213 mile journey in 6 hours,
shaving an hour or more off the shoreline route. Six years
later in 1891, the Pullman company delivered new luxury cars
painted in white with gold trim. In a marketing move that
would impress today's Madison Avenue executives, the remainder to
the train was white washed and the engine crews and staff were
dressed in tropical white overalls. The White Train as
it was now called became an instant success, carrying businessmen
and the wealthy between the two cities. For people watching
the locomotive and cars speeding through their sleepy towns,
the train became known as the Ghost Train.
The White Train stopped in East Thompson,
1891 (from Connecticut Railroads: an Illustrated
History)
The first run of the White Train left Summer
Street station in Boston on March 16, 1891, and the Boston
Herald newspaper wrote:
Rolling out of the New York and New England
Railroad station at 3 pm yesterday afternoon, the New England
Limited took all the glories that could be attached in a
complete new train resplendent in white and gold.
For three months past, items have appeared in
the daily papers about a new departure in car decoration that the
NY&NE Railroad was about to inaugurate, and yesterday saw the
fulfillment of those announcements.
The Pullman Palace Car Company has built for the
service seven parlor cars, four passenger coaches, and two royal
buffet smokers. These cars are divided into two trains, owned
by the New England and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
Railroads. The New England road has provided a dining car of
the same general design to run between Boston and Willimantic,
Connecticut. The cars are heated by steam directly from the
locomotive and are lighted by the Pintsch system of gas. The
parlor cars are furnished with velvet carpets, silk draperies, and
white silk curtains. The chairs are upholstered in old gold
plush, and large plate glass mirrors set off the car
handsomely. Three of them have each a stateroom and 26 chairs
in the main salon, while the other four have 30 chair each.
The royal buffet smokers which will be run in addition to the
ordinary smoking cars are decorated in the same manner as the
parlor cars and contain 20 handsome upholstered chairs for the
passengers.
Two cards tables with stationary seats, and
writing desks will all needed stationery for letters of telegrams
are also provided. The regular passenger coaches seat 60
persons and are comfortable and easy riding. The train that
left Boston yesterday was seen by crowds and people who were lined
enroute to gaze with mingled curiosity and delight at its handsome
appearance.6
The White Train attracted national
attention, and President Benjamin Harrison rode the line from New
York to Boston. Rudyard Kipling also rode these rails from
Boston to New York. The following verse was widely
circulated:
Without a jar, or roll or
antic,
Without a stop to Willimantic,
The New England Limited takes its
way
At three o'clock each day,
Maids and Matrons, daintily
dimited,
Ride every day on the New England
Limited;
Rain nor snow ne'er stops its
flight,
It makes New York at nine each
night.
One half the glories have not been
told
Of that wonderful train of white and
gold
Which leaves each day for New York at
three
Over the N.Y. &
N.E.7
Part of the reason that the White Train
could make the run from New York City to Boston in such a short
time was the innovative 'pan trays' that were used in Putnam.
Pan trays were troughs of water bolted between the tracks. A
steam locomotive would lower a scoop to draw in from 1,500 to 2,500
gallons of water without stopping. The White Train
would speed at 45 miles per hour through Putnam and not stop until
arriving at Willimantic. Pan trays had been invented and
deployed in England, but this was their first use in the United
States.
One of the most bizarre train wrecks in history
occurred in East Thompson on the Air Line on December 4,
1891. Early in the morning on a foggy, wintry Connecticut
day, four trains, all headed in the same direction, smashed
together in the space of 5 minutes. Just north of the East
Thompson station is the branch to Southbridge, and the Air Line was
a double track at this point. The Southbridge Local,
to be shunted to the branch, was assembling its eight cars on one
track when it was rear ended by a north bound fast freight train,
simply knows as the 212. This train had been shunted
from the main track to the side track where the Southbridge
Local was assembling in order to allow two fast passenger
trains to pass by. The dispatcher in Putnam and the crew of
the 212 forgot that as scheduled, the Southbridge
Local was on the same track that the 212 was
using. The impact threw the Southbridge Local off the
tracks and down an embankment on to the Old Hartford
Turnpike. The cars of the 212 freight train had the
misfortune of jackknifing onto the other parallel tracks.
Moments later, the Long Island & Eastern States Express
came hurtling out of the fog at 50 miles per hour and crashed into
the debris. The locomotive of the Express turned
completely around, vaulted off the embankment, and crashed into the
ground. The safety valve on the locomotive's boiler then
blew, and the escaping steam dug a hole and spewed gravel that
demolished a nearby house. Five minutes later, the stunned
passengers and crews of the three wrecked trains watched in horror
as another fast passenger train, The Norwich Steamboat
Express, only minutes behind the Long Island & Eastern
States Express plowed into the passenger cars of that train
that still remained on the rails.
The locomotive from the Long Island &
Eastern States Express jack knifed and buried at East Thompson,
December 4, 1891 (from Connecticut Railroads: an
Illustrated History)
The few medical doctors and nurses in the area were
said to have waited to see if any more trains were going to drive
into the mess before attempting to help any of the injured
people. It was miraculous that only two deaths resulted, the
engineer and firemen of the Long Island & Eastern States
Express. Hundreds were injured, and four locomotives
wrecked. All told, the damage to railroad equipment and
nearby property amounted to $36,000. By late afternoon on
this day of the Great East Thompson Train Wreck, the parallel track
number 1 had been cleared enough that the White Train could
slowly chug through the debris filled and burned area. The
New York and New England Railroad, always eager to earn a dollar,
took advantage of the wreck and ran special trains from Boston and
New Haven to view the wreckage for the next several days.
The New England Limited proved to provide
the highest profit margin to the New York & New England
Railroad, and helped the company out of receivership. But in
1895, the high costs of keeping the White Train white from
the dust, smoke, and cinders resulted in its replacement by the
Air Line Limited. Charles Peter Clark, who had lead
the rise of the New York and New England was ousted the following
year and replaced by a succession of poor railroad managers.
In fact, Clark later became the president of the rival New York,
New Haven, and Hartford Railroad.
The new management of the New York and New England
developed an alliance with the New York, Lake Erie, & Western
Railroad as well as the Housatonic Railroad, giving them a path
from New York that would avoid using any rails of the rival New
York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. The Long Island
& Eastern States Express train was put into service from
New York to Boston following a new route. A unique feature of
this short lived train was that it terminated in Norwalk where the
railroad cars were put aboard a barge and floated across Long
Island Sound to re-connect with the Long Island
Railroad. For the New York and New England Railroad, this
fulfilled a goal to avoid any rail lines of the New York, New
Haven, and Hartford Railroad. This round about way to reach
New York City did capture the public's attention for a short time,
but it set the resolve of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
Railroad to somehow crush their rivals. Internal problems
arose at the New York & New England, and the New York, New
Haven, and Hartford Railroad cut off the N.Y. & N.E.'s access
at New Haven. This forced them into receivership, and the
railroad company returned as the New England Railroad for a brief
time before being leased in its entirety to the New York, New
Haven, and Hartford Railroad in 1898. The New York and New
England had ceased to exist, but was praised: "the New York
& New England did some of the most spectacular railroading; and
how it managed to put on so brave a show, to do so much with so
little, is still a matter of wonder."8
The New York, New Haven, and Hartford continued to
run passenger trains over the newly re-organized Airline Division,
as it was called within the company. It was still popular and
both the Air Line Limited and Long Island & Eastern
States Express were frequently filled to capacity. But
its popularity helped bring it to an end, the trains were unable to
load more passengers and add more cars because they became to heavy
for the grades and bridges along the route. The Boston to New
York passenger service last used the Air Line through Connecticut
on May 17, 1902. Both trains were suspended and replaced with
service on the shore line route. The grand days of fast
passenger trains hurtling through the eastern Connecticut
countryside had come to and end.
While all these passenger trains had come and gone,
freight service to and from the towns on the line had filled the
rails with chugging trains and clattering box cars. One
famous train was called the Cannonball Fish Train, and was
made up solid with cars of fish, 5 nights a week, and were shipped
from Boston to New York City. In the late summer, peach
trains ran via the Air Line. At one time, 26 trains per day
passed through Middlefield carrying peaches from eastern
Connecticut bound for New Haven and New York. A schedule for
engine crews once showed the following messages:
"August 19, 1893: NOTICE: Peach
trains over the Air Line division will commence running tomorrow,
Friday, and may be expected every day. Keep a look out for
signals on regular trains and for extras [on] Sundays without
signals." O.M. Shepard,
superintendant9
Portland, Connecticut, had huge brownstone quarries
near the Connecticut River. Many car loads of stone used in
building the brownstone fronts of New York City and Boston were
hauled from the Portland quarries. Reeds Gap, where Edwin
Johnson had routed the Air Line through a ridge, became a major
trap rock open quarry right on the rail line. Before the
advent of paved roads in many rural communities of New England,
trap rock from Middlefield was hauled over the Air Line to be
spread on dirt roads.
The Air Line railroad at the turn of the century
had been designed 54 years earlier, when locomotives were smaller,
trains lighter, and fewer cars pulled. By this time, however,
new technology in railroading was resulting in the Air Line being
avoided. The grades of the railroad were too steep, many of
the bridges including the Middletown draw bridge were low to the
water and could not carry the weight of fully loaded modern trains,
and the two trestle viaducts swayed and groaned under the weight of
heavy freight trains. The numerous curves (there was only 3
miles of straight track on the 26 total miles from Portland to
Willimantic) hampered the operation of freight trains on the
line.
The railroad company recognizing that there was
still profit to be made on the Air Line began by strengthening and
raising low bridges, such as the iron trestle bridge over the
Blackledge River in Colchester. Then, starting in 1912,
engineers and construction workers began the gargantuan task of
filling in the Lyman and Rapallo Viaducts. The alternative
had been to strengthen and replace the bridges built in the 1870s,
and this proved costly to the cash strapped company. Instead,
culverts were placed beneath the bridges to carry the river's
waters, and then hopper car after hopper car full of fine sand were
pulled on to the structures and their contents dumped. Over
20 months, two massive ridges of sand were built up from the floor
of the valleys until the iron bridges disappeared under the
fill. When the iron work was covered, another foot of cinders
was laid and compacted on to the surface of the fill to hold it in
place. New tracks were then placed over the final
layer. The iron work was covered on both viaducts until the
early 1980s when a sewer line was laid along the route, exposing it
for the first time in 70 years.10
The New York, New Haven and Hartford concentrated
their passenger lines on the shore line route from Boston
to
New York,
however, passenger trains from Boston to New Haven were still
run on the Air Line, stopping at many of the smaller towns
along the route. Freight continued to be carried across
the line, relieving the shore line routes of slower
traffic. High school trains in the morning and afternoon
took students to and from the small out lying towns into
Willimantic and Middletown. Thru passenger service
between Boston and New York via Willimantic and New Haven
ended in 1924, and all passenger service on the Air Line west
of Willimantic was discontinued in 1937.
Passenger trains continued to run from Boston to Willimantic,
and then to Hartford until 1955.
In August, 1955, a bridge on the Air Line just west
of Putnam was washed out during a flood. All rail service
between Putnam and Pomfret was halted, as well as all passenger
service on the line from connections in Blackstone and
Hartford. The New Haven Railroad, successor to the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad company, reasoned that there was no
economic justification to replace the bridge for the $110,000 it
would cost, and abandoned the line from Putnam to Pomfret, about 4
miles, in 1959. The link from Boston to New York designed in
1846 and completed in 1873 had been broken after operating for 86
years. "The route of The Ghost Train had itself become
a phantom."11
Thru freight traffic was no longer possible, and
this spelled the end for the Air Line between Willimantic and
Putnam. There was simply not enough industry and commercial
interests in the small towns the line now passed through to justify
the maintenance and upgrading of the line. The New Haven
Railroad went bankrupt in 1962, and this resulted in a large scale
abandonment of unprofitable or marginally profitable rail
lines. The railway between North Windham to Pomfret (about 18
miles) was abandoned in 1963, and the short section between
Willimantic and North Windham continued in service until 1985, when
this 5 mile section was abandoned as well.
In 1964, the entire section of the Air Line from
Portland to Willimantic, including the Colchester Spur, was
abandoned by the New Haven Railroad. This amounted to a total
of 29 miles of line that was removed, only a three quarter mile
section directly east of the Connecticut River drawbridge in
Portland remained in service. Area residents of the towns the
railroad crossed opposed the abandonment, and attempted to acquire
the route. Most of the towns had invested significant amounts
of money a century before, and considered themselves partial owners
of the line. This argument did not fare well in legal
circles, and was never brought to trial. Salvage workers
remove the rail and most of the bridges from Portland to
Willimantic in the spring of 1966.12 Rail ties
were uprooted and thrown down the sides of embankments, and
telegraph towers were chain sawed and left like fallen trees on the
ground.
In March, 1968, another flood destroyed a bridge
over the Blackstone River east of the Blackstone railroad
station. The New Haven Railroad again suspended all service
west of Blackstone on the line, through some freight service was
still run sporadically from the connection in Putnam.
Financially strapped, the company could not justify the $225,000
cost to repair the Blackstone River bridge and applied for
abandonment of the line from Blackstone to Putnam in 1969. In
1970, the New Haven Railroad company was absorbed into the Penn
Central railroad, which itself went bankrupt in 1976.
Today, small sections of the Air Line remain in
service. The section from New Haven to Middletown and
Portland is operated by the Connecticut Central Railroad and the
Providence and Worcester railroad. Similarly, small remaining
sections are still operated near Willimantic, Putnam, and in
southeast Massachusetts by Conrail, the Providence and Worcester
railroad, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
(MBTA).
Interestingly enough, a spur line from the
abandoned East Thompson station passed through Webster,
Massachusetts to Southbridge. The line between Southbridge
and Webster was run until 1985 and then abandoned. The track
and ties have never been removed and remain in place today, a grim
reminder of the rail history of the past 120 years.
After portions of the line were abandoned, the
state of Connecticut stepped in to oversee the property. The
portion of the Airline from East Hampton east to Willimantic, from
Willimantic to Putnam, and in Thompson were placed under the
control of the Department of Environmental Protection.
Several miles were also given over to electric distribution rights
of way for Connecticut Light & Power. Finally, a section
from East Hampton to Colchester was used as a right of way for a
buried sewer line connecting the two towns in 1982. The state
government in the 1980s began planning the 50 plus mile greenway
corridor from Portland to Thompson which would become one of New
England's most treasured recreation paths.
In the 1990s, the Air Line was briefly in the news
again as a potential path for high speed rail service from New York
to Boston. Railroad consultants and regional transportation
experts envisioned that the Air Line route was the only feasible
way to establish passenger connections that would compete with
airlines and interstate highways. But, just like at the turn
of the century, the enormous cost of straightening the line's sharp
curves and moderating the steep grades proved the end of the
consideration. The Federal government instead funneled the
funding to electrification of the shore line route, now overseen by
Amtrak.
Today, the Air Line route with trail heads in East
Hampton and Thompson, and passing through Putnam, Pomfret, Hampton,
Chaplin, Windham, Lebanon, Columbia, Colchester, and Hebron reminds
us of the halcyon days on The White Train in a new setting,
a 50 plus mile trail for far more slower
travelers.