The General History of the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad

Fact Checked by Historians

Introduction

This post is an overview of the general history of the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway. Also known as the Susquehanna, it is a Class ll American railroad operating over 400 miles of rail in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. It was formed in 1881 as a result of a merger of several railroads. They survived a depression, multiple wars, recessions, and bankruptcies, even becoming the first Class l railroad to fully dieselize in 1945. They ran freight service and ran passenger service up until 1966. The system is split up into two divisions, the Southern and Northern Divisions. The Northern division is further broken up into the Utica and Syracuse branches.

Before the Susquehanna (The New Jersey Midland Railway)

In the 1860s, multiple different railroads popped up in New Jersey, trying to connect Paterson and other industrial hubs in New Jersey to ports on the Hudson River. In 1868, the New Jersey Western Railroad was incorporated to build a line west of Paterson, New Jersey, to the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. The Hoboken, Ridgefield and Paterson Railway built a line east of Paterson, New Jersey, to the Hudson River before being consolidated into the New Jersey Midland Railroad in 1870. At its peak, the Midland stretched from the Hudson River to Pennsylvania near Scranton and into New York, from Beaver Lake, NJ, to Middletown, New York. Due to the Panic of 1873 and other factors, the NJM declared bankruptcy in 1875, and their assets were sold off. Many disputes happened shortly after between bondholders who thought the Hudson Connecting Railway should be included in the proceedings. Finally, in June of 1881, the MNJ and five other railroads were consolidated to create the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad.

New Jersey Midland #2, named the C.A. Wortendyke, pulled the first train to Bloomingdale in April of 1871. The Picture and information were sourced from The North Jersey Highlander.

Erie Ownership

The Susquehanna was independent for a short period of time before being bought by the Erie Railroad in 1898. During those 17 years, they successfully created interchanges with neighboring railroads and hauled coal from those interchanges to their port in Edgewater, New Jersey. J.P. Morgan and his firm bought up their stock on behalf of the Erie Railroad, which took complete control soon after 1898. In 42 years, the Susquehanna owned over 100 locomotives, including many 2-10-0 “Russian decapods” and 4-6-0 Camelback steam engines made by the Baldwin and Rodgers locomotive works. Due to the great depression, the Susquehanna fell on hard times and went bankrupt in 1937. It was reorganized under trustees Walter Kidde and Henry K. Norton. Eventually, they finally gained independence from the Erie in 1940.

#30 was one of many "Camelback" locomotives that ran on the Susquehanna. Image sourced from rr-fallenflags.org.

Independence from the Erie

The Susquehanna took advantage of increased production during WW2 when the United States got involved in 1941. They purchased six Alco S2 switchers and two RS-1 units, some of Alco’s newest diesel engines. The RS-1s that they bought were requisitioned by the government, leaving them with only the S2 engines. After domestic production was resumed, the Susquehanna purchased 14 more RS-1s from 1944 to 1953, allowing them to be the First Class 1 railroad to fully dieselize in 1945. Running passenger trains pulled by steam engines were becoming increasingly expensive due to the maintenance and workers required to run them. So, Walter Kidde devised a plan to replace them with self-propelled railcars that could easily run forward and back and would require less crew, and this plan worked. Since he wasn’t a railroader, he made the mistake of purchasing the unreliable ACF Motorailers, which were prone to catching on fire and could not be paired with other engines, limiting each trains’ capacity. Luckily, in the 50s, they purchased four RDC1s from Budd, which solved all these problems. In 1937, the Wilkes-Bare and Eastern Railroad, a subsidiary of the Susquehanna, which ran from Sparta to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, filed for bankruptcy after being unable to pay interest on their mortgage bonds. The line was fully abandoned in March of 1939.

Susquehanna Spectacular RDC1.mov

Video of the Budd Rdcs from the Susquehanna Spectacular.

Dark ages

Irving Maidman, a businessman from New York with no railroad experience, purchased the Susquehanna. Supposedly, he did this to ensure that his Ford Motor Company assembly plant in Edgewater continued to receive service. Even with the success of the Doodlebugs (a nickname for self-propelled railcars), they slowly started to lose more and more money from the commuter trains. Eventually, passenger service ended in 1966, and Maidman offered passengers $1,000 each to stop using their trains. They were also struck hard by the economic recession of 1957. When they thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. They lost their connection with the Lehigh & New England Railroad (which had trackage rights on the Lehigh and Hudson River Rr.) when they ceased operations in 1961. Due to washouts caused by Storm Doria in 1971, they retreated into Butler, NJ, and did not rebuild it as the Lehigh and Hudson River rr ended operations in 1972, which they had a connection with at Sparta. After failing to pay taxes, they officially declared bankruptcy in 1976. Their equipment and tracks mirrored the state of the railroad. Their few remaining engines either didn’t work or barely worked, and all the tracks were covered with weeds. It was said that "Cars would practically derail standing still." It got so bad that the railroad crossing signals stopped working, so the conductors had to flag each crossing down. Even in such a bad state, they still managed not to be absorbed into Conrail, which at that time completely surrounded it.

#1804 in the overgrown and dilapidated Butler yard in 1974. Picture taken by Steve Seyboth on rrpicturearchives.net.

Rebirth

After the bankruptcy, the court ordered the railroad to be abandoned and sell off their assets. Aware of the Delaware & Otsego’s “reputation for rehabilitating short lines,” the state of New Jersey asked them to take over. In 1980, the D&O purchased the NYS&W for only five million dollars. They started to revitalize the track from Little Ferry to Butler. Despite all this progress, the Susquehanna was split in two, with the original trackage in New Jersey and the branches in New York that the D&O had previously purchased. To connect the two divisions, they finally signed a deal with Conrail for trackage and haulage rights between Binghampton, New York, and Passaic Junction in New Jersey. They had also worked out an alternate deal if Conrail or the NYSW was to cancel the previous agreement, having trains run over the same route but switching onto an alternate track at Maybrook, New York, connected to Susquehanna-owned track in Warwick, New York. Originally, Sealand, a shipping company, had gone to Conrail to try to make a deal to run Sealand intermodal trains through their port in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey. The only problem is that Conrail did not want to dedicate the entire port for Sealand like they wanted. Next, Sealand approached the NYSW in 1985. They took the deal, and the D&O sold them a 22-acre segment of land that neighbored the Susquehanna’s yard in Little Ferry, New Jersey, along with giving them access to their docks in Edgewater. The dubbed “Stack-pack” trains first started to run on August 5, 1985. The trains would originate in Little Ferry, running on Susquehanna tracks, where they turned onto the aforementioned Conrail trackage in Passaic Junction. From there, they would make their way up to Binghamton, New York, where the containers were passed onto the D&H to be transported to Buffalo, New York. When at Buffalo, they would again be passed onto Conrail to be brought to Chicago, where the containers were loaded onto ships. In 1986, Conrail decided to raise the haulage rates, and because of this, the Susquehanna was forced to revitalize the track from Butler to Maybrook and switch to the alternate deal. Now the stack trains would originate in Little Ferry but continue on their home rails up to Maybrook, where they would continue the rest of their trip on Conrail rails. The Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency purchased a stretch of track in the 90s from Conrail for just one dollar. The track ran from Carousel Center to Colvin Street in Syracuse, New York. They leased the track to the Susquehanna in 1994 for freight traffic and commuter service. They once again purchased four RDC-1s to run the line, numbered M-5 to M-8. As the D&O started as a tourist railroad, it made sense that they would do so on the Susquehanna. Later in 1989, the Susquehanna was looking to start a steam excursion program. They looked at restoring MCC #385 but ultimately decided not to as it would be too costly. Not deterred, they purchased a brand new 2-8-2 SY-type steam engine from Tangshan Locomotive Works based in China. Unfortunately, on its way to America, the ship carrying #141 sank in the Bay of Bengal, which is what this skit is parodying.

A skit filmed near the Oakland Trestle during NYSW #142 excursions by railvidpro.

In place of #141, another engine was purchased from Valley Railroad in Connecticut and numbered #142. The Stack-pack trains would finally end in the late 1990s when CSX bought Sealand, and Norfolk Southern started running Hanjin trains, no longer making the NYSW needed. However, they still survived running local and manifest trains.

Modern times

On August 9, 2007, Walter Rich, the founder of the D&O, died of pancreatic cancer. President Nathan Fenno canceled all passenger and excursion services shortly after, sidelining and selling off their historic and aging equipment. In the early 2000s or 2010s, the Susquehanna started carrying trash on their road trains to Binghamton. The actual trash in these trains is debris from construction sites in North Jersey and New York City. Even though the frequency of these trains is minimal, they make the NYSW more money than the stack-packs did. In 2004, the D&O purchased the Central New York railroad, using it to lease the line from NS between Binghamton and Port Jervis, New York. In 2006, the Utica branch stretching from Binghamton to Utica, New York, suffered significant storm damage. Specifically, sections of track were washed out in Chenango County, putting the line out of service North of Sangerfield, New York. In 2016, work to restore the damaged track commenced and was completed in May of 2017. In 2011, the Susquehanna started to lease five CEFX locomotives to help the railroad's motive power shortage. During this time, it was "not uncommon to see road train line-ups consisting of entirely-leased power." In 2020, they finally purchased five new locomotives consisting of four SD70M-2s and one SD40-2 to replace “leaser” engines. In 2023, the SD40-2 went into the shops to be painted. In April, it rolled out of the shop in Butler wearing a brand new heritage scheme. They kept it so secret that when the first photos were released, people said they were photoshopped. About four trains run weekly from Ridgefield Park NJ to Binghamton, NY, and back, known as SU99 and SU100.

#3024 rolling out#3024 rolling out of the shop for the first time in a new coat of paint.

References

“New Jersey Midland Railway.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Sept. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Midland_Railway.

“New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Dec. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York,_Susquehanna_and_Western_Railway#1980s.

Lawrence, Scot. “NYS&W Railway Surviving Locomotives and All-Time Roster.” Susquehanna Railway Roster and Survivors., Scot Lawrence, 19 May 2016, scotlawrence.github.io/NYSW/.

Balkin, Marc S, and Marc S Balkin. Susquehanna Spectacular . Mark 1 Video, 1990, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znFUq_sl4s8&ab_channel=Smoky1997Productions. Accessed 18 Dec. 2023.

“History of the NYSW.” NYS&W Technical & Historical Society Inc., The New York Susquehanna & Western Technical & Historical Society, nyswths.wildapricot.org/page-875119. Accessed 18 Dec. 2023.

“Delaware Otsego Corporation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 June 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_Otsego_Corporation#Delaware_Otsego_railroad_ownership_timeline.

“Stack Train Discussion.” RAILROAD.NET, Railroad.Net Forums, 24 July 2006, railroad.net/stack-train-questions-t27270.html.

“Ontrack.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Oct. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnTrack.

“NYSW Trash Train Discussion.” RAILROAD.NET, Railroad.net, 27 July 2006, railroad.net/trash-trains-on-the-nysw-where-do-they-come-from-t27201.html.

“Central New York Railroad.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Aug. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_New_York_Railroad.

“Lodi Branch.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Mar. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodi_Branch_Railroad.

“New York, Susquehanna & Western Website.” NYSW Railway, New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway, nysw.com/. Accessed 18 Dec. 2023.

“Central New York Railroad Website.” CYNK Railroad, Central New York Railroad, cnyk.com/. Accessed 18 Dec. 2023.

Krause, John, and Ed Crist. Susquehanna: New York, Susquehanna & Western RR. Carstens Publications, 1991.

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