The Providence & Worcester has grown from a 45 mile short line to a system of 545 miles. Check out this system map and it almost looks like the New Haven reborn. This begs the question; could the New Haven have been a successful stand-alone freight operation, if during their 1960s bankrupcy, they were reorganized and their passenger services eventually spun-off (during the 1970s), instead of being included in Penn Central? Bill
Interesting question. Now you have me wondering. Not only about the New Haven, but other roads forced into Penn Central. Many, such as the P&W, and Housatonic, were leased. Not owned. What if other owners had opted out of their leases, such as the P&W and Housatonic did, and gone back to independence? There were some fascinating scenarios possible. Boxcab E50
On the map the line from Worcester to Gardner is ex B&M, part of the Peterborough branch. The NH got a lot of business via Maybrook, NY where they connected to the EL and the Lehigh and Hudson River. The L&HR was a bridge line between NH and the Pennsy. As all three, EL, Penn and L&HR became part of Conrail a lot of this traffic would have probably been lost. In any case it was all lost when the Poughkeepsie bridge burned. All of the former traffic over the bridge was rerouted either down the Hudson line (NYC) to Beacon, NY and to a connection with the line to the bridge or over the B&A to Springfield, MA to the NH.
Thanks Gil. Speaking of NH interchanges, how successful was the NH-B&M interchange at Fitchburg? I aways thought that if the NH gave the B&M westbound traffic there, they would be short-hauling themselves. So it seemed, that just traffic heading North (ie: Maine, Canada etc) would be predominant. I wonder how many carloads a day were interchanged there? Bill
I did not work that area very much but I believe most of the NH traffic was to serve industries on their line. The NH at one time had several connections to the B&M. There was one at Concord, MA, Fitchburg, a branch that paralleled the B&M Conn River line from Springfield to Deerfield and a branch of that line that went to a connection with the B&M east west line at Bardwell. They had trackage rights over the B&M to Shelburne Falls. That line was gone before my time. The line to Deerfield eventually ended in Turners Falls, just across the Connecticut River from Greenfield. It also had a connection to E. Deerfield yard and eventually the B&M took over the portion from E Dfld to Turners. At one time many years ago the NH controlled the B&M. There used to be a tower at Lynn, MA that had the typical NH design.
