Housatonic (1983)

Company History: The HRRC opened in 1983 to take over operation of the 34 mile former New Haven line from New Milford north to Canaan, Connecticut. The company began as a tourist train operator which paid the bills while the entire length of the route was gradually restored. The first freight customer came on line in 1989. In the early 90s, HRRC and their new subsidiary Danbury Terminal Railroad began acquiring more routes. Today, the HRRC map looks like an inverted T. It runs from Pittsfield, Mass south to Danbury, Connecticut and from Beacon, New York east through Danbury to Shelton, Connecticut. The locomotive fleet includes three GP35’s, two GP35m’s, a GP9, a GP7u, an RS3m and a GE 45-tonner.

This company is unrelated to the original Housatonic Railroad (1837-1892) which was leased to the New Haven although the current HRRC uses part of the original’s right of way. In May of 2003, Model Railroader and Trains magazines did a double header of articles on this line with the MR article including a nice trackplan.

Successor/Parent History: The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (reporting mark NH), commonly known as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in New England from 1872 to 1968, dominating the region's rail traffic for the first half of the 20th century.

Beginning in the 1890s and accelerating in 1903, New York banker J. P. Morgan sought to monopolize New England transportation by arranging the NH's acquisition of 50 companies, including other railroads and steamship lines, and building a network of electrified trolley lines that provided interurban transportation for all of southern New England. By 1912, the New Haven operated more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of track, with 120,000 employees, and practically monopolized traffic in a wide swath from Boston to New York City.

This quest for monopoly angered Progressive Era reformers, alienated public opinion, resulted in high prices for acquisitions, and increased construction costs. Debt soared from $14 million in 1903 to $242 million in 1913, even as the advent of automobiles, trucks and buses reduced railroad profits. Also in 1913, the federal government filed an anti-trust lawsuit that forced the NH to divest its trolley systems.

The line became bankrupt in 1935, was reorganized and reduced in scope, went bankrupt again in 1961, and in 1969 was merged with the Penn Central system, formed a year earlier by the merger of the also bankrupt New York Central Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad; Already a poorly conceived merger, Penn Central proceeded to go bankrupt in 1970, becoming the largest bankruptcy in the U.S. until the Enron Corporation superseded it in 2001. The remnants of the system now comprise Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line, (parts of) Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, Shore Line East, parts of the MBTA, and numerous freight operators such as CSX and the Providence and Worcester Railroad. The majority of the system is now owned publicly by the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

Read more on Wikipedia and New Haven Railroad Historical and Technical Association, Inc.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.