The “Greatest Show on Rails”

Author Gary Dolzall takes a look back at America’s unique, remarkable, and utterly captivating New York, New Haven & Hartford.

Words by Gary Dolzall

“The Greatest Show on Earth” was the slogan of the famed Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. If we kindly borrow, and paragraph, the slogan, modifying it into “The Greatest Show on Rails,” arguably no American railroad would be more worthy of the moniker than the New York, New Haven & Hartford – or, as it was most often called, “the New Haven.”

In railroad route miles, the distance from Boston to New York City is 231 miles, with rails spun across the pocket-sized New England states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and then into New York City. Today, those 231 miles represent the northern reaches of Amtrak’s bustling Northeast Corridor and in part host commuter railroads including Metro-North, Shore Line East, and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). But in earlier times, the rail route between Boston and New York via New Haven, Connecticut, was the heart and soul of the New York, New Haven & Hartford. In railroad terms, the steel rails stretching from “the Big Apple” to “Beantown” comprised NYNH&H’s New Haven and Boston Divisions and was known as the “Shore Line” for its scenic path, often lying within sight of Long Island and Block Island Sounds.

While the Boston-New Haven-New York route was NYNH&H’s crown jewel, the railroad so dominated New England that at its zenith the New Haven packed more than 2,000 route miles into its four-state system map! Along with the Shore Line and its multi-track, electrified, and bustling New Haven-New York City lines, the New Haven stretched its rails north from Connecticut to Pittsfield (the Berkshire Line) and Springfield, Massachusetts (the Hartford Line, today host to Amtrak and CT Rail commuter services), and south from Boston to quaint Cape Cod, and maintained a veritable spider-web of additional secondary branch lines bound hither and yon.

The New Haven was remarkable in nearly countless ways: Remarkable for its trackage density, remarkable for its intensity in moving passenger trains and freight traffic, remarkable for its extraordinary assemblage of steam, electric, and diesel motive power, and, alas, remarkable for its countless financial disasters, bankruptcies, and all-too-frequent management tumults.

The railroad was also remarkable for its family tree. It has been estimated that the NYNH&H had more than 200 predecessor roads, many small companies dating back to the mid-19th century. But it was in 1872 that two sizable railroads – the New York & New Haven, and the Hartford & New Haven – came together to form the NYNH&H. Two decades later, in 1893, NYNH&H also absorbed what had been its greatest rival, the New York & New England. With the coming of the 20th century, NYNH&H lay in the hands of gilded age financier John Pierpont (J. P.) Morgan and his railroad protégé Charles S. Mellen. A railroad man all his life, Mellen, armed with Morgan’s influence and boundless money, used the NYNH&H to leverage control over many of New England’s other railroads, including Boston & Maine, Maine Central, and the Rutland. Mellen and Morgan all but established a New England rail monopoly (the exception, and a mighty one, being the Boston & Albany, part of the New York Central System).

It was during New Haven’s Mellen era that electrification of the west end of the railroad (which had begun in limited fashion as early as the 1890s) expanded and the New York Connecting Railroad, with its fabulous Hell Gate Bridge, was constructed to provide the New Haven access to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. A connection with the New York Central near Woodlawn, N.Y., similarly provided the New Haven access to magnificent Grand Central Terminal. The Mellen years also nearly drained the NYNH&H financially, and it would be the fate of the New Haven for virtually the remainder of its existence to teeter from solvency to bankruptcy to reorganization.

The late 1940s and 1950s were another time of extreme financial and management turmoil for the NYNH&H. In 1947, the railroad emerged from one of its many reorganizations and a group including Frederic C. Dumaine, Sr. and Patrick McGinnis gained control. In 1951, the senior Dumaine died and his son, Frederic C. Dumaine, Jr., took his place; then in 1953 a proxy battle ended with Patrick McGinnis in control. The McGinnis era (which ended in 1956) was, in short, nothing less than a disaster for the New Haven, but ironically it left the railroad with the locomotive livery the New Haven is famous for, the dramatic orange, black, and white “McGinnis” scheme.

The 1960s were largely a march to the finale for the struggling New Haven, and in 1968 the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) ordered that the New Haven be merged into the then-new (and itself soon to be bankrupt) giant Penn Central.

But somehow, amid all its endless turmoil, the New Haven managed to move millions of passengers and commuters and millions of tons of freight – and put on what was, indeed, a captivating performance.

On its non-electrified lines in the steam era, the New Haven called upon a variety of memorable steam locomotives, the most elegant of which were 10 streamlined 4-6-4 Hudsons built by Baldwin in 1937 and the biggest and burliest of which were its Alco R-class freight-service 4-8-2s. During roughly 70 years of electric operations west of New Haven, the railroad called upon a diverse collection of box cab electrics, stylish dual-cab streamlined units constructed in the 1930s, electric multiple-unit consists, and finally, its remarkable GE-built EP-5 “Jets” and ex-Virginian EF-4 electrics. The New Haven left little to the imagination for the diesel enthusiast either, purchasing diesels through the years from Alco, Baldwin, Lima, Fairbanks-Morse, General Electric, and Electro-Motive. Its diminutive Goodyear-Zeppelin-built “Comet” was among America’s earliest diesel streamliners in 1935, the railroad operated a large fleet of Budd “RDC” diesel-powered railcars, and its EMD-built fleet of FL9 dual power (diesel-electric or straight electric) units of the 1960s would soldier on well into the Metro-North and Amtrak era as reminders of New Haven glory. Notable in the annals of the New Haven’s diesel years was the railroad fleet of 60 Alco DL109 diesels, purchased between 1941 and 1945. New Haven’s first pair of DL109s arrived on the property two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and in the following years the railroad used its growing armada of the pioneering Alco diesels as dual-service locomotives, hauling passengers by day and freight and mail by night. Not to mention that the New Haven, over the years, dressed its DL109s in no less than five liveries, all of which were quite appealing.

Always busy (and to large degree financially burdened with) hauling countless commuters, the New Haven was also home to notable intercity trains, the Yankee Clipper and Merchants Limited among them, as well as Pennsylvania through trains such as the Senator and Patriot that operated between Washington and Boston via PRR and NYNH&H (beginning in the 1920s, the Pennsy in fact held strong financial interests in the New Haven). The sheer magnitude of New Haven’s passenger operations can be gauged by the fact NYNH&H operated 545 passenger and commuter trains a day in 1946, and in 1957 the railroad rostered more than 1,000 passenger and commuter cars. And not to be overlooked was that New Haven was a major freight hauler, connecting upper New England with New York City (where the railroad operated Oak Point Yard in the Bronx) as well as linking with eastern carriers such as the Erie via its “Maybrook (N.Y.) freight line.” NYNH&H operated massive Cedar Hill Yard in New Haven, and the sprawling yard could claim to be the largest hump yard in New England and one of the largest in the nation.

The endearing – and enduring – appeal of the New Haven is perhaps no better illustrated than by the range of preserved NYNH&H locomotives and equipment that exist in museums, and by the fact that its McGinnis livery has been used to grace locomotives long after the NYNH&H’s demise. Most famous of these were the ten remanufactured ex-NH FL9s owned by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT), operated by Metro-North, and dressed in full McGinnis livery. These units remained in service until 2009, and most of the veterans, even after 50 years of main line service, still survive at museums or on tourist lines. CDOT has also dressed six of its unique Brookville BL20GH diesels, which operate on Metro-North, in New Haven colors. Connecticut’s Shore Line East commuter line has outfitted numerous locomotives in New Haven liveries and, indeed, even the burnt-orange, black, and silver colors of MNCR’s modern M-8 electric multiple-unit sets represent an honorary nod to the line’s New Haven heritage. All of which seems entirely fitting in honor of “The “Greatest Show on Rails.”

In a classic New Haven Railroad scene at Stamford, Connecticut, in 1960, GE-built EP-5 electric 375 heads up a Boston to New York passenger train stretching 18 cars long. Built in 1955, the EP-5s were the last new passenger-service electrics acquired by the New Haven and were nicknamed “Jets.” Dolzall collection photo.

Beauties and Beasts: New Haven called upon a variety of memorable steam locomotives. Barely one year old, streamlined Baldwin-built Hudson 1403 stood ready for a Boston South Station departure in 1938 (above). Big and burly were NYNH&H’s R-class 4-8-2s. R-2a 3501, built by Alco in 1926, is pushing a heavy manifest out of New Haven’s Cedar Hill Yard. New Haven’s final use of steam power in regular service occurred in 1952. Both photos, Dolzall collection. Quite a contrast to the EP-5 “Jet” depicted above, New Haven box cab class EP-3 electric 0354 has an intercity heavyweight train on the roll near Stamford, Connecticut. Built by General Electric in 1931, the 0354 and its kin were passenger workhorses on the NYNH&H for decades and were not retired until the arrival in the 1950s of the EMD FL9s. Dolzall collection photo.

A tantalizing taste of the menagerie that was New Haven’s diesel fleet stand ready for assignment in Boston. Left to right, the line-up includes an Alco HH660 switcher, a pair of EMD FL9s, Alco RS3 557, Alco FA1 0426, and General Electric U25B 2518. Dolzall collection photo.

New Haven’s stunning orange, black, and white “McGinnis” livery was born amid one of New Haven’s many troubled eras, but nonetheless came to symbolize the railroad. New Haven FL9 2002, owned by CDOT and operated by Metro-North, wore the famed livery as it awaited its next assignment in Danbury, Connecticut, in May 1993 (above). Although CDOT and Metro-North have retired the FL9s, MNCR operates CDOT-owned Brookville BL20GH diesels. “Brookie” No. 130 was captured powering the “Waterbury Local” at Bridgeport, Connecticut (below). Both photos by Gary Dolzall. Demonstrating that the New Haven made its way through beautiful countryside as well as urban settings, preserved New Haven U25B 2525 – the last new locomotive constructed for the NYNH&H in 1965 – leads a Metro-North fall foliage excursion train alongside the Naugatuck River on the New Haven’s Waterbury Line (now served by Metro-North) in October 1992. Then and now on the New Haven: Handsome NYNH&H I-2 class 4-6-2 1354 makes for a magnificent sight at Forrest Hills, Massachusetts, in 1934 (above), while today’s railroading experience along the old New Haven is symbolized by Amtrak Acela 2010 gliding toward its station stop in the railroad’s namesake city of New Haven, Connecticut (below). Above photo, Dolzall collection; below photo by Gary Dolzall.