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Delaware & Northern
Railroad |
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Delaware
& Northern Railroad | |
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Searing was a past master at
the game of railroad promotion, and his announced intention was to build a
railroad from East Branch on the N.Y.O.& W., to Arkville on the Ulster
& Delaware, a distance of 37.5 miles. A branch line of 9.5 miles from
Union Grove to Andes, would open up extensive tracts of timber, quarries
of bluestone, and create an east means of transporting dairy products to
market. Searing blandly stated that he expected that coal would be handled
from East Branch to Arkville, enabling mines along the N.Y.O.& W. to
get some of the Ulster & Delaware's business. Capitalized at $1,000,000,
Searing sold a considerable amount of stock and $800,000 of five percent
50-year bonds to pay for construction costs. Contracts were let in 1905.
R.B. Williams resigned from the N.Y.O. & W. to become superintendent
of the D. & E. Construction work, supervised by Frederick P. Lincoln,
began at Arkville. The route passed through Margaretville where the road's
headquarters had been established, and reached Union Grove, 10 miles from
Arkville, at the end of 1905. Most of the grade for the track had been
there since 1870, intended for a railroad which was killed off by the
panic of 1873. This was the Delhi & Middletown, which Thomas Cornell
had fostered, and money for the grade was furnished by Andes township,
which nearly went bankrupt paying off $120,000 in township bonds. The
Delaware & Eastern bought five locomotives, all Delaware, Lackawanna,
& Western discards averaging 23 years in age. It also bought a large
amount of new freight rolling stock, much more than a railroad 37.5 miles
long would need. In the spring of 1906, track was laid south from Union
Grove and north from East Branch, the last spike being driven at
Downsville on November 17, 1906 on which date passenger service was begun
over the entire line. The people of Andes clamored for a branch line to
their town, pointing to the ready-made grade up the Tremperskill from
Union Grove. This branch was built and opened for service on March 23,
1907. All this was fine for the
Ulster & Delaware and the N.Y.O.& W. This is until November 1906.
Searing then let the cat out of the bag. He announced plans for a new
railroad from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to Schenectady, New York, a
distance of 232 miles, to furnish fast and efficient coal deliveries to
New England and eastern Canada via the Rutland and the Boston & Maine.
The excuse for this railroad was that existing freight rates were
exorbitant, and that competition would keep the rates down. A railroad to
be called the Schenectady & Margaretville would be the northern part
of the project, the Delaware & Eastern the center part, and the
Hancock & Wilkes-Barre Extension Railroad the south part. On December
11, 1906, the New York State Railroad Commission granted permits to both
roads to build their lines. Searing then leased the Delaware &
Eastern, combined it with the two other projected railroads, and organized
the Delaware & Eastern
Railway. This was
ratified at a special stockholders' meeting in New York in 1907 and the
new company began selling capital stock, plus a six-million dollar bond
issue. Part of the latter securities would be used to retire the existing
bonds, and additional bonds to a total of over $40,000,000 would be
issued.
The news of this grandiose
scheme brought roars of outrage from S.D. Coykendall on behalf the Ulster
& Delaware, L.F. Loree of the Delaware & Hudson, and T.P. Fowler
of the New York, Ontario, & Western. Coykendall and Fowler were
particularly disturbed because sections of this proposed railroad would
parallel their main lines in a useless duplication of trackage. The three
railroads combined in a joint suit against the Railroad Commission to
cancel the permits. This dragged on through 1908 and was finally lost when
the State Supreme Court ruled against the petitioners. The Delaware &
Eastern Construction Co. was organized in New York under Searing's
direction and a contract was let to W.J. Oliver & Co. to survey and
grade the section from Grand Gorge on the Ulster & Delaware to
Middleburgh. Nothing was done about starting the construction work during
1908, and well into 1909. In the meantime, the Delaware
& Eastern had its first serious accident. On Sunday, May 24, 1908, a
passenger train consisting of engine No. 2, a milk car, a combination car,
and a coach had made its daily run up the Andes branch. It was customary
for the train to back down the Andes branch to the main line at Union
Grove, continuing backwards on the main line to Margaretville. A short
distance north of Union Grove the train crossed the Jacksonburg Creek
bridge, the engineer stating that he had shut off steam and was drifting
at about 15 m.p.h. When about 500 feet north of the bridge, the coaches
derailed suddenly and ran along the ties and the embankment, the milk car
turned on its side and the engine and tender slid down the bank into the
river. The top of the engine's cab was ripped off and engineer Clair Cowan
and fireman John Francisco went down with the engine. Francisco was thrown
into the river, but Cowan was pinned down by the wrecked cab and only his
face was above water. Francisco crawled into the cab and for several hours
held Cowan's head in his arms, the conductor and several passengers
helping pry a copper pipe leading to the steam gauge to permit the
engineer to raise his head slightly. There Francisco sat, up to his own
neck in the river, until a special train arrived from Margaretville. A
chain was placed around the engine's steam dome, and after one false try
when the chain broke, the engine was turned just enough to permit men to
free Cowan from his watery prison. He had been there just five hours;
outside a pair of badly mashed feet, he had no other injuries and was back
to work in a few weeks, though he complained for years afterward that he
could not walk barefoot. Francisco was the hero of the valley, but when
questioned about it recently he said it was the longest bath he had ever
taken in his life. The cause of the wreck was the subject of many
arguments, but the best guess was that a spread rail derailed the rear
truck of the coach, the track was torn up and complete derailment of the
train ensued. During the year following the
accident the railroad operated at a loss, and apparently did not pay its
taxes, for the township of Hancock sent constable Arthur Bullis to East
Branch where he attached engine No. 1 for $700 in unpaid taxes. John
Francisco recalls that it was the custom of the freight train crew to stay
overnight at East Branch, leaving the engine on a siding near the bridge
across the Delaware River, and when they showed up at 6 A.M. one Saturday
in the first week of May 1909 they found their engine chained to the rails
and padlocked, with constable Bullis standing in the cab's gangway,
flourishing a six-shooter. The management in Margaretville was notified
and the crew were told to take the day off. The constable kept steam up on
No. 1 and obviously expected a rescue attempt, for several of his deputies
joined him. Another engine was sent for the freight train, and things
remained peaceful until about noon on Sunday, when superintendent
Wagonhorst and 15 men, all riding the tender of engine No. 3, arrived on
the scene. Breaking the padlock the constable had placed on the switch,
the rescue crew backed No. 3 in on the siding, and ignoring constable
Bullis in the cab, broke the padlocks on the chains around the driving
wheel rims. Not trusting MCB couplers, they chained the two engines
together, and to quote the
Catskill Mountain
News - "Bullis, who had kept steam up on the captive engine, threw the
reverse lever and there began a tug of war beteen the two steel giants
that would have been well worth going to East Branch to witness. The drive
wheels slipped, sparks flew, the engines puffed and sputtered, the men on
both sides used cuss words, and there was excitement galore. All East
Branch was out to see it." Bullis probably took special pleasure from all
this uproar, for he was a discharged employee of the Delaware &
Eastern and had his own axe to grind. The rescuers after failing in
several attempts to jerk the prisoner loose, during which there was a
wrestling match between the deputies and the rescuers for possession of
the chains, fireman John Francisco again became the hero by solving the
problem very neatly. During a lull in the hostilities, Francisco sneaked
along the side of the rescue engine's tender with a larger pipe wrench and
unscrewed the relief valves from the fronts of the steam chests on the
captive engine. When another battle of the giants began, steam came
roaring out of the holes in No. 1's steam chests, engineer Clair Cowan on
the rescue engine gave it full throttle, and Francisco began oiling the
track as the two engines moved towards the bridge across the Delaware.
When it was obvious that Bullis and his men had lost the battle they
jumped off their engine. The aftermath was the arrest of Bullis on charges
of assault and threatening engineer Cowan with a revolver. The constable
was soon out on bail, and Hancock township countered by arresting
superintendent Wagonhorst and several of his men on a charge of riot. The
matter was settled when the Hancock tax collector realized that the
expense of trying all of the men involved might be more than the taxes
due, and in time the railroad paid the taxes and No. 1 did not have to
sneak in and out of East Branch any more. In the fall of 1909 the
promoters of the Schenectady & Margaretville, claiming to have raised
sufficient money to begin construction, authorized Oliver to start grading
at Grand Gorge. Oliver also got the contract to build two steel trestles
and two tunnels. A trestle at Grand Gorge which was to outshine the
Lyonbrook, Cadosia, and Liberty trestles of the N.Y.O.& W. would leave
the south slope of the Bear Kill valley at Grand Gorge. It would then
cross over the Ulster & Delaware and the Bear Kill, curving east to
the north ridge almost 180 feet above the town of Grand Gorge. Grading
began on the north side of Bear Creek at the north end of the projected
bridge, and descended 50 feet to the mile for nearly five miles to the
junction of the Bear with the Schoharie Creek. Some grading work was done
in the valley of the Schoharie as far as Breakabeen. Land for stations at
Gilboa and North Blenheim was purchased, and a right-of-way secured
through these villages. From East Branch to Hancock
the route was surveyed parallel to the N.Y.O.&W. on the hill a hundred
feet above the latter, crossing the Delaware a mile south of Hancock and
running along the south bank to Equinunk, 10 miles downstream, thence
south through Honesdale to a crossing of the D.L.& W. at Moscow, then
southwest to Wilkes-Barre. It all looked fine on paper, and work continued
north of Grand Gorge through the winter of 1909-1910. In February 1910
contractor Oliver stated that he had ceased all work and would neither
order the bridge material nor start boring the tunnels until he was paid
$250,000 for construction work already completed. Apparently sensing the
fact that he was not going to be paid, he simultaneously brought suit in
the New York State Supreme Court for the same amount of his claim. On
February 25, Andrew M. Moreland and Walter B. Trowbridge were appointed
receivers of the Delaware & Eastern by the U.S. District Court, and a
bondholders' committee assisted them in an effort to save at least a part
of the investment. In March the brokerage firm of Searing & Co. closed
its doors and declared bankruptcy. Thus did Williams' and Searing's dream
of railroad empire die on the vine, no doubt to the vast relief of the
three railroads from which it would have siphoned off considerable
traffic. The collapse of the Delaware & Eastern ended efforts to build
new railroads from Pennsylvania coal regions for all time. Investors with
long memories recalled the West Shore's debacle, and did not flock to buy
securities as Searing thought they would. The receivers borrowed Jabez
T. O'Dell, vice president of the Bessemer & Lake Erie, as an expert to
appraise the Delaware & Eastern. In his report, which was full of
caustic comments, he stated that the railroad had been built so cheaply
that it was falling to pieces; that it could not possibly make money. It
was taking in $2,100 a mile, cost $2,500 a mile to operate, and this ratio
could not be changed without extensive and expensive improvements. Unable
to refinance the railroad, the receivers marked time by cutting expenses
to the bone. A year and a half later, encouraged by increased traffic, the
bondholders reorganized the company as the Delaware & Northern
Railroad with Moreland as president. All the new directors came from
Pittsburgh, most of them representing banks holding bonds in the new
company. They accepted preferred stock in lieu of bonds, and advanced
money to place the railroad in first class condition. The roadbed was
reballasted, additional locomotives and shop equipment purchased and
surplus equipment sold. Overstocked with freight cars which had been
bought for use on the Schenectady & Margaretville, the D.&N. sold
most of them to other railroads. A good percentage of the freight cars,
all brand new in 1906, had spent four years on sidings. The reorganized railroad
managed to meet expenses from 1911 through 1918; the biggest money maker
was the dairy business, the road owning seven milk cars and using cars
from its connecting railroads when needed. The bluestone quarries were
closing down, and the traffic in finished lumber did not live up to the
glowing prospectus turned out by Frederick Searing. Whenever there was a
surplus, it was paid to the preferred stockholders, the last dividend of
$15,000 being paid in 1918. Losses began to mount up after 1919, and on
March 16, 1921, president Moreland and superintendent J.J. Welch were
appointed receivers. The railroad was operated as economically as possible
and the very unprofitable Andes branch was abandoned in April 1925 and the
rails sold for scrap. Attempts at cutting wages resulted in walkouts of
the employees, and a compromise was finally reached. A new gasoline motor
car was purchased to replace the steam passenger trains, saving $30,000 a
year. This unit carried mail, baggage, express, and passengers, and was
affectionately called the Red Heifer by the
residents along the line.
In 1928 the losses were so
great that the directors, headed by J.J. Jermyn, petitioned for
abandonment. An angel in the person of Samuel R. Rosoff of New York City
came along at this time. He had built a highway in the valley ten years
earlier and was familiar with the railroad and the people of the villages
it served. He bought the railroad on December 20, 1928, for $70,000, and
reorganized it as the Delaware & Northern Railway, running it on a shoestring through the
depression years. At this time, New York City was preparing to build a dam
across the east Branch of the Delaware near Downsville to create a
reservoir to augment the water supply of the big city. Rosoff felt that
the railroad was needed to haul supplies for the dam, after which it could
be moved to higher ground. Litigation involving New York, the I.C.C., and
the railroad ensued, and was settled when Rosoff agreed to sell the
railroad to the city whenever the right-of-way was needed for the
reservoir. Rosoff endeared himself to the people of the valley by running
a school train each way daily except weekends and vacation times, and
spent a considerable amount of his personal funds in keeping the railroad
going. In 1939 he sold the railroad to New York City for $200,000, but
additional court suits dragged on until finally, on October 16, 1942,
notice of abandonment was tacked on the doors of the stations. The work of
removing the rails and the bridges was hampered by spring rains, and it
was not until the summer of 1943 that the last lot of ties had been
cleaned up and shipped to a railroad in Michigan. The equipment was sold
for scrap, and little remains today to show that there ever was a railroad
from Arkville to East Branch. As an afterthought, the
failure of the Schenectady & Margaretville saved New York City a
considerable sum, for when Schoharie Reservoir construction was begun in
1917, had there been a railroad in the valley at that point it would have
been relocated high up on the mountainside at a cost far greater than the
relocation of the Ulster & Delaware at
Ashokan. Citations Best, Gerald M. "The Delaware
& Northern Railroad." The Ulster &
Delaware . . . Railroad Through the Catskills. San Marino, CA:
Golden
West, 1972. 144-55. Print. |
