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Delaware & Northern
Railroad |
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The Delaware & Northern and
the Towns It Served By Gertrude Fitch Horton | |
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Chapter 1: Planning of a
Railroad After the Civil War the entire United States was gripped by "railroad
fever." Hundreds of thousands of young men from farms and villages of the
nation had traveled for the first time as soldiers, and wanderlust was
epidemic. There was an unprecedented demand for the fast, cheap, and
convenient transportation offered by railroads. Delaware County, New York
was no exception to this trend. Men from this farming area had responded
overwhelmingly to President Lincoln's calls for troops, and by the end of
the Civil War, virtually all able-bodied men in the area had seen service
in the Union Army - and seen parts of the country far beyond the reach of
their farm wagons. Even before the Civil War, the Erie Railroad had stopped in Hancock,
but provided no service to other parts of the area. In 1871 the Ulster and
Delaware skirted the northern edge of the county, connecting Arkville and
Grand Gorge with the main lines serving New York City and Albany. The
following year the New York, Oswego, and Midland Railway (later
reorganized as the New York, Ontario, and Western) came to East Branch,
Walton, and Delhi. But the fertile valley of the East Branch of the
Delaware remained isolated, not out of choice. Local people fervently
wished for a railroad and made valiant attempts to get one started, but it
took a tourist with financial resources and an incipient case of railroad
fever to actually bring a railroad to the East Branch valley. Frederick Searing, president of Searing and Company, a New York City
industrial bank, and a dealer in railroad securities, enjoyed coming to
the area of the East Branch of the Delaware River for summer holidays. His
favorite boarding house was located in Andes, NY. In the spring of 1904 he brought a group of friends to East Branch by
way of the New York, Ontario, & Western Railroad, which was a pleasant
trip. However, the trip from there to Andes was a long and tiring one as
the only transportation was by horse and carriage. It took four to five
hours under the most favorable weather conditions just to get as far as
Downsville, where the men spent the night. Downsville had a newspaper,
hotels, stores, churches, and schools, but was isolated by poor
transportation. In order to secure supplies or get their produce to market
the people of Downsville had to ways of reaching the O&W: either they
could travel through mud or snow to East Branch (14 miles) or they could
climb over Bear Spring Mountain to Walton - a route that was rocky, muddy,
and dangerous. The necessary winding, thousand-foot climb made that about
14 miles as well. Searing often brought rich and important friends with him, and they
all dreaded that slow and bumpy trip from East Branch to Andes.
This time, jokingly, one of his friends remarked, "You really ought to
build a railroad from East Branch to Andes." The more Searing thought
about this remark, the better the idea sounded. On their way from Downsville to Andes, Searing and his friends realized
that someone else had had the same idea. They noticed some old railroad
diggings and gradings. On questioning the local people, they learned that
in 1871 a railroad, called the Delhi & Middletown, had been started
but did not survive the panic of 1873. The Andes township nearly went bankrupt paying off $98,000 at 7%
interest in bonds to pay for the grading for the Delhi & Middletown
Railroad. After that railroad had failed, Andes fought the bonded
indebtedness. The township wanted either to have the railroad constructed
or relief from the debt. Between the cost of the legal fight and thy high
interest rate, Andes ended up paying over $370,000. They made the final
payment in 1931, after paying during 60 years for a railroad that was
never finished. Later during their stay Searing and his friends heard of still another
railroad failure, the Delaware Valley Railroad, officially known as the
Andes and Delhi, which was started in 1898. That road also failed to get
as far as Andes, although a lot of work was done. Almost 10 miles of
roadbed was finished between October 8 and October 29, 1898, which was an
amazing amount of work to be completed in just 21 days. There was a story
told about a rough railroad camp on this road. One night there was a fatal
fight over a. card game between two fellow laborers. The next morning the
body was tossed into a fill-no digging required and no report.
Unfortunately the contractor ran out of money, the unpaid workers
rebelled, and the Delaware Valley was foreclosed on July 15, 1899. Later
Andes pointed to this partially finished work as a reason to build the
Delaware & Eastern's Andes branch. Searing was determined to open up this charming and prosperous country.
A railroad would enable the people of the area to communicate with each
other and with the rest of the world. Mail could move in and out more
efficiently. The many products of the rich farmland of Delaware County
could be sold in the profitable city markets, and manufactured goods from
all over the world could be brought in. The isolation of more than a century was drawing to a close, changing forever the
way of life of rural families. Later that same year Searing returned, bringing Joseph Jermyn, who
owned large coal mining properties in Pennsylvania, and Russell B.
Williams, an experienced railroad builder and superintendent of the
Scranton Division of the New York, Ontario & Western Railroad. After
exploring the region all the way from East Branch (where a railroad could
connect with the already built New York, Ontario & Western) to
Arkville (where it could connect with the Ulster & Delaware), they
could see great business opportunities for a railroad. The new railroad
would be called the Delaware & Eastern, or D&E. The need for passenger service was obvious; travel by foot or horse and
buggy was slow and uncomfortable, making it very difficult for busy farm
families to go into the towns for shopping or to visit each other.
However, there was a district school within walking distance (sometimes
several miles) of every child. These were mostly one room schools and very
few pupils ever went to any other school. A railroad would make a high
school education possible for widely scattered rural residents. The
enthusiasm expressed by the populace for the project made it clear that
the people would use the railroad once it was built. R. B. Williams quit the Ontario & Western Railroad to become the
General Manager for the new D&E. He had long envisioned a more direct
route with easier grades from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to East
Branch and on to Arkville, where the railroad could connect with the
Ulster & Delaware Railway. He had discussed it with Jermyn, who
enthusiastically supported the plan. The Ontario & Western had some
very steep grades that required a double header (a train pulled by two
locomotives) and sometimes an additional pusher to get those long, long
lines of gondola cars of coal up the grades. (A gondola is a railroad car
with no top, a flat bottom and fixed sides that.is used chiefly for
hauling bulk commodities). By planning lighter grades and reduced mileage,
Searing, Williams and Jermyn hoped to have a very profitable venture. The
three men decided to publicly plan only the short 37.5 mile connection
between East Branch and Arkville (which would all be in Delaware
County), while privately planning the longer coal route. They knew that the New York, Ontario & Western, the Ulster &
Delaware and the Delaware & Hudson would not object to a connection
between the O&W and the U&D, and might even welcome it. Searing
even announced that he expected coal would be handled from East Branch to
Arkville, enabling both roads to run more efficiently. Thus there were no
objections at the beginning. First, Searing and his associates planned to complete the East Branch
to Arkville section and the Andes branch. They started at both ends,
working in both directions toward Downsville, where the two work gangs
were to meet. That part of the project would be about 38 miles on the main
line and about nine miles more to Andes. When completed, the railroad,
including sidings, would have just over 50 miles of track. No local people or towns were asked to help pay for this railroad, as
they had been for the other railroads in the area. All the D&E asked
for was a right-of-way across the land and they were willing to grant
certain concessions to the land owner for this right. Some of the land
owners were so eager to have a railroad that they gladly gave the road the
right-of-way across their land. Others were so skeptical that at first
they refused to give written permission at all. They said that after the
railroad had been built and operated for 30 days, then they would agree to
the right-of-way. Of course, the D&E had to get permission from each
and every land owner before they could proceed with any actual work. After
many meetings and dickering with these people, the D&E finally had
every legal land problem solved and was ready to begin the actual building
of their railroad. Methods of
Construction The building of this railroad, as with other railroads of the same era,
was accomplished without the use of many labor saving devices. After the
survey was completed, a very large group of men was set to work using almost nothing except hand shovels, to dig, fill, and grade
the right of way. Most of the workers lived in work camps. They slept in
boxcars which had been fixed up as living quarters. There were bunks in
the ends of the car and a large stove for cooking and heating in the
center. These cars were moved from place to place to be near the work
area. The railroad also built shanties for the workers, just big enough
for four or five men to sleep in. These were shabbily constructed wooden
shacks, furnished with only the bare necessities. One of these shacks was
built on the Malloch farm near Harvard. Some workers hired from the local area chose to board with the farm
families along the way. Most farm houses were large, and the farmers could
always use the extra little bit of money to be gained by renting out an
unused room or two, with as many men as would fit sleeping in each room.
The men got a clean place to sleep and good fresh food, well cooked and
abundant. At one time 10 to 15 workers boarded at the Fingado farm near
Harvard. Most of the laborers were immigrants from Italy who could hardly speak
English. They had landed in New York City and been hired by a padrone to
work on the railroad, and really did not know what to expect in this new
country. The immigrants were not even known to the railroad by their own names.
Some of these laborers could speak no English and their employers could
speak no Italian, so each man was assigned a number. This number was
pressed into a copper disk and each man showed his disk to collect his
pay. He was known by this number and was carried on the payroll by this
number instead of his name. If he moved from job to job, he kept the same
number. Horse drawn dump scoops were used on the level sections of ground. It
took two men to operate these - one man to drive the horses and the other
to operate the scoop, which had handles like a plow. The operator would
press down on the handles, scrape up a load of dirt, relax the pressure on
the handles and let the sharp edge of the scoop just slide over the top of
the ground until they got to the dump site. There the operator would press
down on the handle causing the scoop to again catch in the ground and dump
the load. Going back to the diggings, the scoop was just dragged upside
down. In some places the men could use their hand shovels to load the dirt on
special horse drawn wagons. The bottom of each wagon was made from heavy
planks, running the length of the wagon, with a handle on each end. At the
dump site, a man at each end of a plank would move it just far enough to
let the dirt fall through a crack to the ground. Sometimes extra horses
were leased from the local A magneto was used to set off the dynamite needed to break up the large
boulders in a rock cut (a passage cut as a roadway). That made it a little
safer for the men than setting off the dynamite by a fuse, as the farmers
did. It was very important that a railroad keep as much on the level as
possible, so both cuts and fills were often needed. Grades made the
locomotives work harder and could be dangerous to both men and machinery.
When making a deep cut on a steep hill, hand shovels were the only tool
used to initially cut into the bank. After the bank had been started,
wooden rails were laid down to run a small car on. This car was moved
either by the men or by a horse. The car was loaded and moved to the dump
site, and when emptied, brought back for another load. After a temporary iron track could be laid, a steam shovel was brought
in to dig back the banks and make a wider cut. That made the work
much easier. The steam shovel would load the dirt and stones on a flat car
and a locomotive could take it to the place of disposal. As you can see,
"life in the good old days" included a lot of hard manual labor. Early Days of the
D&E On September 14, 1905, R. B. Williams drove in the first spike near
Arkville, and he was also the one who drove in the last spike at
Downsville on November 17, 1906. The first wreck on the D&E occurred on November 24, 1905, just
above Margaretville, only two months and 10 days after the first spike had
been driven. The first timetable was issued June 5, 1906, when
construction was completed as far as Shavertown, in order to regulate the
traffic between Shavertown and Arkville (14 miles). In late 1905, as soon as a section between two towns was completed,
people were demanding to ride as far as they could on their new railroad.
The railroad company set planks across oil drums atop the flat cars in
place of seats, and the local people rode these cars. They had to brush
sparks from the engine out of their hair and they squirmed from the
cinders that went down their backs, but they were happy. Soon after this,
The cost of building the D&E, up to December 31, 1907, was
$1,993,838 plus $108,973 for the cost of the equipment. Every station sign, at the outer edges of the sign, gave the distance
to ARK. (Arkville) and to E.B. (East Branch). Every mile was marked by a
mile post. It was a big day for Downsville and the whole East Branch Valley when
the main line was completed. Excursion trains came from both ends of the
railroad to meet at Downsville for the ceremonial driving of the last
spike on November 17, 1906. There were parades, band concerts, speeches of
welcome, shouting and cheering. The horses reared, snorted, and slipped on
the hard-packed snow. Many important men, including Frederick Searing,
Henry Williams, Edward Conlon, and Judge Linn Bruce, gave
impressive-sounding speeches. Regular train service to Andes began on March 23, 1907. Andes had had
telephone and telegraph service before the railroad, but mail and freight
had come in by stagecoach or wagon. As soon as regular schedules began on both the main line and the Andes
branch, the D&E was given the contract to carry the U.S. Mail. From
the time the mail contract began on May 13, 1907 until the last day the
railroad operated, carrying the mail provided one of the few consistent
sources of revenue on the D&E/D&N. Elevation at Andes was 660 feet higher than at East Branch, but more
important, Andes was 400 feet higher than Andes Junction, nine miles away.
So you can see that those small locomotives had quite a climb. The
original 4-4-0 locomotives (the numbers indicate the placement of the
wheels on the engine) had the ability to pull only one passenger car, one
baggage car and two freight cars into Andes. Engine #3, which had the
2-6-0 configuration, could haul six loaded cars up the grade. On March 23, 1907, a cold soggy day, the first regular train service
was begun on the Andes branch. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come: on
March 25, 1907 an excursion train was run to celebrate the opening of the
Andes branch. Coming back the last car of the train jumped the track. For
the first of many times, the condition of the rails was blamed for an
accident. Even at the very beginning of the road, hard luck plagued it.
In 1906 Searing announced his plans for a new railroad from Wilkes
Barre, Pa., to Schenectady, N.Y., a distance of 232 miles. This would give
him fast and efficient coal deliveries to New England and Eastern Canada
by way of the Rutland and the Boston & Maine Railroads. He asked the
New York State Railroad Commission for permits to build a northern line to
be called the Schenectady & Margaretville and a southern road to be
called the Hancock & Wilkes Barre Extension Railroad. The reason
stated for this request was that the existing freight rates were
exorbitant and that competition would help the public. This news brought immediate protests from S.D. Coykendall for the
Ulster & Delaware, L.F. Loree for the Delaware & Hudson, and T.P.
Fowler for the New York, Ontario & Western roads. Both the O&W and
the D&H considered that the coal trade belonged exclusively to them.
They certainly did not intend to share it unless forced to do so.
On December 11, 1906, the New York Railroad Commission granted both
permits. Searing was now ready to proceed with his original secret plans.
The three older railroads filed a joint suit against the Railroad
Commission to cancel the permits. This legal maneuver lasted through 1908
and was lost when the New York State Supreme Court ruled in favor of the
Searing group. Reorganization By Searing, May 17,
1907. Frederick Searing was a businessman who had many interests, but his
main business was banking. Searing and Company, located at 7 Wall St., New
York City, had several branch banks in New York City, and they had
survived the Panic of 1907. Having decided to finance the building of the
extension railroads, Searing incorporated the newly completed East Branch
part, called the Delaware & Eastern Railroad, with a second
corporation, named the Delaware & Eastern Company. The second company
was to lease the railroad and control the planned northern and southern
extensions. On May 17, 1907, Searing and Company merged the two companies and
called it the Delaware & Eastern Railway Company, with a capital of $5
million and $6.5 million in first mortgage bonds. Part of the bond issue
was to be used to payoff the existing bonds, and additional bonds totaling
over $40 million would be issued. The cost of building the road up to
December 31, 1907 had been $1,993,838 plus $108,973 for cost of equipment.
At about this time the railroad employed 325 men with a payroll of $45,000
a month. Twenty men worked in the repair shop at Margaretville alone. A
June 30, 1909 report showed an annual operating deficit of $236,586, but
the officials believed that their financial situation was sound. The northern section, first called the Schenectady & Southwestern
Company, was soon changed to the Schenectady & Margaretville Railroad
Company. The plan was for a 90-mile road from Margaretville to
Schenectady, using, according to contracts which have recently come to
light, the U&D tracks between Arkville and Grand Gorge. The southern extension (the part to be in New York State) was
incorporated as the Hancock & East Branch Railroad Company on July 12,
1906. Approval for the 95-mile part in Pennsylvania had not been obtained,
but it was to be called the Hancock & Wilkes-Barre
Extension Railroad Company. The route between East Branch and Hancock was
surveyed parallel to the Ontario & Western. From Hancock they were to
go to Equinunk, Honesdale, Moscow and finally on to Wilkes-Barre. The
route finally decided on for the northern section was from Grand Gorge,
Gilboa, Prattsville, Blenheim and on to Middleburgh. At Middleburgh they
were to connect with the Middleburgh & Schoharie Railroad. Searing
signed the lease for the Middleburgh & Schoharie Railroad on January
21,1909. By March of 1907 the surveyors were at work on the northern section.
They completed the survey from Grand Gorge to Prattsville and started
working between Prattsville and Gilboa. A year or more was needed to get
the right-of-way purchased and hire contractors. The contract to survey
and grade a section between Grand Gorge and Middleburgh was let to W. J.
Oliver and Company. In the fall of 1909, Oliver started the grading, and
land for the stations at Gilboa and North Blenheim was purchased. He also
secured the right-of-way through these villages. Oliver also got the contract to build two steel trestles and two
tunnels. The trestle at Grand Gorge was to outshine the Lyonbrook, Cadosia
and Liberty trestles of the New York, Ontario & Western Railroad. Near
Prattsville, in order to avoid a very sharp 210 degree curve to the north,
a tunnel was to curve through Pine Mountain and come out above Devasego
Falls on Schoharie Creek. Construction plans called for a cut 50 feet deep through Clay Hill and
a concrete overpass 20 feet wide by 16 feet high on the Johnson Hollow
road. There was to be a 112-foot-wide culvert and fill across the Johnson
Hollow stream. A depot was planned for Prattsville on Washington Street
and a 900-foot tunnel was planned about a mile below Blenheim. Work progressed north of Grand Gorge all through the winter of
1909-1910. On October 2, 1909, F. A. Collins, chief engineer of the
Dominion Construction Company, arrived at Grand Gorge. A new switch and
siding were installed at Grand Gorge and more men, mules and machinery
began to arrive via the U&D. About 75 men were at work on the lands of
J. W. London and J. M. Cronk. By November 3, 200 men were at work between
Grand Gorge and Prattsville, and soon 200 more men were at work near
Gilboa. A train of 25 carloads of dinkey engines (small locomotives especially
used for hauling freight), dump cars, steam pumps and drills came in at
Grand Gorge, Two steam shovels soon arrived, followed by still another larger,
50-ton one to work near Gilboa. They struggled for two weeks to get that
one through the muddy countryside. It took 12 horses to pull the detached
boom. The main part of this huge shovel blocked the road the entire time
of the trip, and on the way it knocked down part of C. L. Tuttle's barn.
In December a fourth shovel, which was to work on the Cole farm near
Gilboa, had even more trouble getting there. Steam-traction engines were
used to move this one, and it took them three weeks to move it. One of the
traction engines skidded and was left hanging halfway over a steep cliff.
If these steam shovels had been equipped with the newly-invented
caterpillar tread, they could have negotiated the terrain under their own
power. Meanwhile, the blasting for the grading was not going smoothly. One
blast loosened a 40-foot bank above a steam shover, and another steam
shovel had to be moved in to dig the first one out. Another
blast sent a rock flying through the air. It crashed through Then the weather showed what it could do. On December 25, 1909, 20
inches of snow fell, followed by many days of extreme cold, high winds and
more snow. That was followed by a January thaw that carried away bridges
and equipment and bogged down all On February 9, 1910, all construction came to a standstill because no
money was coming from the D&E. This seemed to confirm rumors that
Searing and Company was in deep trouble. The contractor refused to do any
more work until he had been paid $250,000 for work already
completed. In addition he refused to order the bridge materials or start
the boring of the tunnels, and he also sued the D&E for the amount of
his claim. There were chaotic conditions all along the abandoned right-of-way as
the penniless workers drifted away, leaving unpaid board bills. Stables of
mules were left to be cared for by the neighboring farmers. Machinery was
abandoned, buried by drifts of snow, The financial trouble all started when Searing entrusted bonds worth
$4.5 million to a bond salesman who was supposed to sell $3.5 million in
England for a commission of $85,000 in bonds. He dumped the whole amount
on the American market. Searing protested and tried to stop this move. The
Supreme Court issued a writ of attachment, and the newspapers picked up
the story. The depositors of Searing's bank were still a little nervous
from the Panic of 1907, and a run began on the bank. Searing couldn't
cover the On August 16, 1911, under foreclosure proceedings, the railway was sold
for $150,000 to William Seif, who represented the bond holders. The road
was reorganized and incorporated as the Delaware & Northern Railroad
Company on October 14, 1911. Thus ended the grand dream of Searing's railroad empire, of a railroad
from the coal fields of Pennsylvania to the factories and cities of the
north. The collapse of the Delaware & Eastern extensions must have been a
relief to the other three railroads, and it ended for all time efforts to
build any more new railroads from the Pennsylvania coal regions. If the
D&E had succeeded, it certainly would have siphoned off a lot of
profitable business from all three roads. The Ulster & Delaware, the
Delaware & Hudson and the New York, Ontario & Western Railroads
could now concentrate on their own operations. If the Schenectady & Margaretville had been finished, it would have
cost New York City a lot of money when reservoirs were built in that area.
New York City would have had to relocate the railroad to higher ground, as
they had to do for the Ulster & Delaware at Ashokan. As long as Searing had control of the railroad, the company had a plush
office on Wall Street. The office was then moved to 10 Bridge St., and
finally, on February 6, 1913, the headquarters were changed to the old
creamery building at Margaretville. That was quite a comedown for the
office workers. Chapter 2: Reorganization and Repair
The receivers' board of directors hired an expert appraiser named Jabez
T. O'Dell to look over the D&N. He stated that the road had to have
some extensive repairs made. It was costing $400 more per mile to operate
than it took in. The new directors came from Pittsburgh banks that held
bonds in the old company. They decided to advance money to put the
railroad in first-class condition, and accepted preferred stock in place
of bonds. Bank gravel had been used as track ballast throughout the Delaware
& Eastern when it was built and by now it needed quite a lot of work
to make it safe. The roadbed was reballasted where it was
needed. Additional locomotives and shop equipment were purchased and all
surplus equipment was sold to other roads. A lot of freight cars, which
had been bought new in 1906 and never used, were sold at this time.
Trestles Filled During the First
Receivership When building the Andes branch, the D&E
first built a long wooden trestle about two miles below Andes called
Muir's trestle because it crossed the Muir farm. The trestle was 450 feet
long, 45 feet high, and 190,000 feet of hemlock timber was used in its
construction. There were water barrels placed the length of the trestle
for fire protection. The trestle was completed in March, 1907, but by 1914
the state inspectors were already questioning the safety of the weathered
wooden timbers. Business was good at that time, so company
officials decided to fill the whole area beneath the trestle with dirt.
Work started on the fill in June, 1915. This was a big job, considering
that except for a steam shovel and a locomotive, all work was done by
hand. The dump cars used on this job were operated by air pressure
supplied by the locomotive. These cars dumped their load from the side of
the cars directly to the fill below. The dirt from the banks along the track was
cleared back, and all the cuts were widened. During the life of the Andes
branch this widening of the cuts and removal of the steep banks saved the
road a lot of maintenance in the spring and winter. Mud and rock slides in
the spring (and after every hard rain) and snow drifts in the winter
plagued the main line for the life of the road. The filling of this long trestle was the talk
of everyone in the area. Newspapers reported that company officals were
planning an extension of the road to Delhi and Bovina. Everyone seemed to
have high hopes for their railroad. It is too bad that this prosperity
could not have lasted. After their success in filling the big Muir's
trestle, the railroad managers decided to make a fill in place of the old
wooden trestle that extended from the north side of Beaverkill railroad
bridge at East Branch to the higher ground along the Delaware River. This
would please the state inspector and save on maintenance as well. The
trestle was long but not very high, so it was decided to get all the dirt
for the fill from the steep upper bank near the railway's old water tank.
A steam shovel was moved in, and Engine #5 was assigned to the task. It
was a much easier job than the one they had at Muir's trestle.
The End of the First
Receivership In the summer of 1916 the Interstate Commerce Commission under the
order of the U.S. Government undertook the job of evaluating all railroads
in the United States. The D&N was inventoried, measured and appraised.
Even every rail was recorded, including the date of rolling. After much
bureaucratic red tape and cost to the taxpayer, it was decided that the
D&N was worth $1,505,770, including the Andes branch at $190,273. You
can see that the count was exact, right down to the last three dollars.
In toe summer of 1917 the United States Government was trying to sell
war bonds to raise money to carryon World War 1. They fitted up flat cars
with samples of the heavy equipment they were using, to show the people
why so much more money was needed. These flat cars traveled from railroad
to railroad. One traveled the length of the D&N, and people supported
their country by buying as many bonds as they could afford. There wasn't the chance for the D&N to build up revenues that there
was on most railroads. There were no steel mills, pottery plants or other
big businesses. Big-time coal hauling was now only a broken dream. Lumber
had been rafted down the Delaware for 50 or 60 years before the railroad
came to town, and now the acid factories had stripped the mountains of all
the trees left by previous loggers. Wooden mine props had been cut and
shipped to Scranton, Pa., for the coal mines near there. Soon all the logs
of the right size There was a barrel-stave factory at Arena that at one time shipped four
carloads a week. There was an excelsior plant at Shavertown and a mill in
Downsville that made shingles. These had been small operations, and most
were now gone. The combined effects of all the cutting left no chance for
a factory that used wood to be able to locate on this railroad. However, the dairy feed tonnage produced a lot of business. Before the
railroad farmers usually "dried up" their cows in winter and fed them
mostly hay. Now they were milking year around, and soon they discovered the boost in milk production that feeding grain would
give. Feed stores opened in every town. Also, the dairy farmers were now
using commercial fertilizer and lime. So the dairy farmers helped the rail
revenue a lot. One other change in the rural way of life helped boost rail freight.
The villagers had often burned green or partly-seasoned wood in the
winter, and there was constant worry about a chimney full of soot and
creosote catching fire. As soon as the railroad made hard coal available
in steady and cheap quantities, these people converted to coal-burning
furnaces and burned coal in their kitchen stoves. With coal, they could
keep a fire going for hours and stay warm all night without much danger of
accidents. The tons of coal burned by all the people and businesses in the
area accounted for a lot of gondola cars full of coal being moved on the
D&N. Most of the coal hauled on the D&N to supply the general public was
anthracite, but the creameries and acid factories burned soft coal. After
the Andes branch closed down, it took two trucks full time just to bring
soft coal from Delhi to the Co-op Creamery at Andes, so you can guess the
amount of coal hauled by the D&N to supply the creameries and acid
factories all along the length of the railroad. Of course, many farmers
still burned the wood they cut from their own wood lots. The little road managed to meet expenses from 1911 to 1918. The biggest
money-maker was the dairy business. The D&N owned seven milk cars that
they kept busy, and sometimes they had to borrow cars from the connecting
roads. This was originating freight, so the D&N got the lion's share
of the revenue. Any surplus money was paid to the preferred stockholders. The last
dividend of $15,000 was paid in 1918. The loss of small businesses all along the road and the general
downturn of the national economy after World War I made the deficits mount
up quickly after 1918. The situation deteriorated very rapidly until in
1920 a suit was brought by a large coal company, joined by some of the
railroad's smaller creditors. The D&N was forced by this suit into a
new receivership. On March 16, 1921 president Moreland and superintendent
J. J. Welch were appointed receivers. The Second Receivership Financial Crisis As soon as Moreland and Welch took over as receivers in 1921, they
realized that some drastic measures had to be taken to keep the road
going. The poor railroad was in bad financial shape. WheiI the people of the Delaware Valley realized that their railroad
was in trouble, they tried to come to the rescue. Most of the tax
assessors, except in the town of Hancock, reduced the road's taxes. The
employees agreed to a cut in wages which would save the road $12,000 per
year. Then a federal judge ruled that the employees must take a 20% cut in
wages and the road must sell $20,000 in receivers' certificates. If this
was not done he would shut down the road. People along the railroad bought the $20,000 worth of certificates. The
workers were already working for low wages, and when they heard that they
were supposed to take another 20% cut, the train crews refused. They
couldn't see how they could take care of their families with any less
money. A compromise was finally reached when they all met at
Margaretville, and the road was saved one more time. The D&N Officials Meet with Governor Al
Smith In the early 1920s Governor Al Smith became concerned about the number
of fatal accidents occurring at railroad-highway crossings. Ever since the
family car had become popular, the accident rate had increased every year.
Smith hired an expert to survey the railroads of New York State a~d report
the crossings most needing to be changed. None of the railroads were
notified that this was being done. When the survey was completed, the
governor sent invitations to the presidents, trustees, and receivers of
all the railroads operating in New York State, to meet with him at the
state capitol building. The reason for the meeting was not disclosed. President James Welch received an invitation. He was extremely
surprised and also apprehensive at receiving such an invitation. Welch and
Ira Terry arrived at the appointed time and were ushered in,
along with officials of all the other railroads, to meet the governor.
They were all handed a brochure explaining the reason for the meeting; The
brochure listed all the crossings thought to be the most dangerous in the
state, detailed how each was to be changed, and estimated costs. Governor Smith explained that he understood that the elimination of
grade crossings would be very expensive and a hardship .for some of the
roads. He assured everyone that the state was willing to loan money to the
railroads that might need help, then asked for comments from those
present. Many got up and announced that they would try to cooperate with the
state in this matter. Mr. Loree of the Delaware & Hudson agreed to the
need, but objected to the crossings selected by the experts. He said that
he could point out several crossings more dangerous than those that had
been chosen for elimination. President Welch was relieved that for once
his road was not in serious trouble with the state. Not a single crossing
on the D&N had been selected for elimination. The trip back home was
much happierthan the one going, to answer an unexplained summons to meet
the governor. More Financial Trouble In 1924, the station at Shinhopple burned to the ground. Since the
D&N could not afford a new station, they built a cubicle that would
only hold about four persons. It was just a place to stand and get out of
the weather. By 1925 the road was in desperate financial trouble again. The
profitable cauliflower transportation had been lost to trucks.
Ice-refrigerator cars had been used to keep the cauiflower in good shape
on the long journey to the city. Now trucks picked up the cauliflower, at
an auction block in Margaretville. It was near enough to the railroad that
the trainmen could smell the cauliflower, but they got not one cent of
revenue. The railroad went from a seasonal high of 14 cars in one day to
transport cauliflower to zero. Some agricultural produce was still being
shipped by rail, but every year the road had less and less
business. In former years, much of the profit had been from the creameries; now
tank trucks carried the milk. The railroad no longer needed all those
ice-refrigerator cars. Most of the creameries were no longer owned by the
railroad, which was nearly out of the ice business as a result. Since that
was never profitable by itself, the road might have been glad to be rid of
it, but losing the business it represented was disastrous. Passenger usage of the road dropped off because so many people were
buying automobiles, and more and more hard surface roads were being built
for the growing numbers of automobiles and trucks. Desperate measures had
to be taken. The Andes branch had not been profitable for quite some time, so that
was shut down in the later part of March, 1925. That did not help much.
Gone but not forgotten was the only railroad to get to Andes. Andes had
seriously gone into debt to get the Delhi & Middletown Railroad to
come to their village, and that road was never built, leaving Andes with a
crushing debt and no railroad. It had not cost them anything to get the
D&E to come to Andes, but now once again they were without a railroad.
The right-of-way of the railroad reverted back to the orginal owners
for just the cost of drawing up the transfer deeds. Big trucks took over
the business of hauling feed and coal to this busy town. The new concrete highway built in 1922 between Andes and Margaretville, along
with all the other improved roads in the area, made year-long travel by
car and truck possible. Brill Car The cost of running a locomotive was high for the amount of business
that the road now had, so the owners decided to buy a Brill-built motor
car. This was a self-propelled, combined passenger, express and railway
post office car, and was purchased in February of 1926. It proved to be
the best investment ever made by the D&N. If, from the begining of the
road, all other equipment had run as well and been as cost-effective as
the Brill car, this story might have had a different Ending. The Brill Car was 65 feet long, with a six-cylinder 250-HP Winton
Special automotive-type gasoline motor. It had five gears forward and five
in reverse with manual shift and direct drive to the front truck. It cost
$28,750 new, and the railroad claimed it saved them $30,000 per year
operating expense. In use from February 25, 1926 to October 19, 1942, it
was the last thing that moved on the D&N. Walter Pattberg went to
Philadelphia to take delivery of the new car and was coached on the way
back by a Brill representative named Day, who was hired by the manufacturer to train the new owners in
the care and handling of their brand-new machine. James Welch and Pop
Philips met the car in Newark, N.J. The car was met by a group of U&D
officials at Kingston, who wanted to see how the Brill Car would take the
grades on their road. The car encountered no trouble whatsoever on the
grades and a group of proud men reached Margaretville with a piece of NEW
equipment. Pop Philips was senior engineer, so he was first in line to bid in the
position of engineer of the new Brill Car. He had never learned to drive
an automobile, and he was unable to master the automotive type of
controls. So Clarence Cowan, Roma Fitch and Joe Rider were the operators.
Most of the time Harry Odell was the postal clerk. It was said that the revenue from the U.S. Government for postal
service paid the total expense of running the Brill Car. The Brill Car was always a dull red color, probably never having more
than a primer coat of paint. The D&N tracks were noted for their poor
condition. Speed was limited to 20 MPH. The lurching, swaying motion of
the car soon earned it the nickname of "Red Heifer." The Brill Car's
schedule was the same as the old steam passenger train. It started at
Downsville in the morning, going to Arkville, and there used the
turntable. This turntable was moved by human power. The trainmen would get
down in the pit and literally push the car or engine around. However, it
was geared well and this was not really a hard job. Later the car made a run to East Branch, and back to Arkville, then
back to Downsville to wait for the next day. This schedule enabled the
pupils of Margaretville High School from Arena to Margaretville to use the
"Red Heifer" as a school bus. Although the Brill Car was more reliable and had fewer accidents than
any other of the D&N's motive power, there was one accident that could
have been serious. On Sept. 5, 1934, when the Brill Car, with a load of
school pupils was about one mile north of Arena, it flipped over on its
left side. It happened at Lilly Pond and only the slow speed of the car
kept it from sliding or rolling into the pond. There was a pile of school
pupils, lunch pails, and books, but most of the kids were not even bruised
and were back in school the next day. The Brill Car fared well also. Within three days, after a checkup in
the shop, it was back in service. The old combination car, pulled by a
locomotive, was put in service for those three days. This accident was an
isolated incident. The car seldom decided to leave the tracks. It was more
trustworthy than any of the other Near the floor of the postal compartment there was an escape hatch,
just large enough for a man to get through to the driver's compartment.
There was never an accident when this had to be used. Whenever the Brill Car decided to go off the rails, it had a
disconcerting habit: the brake chain would go slack. There was nothing
anyone could do but sit it out until the car bumped to a stop. Harry
Odell, the regular postal clerk on the Gar, said he could tell when the
car gave a wrong kind of lurch that it was going to leave the rails. The Brill Car had a very loud air horn and the blasts from the horn
could bounce for miles along the mountains and valleys of the Delaware
River. The mountain masses and the width of the valleys seemed to have the
correct acoustical properties for relaying the sounds. It was said that
the early Dutch feared the rumble of thunder echoing through the
mountains, and that prevented them from settling this area until later.
One time the front-drive truck gave out completely and the railroad
secured one by running a want ad in Railroad magazine. The rails on
the D&N were mostly only 65-pound rail with replacement rails of
90-pound rail. Toward the end of the D&N the rails in some places
developed as much as four inch gaps. The wheels of the Brill Car were in
bad shape from slamming through such places. No one knows for sure where the faithful Brill Car disappeared to. It
was on a siding all by itself, without any tracks except those it was
standing on, after the abandonment of the road. It was said that Rosoff
refused to sell the Brill Car with the rest of the equipment. He wanted to
make it into a private rail car for his own use. After W orld War II, when
all the local people could settle down to normal life, they realized that
it was no longer there. "Must have been sold to another railroad," was the
best guess. The purchase of the Brill Car saved the railroad a lot of money over
all the years that it was in service. It was just a case of too little and
too late. In September of 1928, three of the road's biggest creditors joined
together to petition the Federal Court for permission to have the road
discontinued. They were the Pittsburgh & Shawmut Coal Company, the
Title Guarantee & Trust Company of Pittsburgh and J. J. Jermyn. All
had a lot of money invested in this railroad. Jermyn had had an interest
in the railroad from the very beginning. He was one of three men who helped plan the railroad in 1904. It was a sad day when J. J.
Jermyn no longer had any hope for this road. He had been a faithful friend
throughout all these years. On October 2, 1928, after a hearing in Albany,
N.Y., the ruling was that the road must be sold at public auction unless
the receivers could find someone to buy the road and continue to operate
it. Rosoff and the
D&N Sam Rosoff, a New York City subway contractor, bought the D&N,
taking charge on January 1, 1929. Mr. Rosoff reorganized the railroad,
changing the name from Delaware & Northern Railroad to Delaware &
Northern Railway Company. It still held the same name at the closing on
October 17, 1942. New York City, which was- chronically short of water, had built its
first great upstate reservoir at Ashokan in 1914. At that time 17 miles of
the Ulster & Delaware Railroad had to be relocated. In 1923 the Gilboa
Dam was built, and still the city needed more water. By 1928 almost
everyone along the Delaware Valley was talking about the dam to be built
on the East Branch. Test borings- had been made. People were speculating
on how far up a hillside the water from the new dam would come or how far
up a hollow the water would go. Some were hoping the new dam would take
their property, and some were swearing that they would never give up their
homes for a dam. It was rumored at the time that Rosoff had purchased the railroad in
hopes of landing a fat contract from New York City when the talked-of dam
at Downsville was started. President Welch had mentioned to Rosoff the
potential profitability of owning a railroad at the dam site, perhaps
hoping that somehow the railway could be kept operating a little longer.
As soon as Rosoff reorganized the railroad instead of dismantling it as
expected, the officials of New York City were quite upset. Rosoff had
moved before the politicians knew what was happening, and it was all his.
The newspapers reported everything that he planned or they thought he
might be planning. Of course he knew that New York City would have to
build the dam sooner or later. Owning the only railroad would allow him to underbid competitors for
the big job of building tunnels under the Catskills for the water to flow
through. He would be able to bring in all the heavy machinery by rail and
unload only a few feet from the tunnel he hoped to
dig. His nickname was "Subway Sam." New York City officials groaned as
they could see the $70,000 that he had paid for the road multiplied many
times over. At the very least the
city would have to buy and relocate the part of the railroad in the area
to be flooded by the reservoir. Only a few months after Rosoffs takeover, the stock market crash came,
and the nation was plunged into the worst Depression in its history. New
York could not take on the massive job of reservoir-building until the
economy improved, so both sides had to wait, not knowing that .the
Depression would continue for a decade and would be immediately followed
by another World War. All through the 1930s Rosoff poured a lot of his own money into the
railroad to keep it going. He seemed to enjoy owning his own little
D&N. Throughout the Depression, when employment was scarce, D&N
employees had jobs. New York City officials continued to feel nervous. They could see the
price going up every week, but they didn't have the money to act
immediately. Whatever his motives, Rosoff did make quite a lot of much
needed improvements. There were many carloads of The need for maintenance and repair continued. Floods in 1932 took out
part of the trestle at the north end of the Dry Brook bridge at Arkville.
In the spring of 1942 the flood waters again gave the D&N a lot of
trouble. The mud and stones that washed down the Finally, the city could no longer put off its plans to build a new
reservoir. The economy had improved, and it was evident that the U.S.
might get involved in the war in Europe, bringing a big increase in the
price of everything. New York City needed the water as soon as possible;
it had to get that railroad and build the dam. So in 1942 a settlement was
made, but by that During the last few days of the life of the D&N, one of the new
heavyweight, lOa-ton hopper cars arrived fully loaded with coal for a
customer on the D&N. The car was received at East Branch from the
Ontario & Western Railroad, but as soon as it rolled onto the
D&N's tracks, it began breaking rails. The D&N crew had to unload
the coal into smaller gondolas in order to deliver it to their customer.
October 17, 1942, was a sad day for many people from one end of the old
D&N to the other. Even the weather reflected the mood of the people at
the loss of their beloved road. It was a cloudy, rainy day and the
temperature only got to 44° at one o'clock in the afternoon. Motor car
#10, the Brill Car, made its last passenger run. Some of the men had
decorated it with bunting, placing an American flag on the rear of the
car. Among several people who took this last ride were Kate Lattin and
John Francisco. They had also made the trip on the first train to run over
the Delaware & Eastern in 1906. The workers returned sadly to their
homes, because to all intents and purposes their beloved D&N was now a
part of history. However there was one piece of unfinished business. A partly unloaded
box car stood on the siding at the GLF store at Margaretville. So the
Brill Car was brought out on Monday the 19th of October to haul the
now-empty box car to Arkville and transfer it to the U&D. The
D&N's usual luck still held true. Halfway to Arkville, the Brill Car
ran out of gas. Rosoff sold the 19 miles of the railroad that New York City needed for
$200,000, leaving him the rest of the road to sell for scrap. About 45,000
tons of iron was sold, at a high price, and was used to build weapons for
the war. At the same time, Rosoff was awarded a profitable contract to
construct 15 miles of tunnel for New York City, and another contract with
the U.S. Government to build the third set of locks for the Panama Canal.
The railroad stations were sold to the highest bidder and the land was
returned to the original owners. Rosoff probably made no money on the sale
of his railway, as he had put a lot of his own money into it every year
that he owned it. Had the railroad stayed in business just a little
longer, it probably would have been very busy. The war brought gasoline
rationing and a complete moratorium on the building of new trucks and cars
for civilian use, so once again as much freight as possible was shipped by
rail. The Pep acton Dam was begun right after World War II and was
finished by 1955. New York City tore up the part of the railroad it had
purchased, which by this time would have required major repairs. By the
time construction began it was more economical to use trucks to transport
the material needed to build the dam. A railroad lives and dies just like the people that it serves. Some
live a long time and others die young. The D&N inspired a lot of local
pride in all the towns that it served. It filled a great need of the
people of the Delaware Valley who loved their railroad. It is gone but not
forgotten. Works
Cited Horton, Gertrude Fitch. The Delaware & Northern and the Towns
It Served. Fleischmanns, NY: Purple Mountain, 1989. Print.
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