Hoosac Tunnel to Troy, NY

Hello all,
I'm looking into the history of the Hoosac Tunnel and the Fitchburg Railroad line that ran through the tunnel eventually reaching Troy. I believe this section of the railroad was called the Troy and Boston Railroad, from Troy to the Vermont line.
I particularly interested in how cargo made the transition from the Erie canal to the Troy and Boston Railroad, and where that occured. Anyone have any thoughts on where I might find that out?
Looking at 19th century maps of Troy I don't see a rail line coming onto the city from the north, where it would have had to come from if connecting to the Fitchburgh line.
On current maps I do see an old line that dies in a corn field north of troy.

History of the Hoosac Tunnel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoosac_Tunnel


History of the Fitchburg Railroad that would become the B&M across Massachusetts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitchburg_Railroad

You may also want to look at the softback book, "A Pinprick of Light" (forgot the author's name), which details the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel.

The author of "A Pinprick of Light" was Carl R. Byron. The book was published by The New England Press, Shelburne, Vermont, which is evidently now defunct. This book was expanded and revised from a book published by Stephen Greene Press in 1978. The copyright on the current version is 1995, and the ISBN is 1-881535-17-7. It is 144 pages long and has over 90 pictures and drawings. It's a fascinating read. The price back in 1995 was $16.95; it is now available through Amazon for prices ranging from $35 to over $200!

-John

I'd also suggest contacting the Rensselaer County Historical Society at http://www.rchsonline.org/, and/or the History department at RPI (http://www.rpi.edu).

an I suppose you've already seen http://www.hoosactunnel.net/

If you can get your hands on Delorme's New York Atlas and Gazetteer, you can trace the Troy & Boston (B&M)'s old main line from Valley Falls down through Melrose to Troy. I rode on it a number of times when I was a kid in the '50s. Passenger service was discontinued in 1958, and the rails between Hoosick Falls and Troy were taken up around 1973. The section from Lansingburgh to downtown Troy is now a paved bike trail.

Freight transfer from the Erie Canal is a question that never occurred to me. My guess is that freight would have been transferred downriver from Cohoes or Waterford to some point on the Hudson just south of downtown Troy. After the B&M absorbed the Troy & Boston --- actually, I assume the Fitchburg bought or leased it prior to that --- transfers may have been done at Rotterdam, where the railroad ended near the canal.

That roadbed disappearing into the cornfield is the old Albany Northern, which was built in the 1840s but survived only about 20 years. From what little info. I've read on it --- and there is precious little --- It crossed the river north of Lansingburgh across a big trestle that was probably rather crude by later standards. A spring ice floe took it out, and it was never rebuilt. You can also trace this line in the Delorme. I've been near the spot where I think it crossed the river, but I didn't see any remains of abutments. I think the line may have predated the T&B. I'd love to hike it sometime.

Thanks for the great information. I was doing some digging yesterday, and found that union station in Troy serviced the Troy & Boston railroad north out of the city. Apparently a very active line, one report from 1860 mentioned a packed train, many of whom were heading to Williams College. You can see the bike trail that trainsinmaine mentioned on google maps. You can follow that line all the way to valley falls where it joined the main fitchburg line toward Vermont and MA. I'm still no closer to discovering the location where cargo was transfered from the canal barges to the east bound trains. Trainsinmaine's suggestions make sense to me, but I was hoping to see some remaining infrastructure - probably wishful thinking after visitng south troy last week and seeing what is left there. Some of the folks who work the heritage site on the canal in Waterford might be able to help with a definite location.

The B&M down to Troy was inland of the Hudson River & would not have any transfer facilities. Only the D&H crossed the Hudson at Green Island.

Did the B&M/T&B get freight from the Eire Canal? And what freight would it be? Grain moving east from Buffalo & the Great Lakes would most likely go to the Port of Albany or NY City for export or local use.
Salt, which did go by barge in the Syracuse & Rochester area probably would have been loaded at the mine directly into cars.

It would make more sense to directly load a railroad car at the source of the commodity than incurring the transload cost and building the transload facility.

The T&B connected with the NY Central and West Shore which paralleled the Canal and made the Canal un-competitive for most goods within 15 years of its 1825 completion - as the railroads did with most canals.

I guess my question would be "Did the T&B interchange with the Erie Canal at all?"

Just because the T&B was on the east bank of the Hudson and the Erie Canal was on the west bank, it doesn't mean they could not have interchanged.

Canal's often used bridges called "change bridges" to cross rivers or change the tow path from one side to another. There was a change bridge to allow the Erie and Champlain canals to meet, as the they were on opposite sides of the Hudson.

If you can track down the history of change bridges in Waterford and Troy, you may find answers about likely locations of interchange.

However, you should also look at the dams and slackwater operations in Troy. You may find that canal boats crossed the Hudson in slackwater, without mule power.

CannaScrews wrote:The B&M down to Troy was inland of the Hudson River & would not have any transfer facilities. Only the D&H crossed the Hudson at Green Island.

Did the B&M/T&B get freight from the Eire Canal? And what freight would it be? Grain moving east from Buffalo & the Great Lakes would most likely go to the Port of Albany or NY City for export or local use.
Salt, which did go by barge in the Syracuse & Rochester area probably would have been loaded at the mine directly into cars.

It would make more sense to directly load a railroad car at the source of the commodity than incurring the transload cost and building the transload facility.

The T&B connected with the NY Central and West Shore which paralleled the Canal and made the Canal un-competitive for most goods within 15 years of its 1825 completion - as the railroads did with most canals.

I guess my question would be "Did the T&B interchange with the Erie Canal at all?"

That would be my question, too. By the time the Hoosac Tunnel was actually completed, in 1875, the rail network was well enough established that canal/rail transload at Troy would have been unlikely since most of the goods on the canal were lower-value bulk freight (salt, grain, etc.) There certainly doesn't seem to any evidence of wharfside trackage in Troy on the 1893 USGS section map on historical.mytopo.com.

When the T&B was first opened in 1859, I'd think it more likely that any interchange at Troy would have been with regular Hudson River vessels rather than the Erie Canal per se- which probably would have been accomplished by drayage through the streets of the town.

I'm curious as to why the Fitchburg didn't go through Schenectady enroute to its terminus in Rotterdam, rather than routing out through what was then the puckerbrush of Scotia. Could it have been because the D&H was there first and wouldn't give it access? Does anyone out there have an answer?

Maybe the reason is as old as the hills: the hills. Looking for a relatively low grade and lower-cost ROW would have been a major determinant. East of Mechanicville, in particular, the search would have been for a relatively economic crossing of the Hudson, based on approach topography and riverbed conditions. West of Mechanicville, Rotterdam Junction may be CSX now and earlier Conrail and PC and NYC, but before those entities, it was the West Shore Railroad, the Fitchburg's then-non-competitive connection to the west. It was probably superb economic/political sense to have a ROW alignment with the D&H west of Mechanicville, both because the D&H had done the surveying and because the D&H was a connection for coal and other traffic.
Troy was a primarily passenger operation with NYC connections to and from the west. When passenger service ended there, the Troy-Johnsonville line did a quick vanishing act.

jaymac wrote:Maybe the reason is as old as the hills: the hills. Looking for a relatively low grade and lower-cost ROW would have been a major determinant. East of Mechanicville, in particular, the search would have been for a relatively economic crossing of the Hudson, based on approach topography and riverbed conditions. West of Mechanicville, Rotterdam Junction may be CSX now and earlier Conrail and PC and NYC, but before those entities, it was the West Shore Railroad, the Fitchburg's then-non-competitive connection to the west. It was probably superb economic/political sense to have a ROW alignment with the D&H west of Mechanicville, both because the D&H had done the surveying and because the D&H was a connection for coal and other traffic.
Troy was a primarily passenger operation with NYC connections to and from the west. When passenger service ended there, the Troy-Johnsonville line did a quick vanishing act.

That is the answer. The history of the whole route is convoluted, but the simple version is that the Vanderbilt-owned New York Central was allied to the Boston & Albany, which in turn did its damndest to kill the Hoosac Tunnel route even before it was completed. Thus whoever operated through the tunnel would want a connection with a non-Vanderbilt road on the west. As Jaymac says, the West Shore-- the New York, West Shore & Buffalo-- was a competitor of the Central and would give the Fitchburg access to the west via connections at Buffalo/Niagara Falls with the Pennsylvania, the Nickel Plate, and the Grand Trunk.

Ultimately the West Shore, which had fallen into the hands of the Pennsylvania, was sold to the Central in 1885 in return for the Central's abandoning construction of the South Pennsylvania Railroad (now the route of the Pennsylvania Turnpike), in a deal basically forced upon the companies by J. Pierpont Morgan (who wasn't a fan of wasteful competition)... leaving the Hoosac Tunnel Route right back where it started in terms of a western connection.

Ahh yes, the SoPa, Pensylfania's own version of New England's SNE! Ultimately, Morgan was a contributor to the demise of both.