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Discussion relating to the D&H. For more information, please visit the Bridge Line Historical Society.

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 #733579  by GulfRail
 
I was looking up "Delaware & Hudson Stock Certificates" on google when this came out:

http://www.scripophily.net/deandhucode.html

It says that the companies name was changed to "Champlain National Corporation." I have read that the Delaware & Hudson Railroad was just one of the D&H Co.'s subsidiaries, and I even remember a trains magazine stating that the D&H Co. sold the railroad to DERECO. In other words, the remaining non-rail assets possessed by the company would have continued separate from the DERECO operation the Delaware & Hudson Railway, so a new company name would be needed. I tried looking up "Champlain National Corporation," but I couldn't find anything. The was an organization known as "Champlain National Bank," but I doubt that they have anything to do with the former D&H Company. (I even checked their corporate history page, they never mentioned about being founded in 1823 or having a railroad and coal subsidiary, not to mention, they are privately held) Could anyone help me? This should be an interesting topic that will require a little bit of detective work.
 #745771  by ChiefTroll
 
Until July 1, 1968, The Delaware and Hudson Railroad Corporation was a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Delaware and Hudson Company. By that time, the coal mining subsidiary of The D&H Co., Hudson Coal, had been sold to Glen Alden Coal Co, so most of the assets of The D&H Co. were in The D&H RR Corp.

Effective 12:01 a.m. on July 1, 1968, the railroad properties of The D&H RR Corp. were sold outright to Delaware and Hudson Railway Company (no "The"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dereco, Inc. The railroad assets included the D&H interest in the Wilkes-Barre Connecting Railroad Co, the Greenwich and Johnsonville Railroad Co., Hudson River Estates Corp (a real estate holding company) and everything else related to railroads. The "Personal" property (in other words, not real estate as in land and improvements, but locomotives, cars, paper, fuel, maintenance equipment and all that) was included in the sale. Because of sales tax laws in New York State, sales tax was paid on every one of those items located in the state, so the D&H moved much of that rolling stock and equipment to Pennsylvania a few days before the sale. For a few days you would have thought it was the Erie Lackawanna Railway in New York State, because EL power was all over the D&H in New York.

Dereco also got the rights to the Delaware and Hudson name, so the two former D&H organizations changed their names to Champlain National Company (The D&H Company) and Champlain National Corporation (The D&H Railroad Corporation). I never followed the fortunes of Champlain National, but I heard that they bought International House of Pancakes and a fish cannery on the west coast. They seem to have dropped from the radar screen, either by acquisition, merger or some other nefarious scheme.

Gordon Davids
 #747066  by Bob Sandusky
 
This type of thing happened a lot during the Savings and Loan Crisis of the 1980s. The major assets are sold off (in this case the railroad) and residual corporations are created to liquidate or manage any remaining assets. Sometimes they can linger on for years.

KeyBank had one that handled real estate owned by its predecessor bank that survived into the the early part of this decade. It finally died a natural death when the last of the assets it held were fully depreciated or sold off. Since it was a privately held and wholly owned sub of Key no one outside the (and I think less than 50 people inside) company knew it ever existed.

You are probably dealing with a similar situation particularly since the government got involved in the liquidation of the company. I must have seen a similar thing happen during a dozen bank turnovers. Sometimes the "company" existed only as a file in some attorney's office with the attorney being all of the company's officers.
 #763866  by GulfRail
 
ChiefTroll wrote:Until July 1, 1968, The Delaware and Hudson Railroad Corporation was a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Delaware and Hudson Company. By that time, the coal mining subsidiary of The D&H Co., Hudson Coal, had been sold to Glen Alden Coal Co, so most of the assets of The D&H Co. were in The D&H RR Corp.

Effective 12:01 a.m. on July 1, 1968, the railroad properties of The D&H RR Corp. were sold outright to Delaware and Hudson Railway Company (no "The"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dereco, Inc. The railroad assets included the D&H interest in the Wilkes-Barre Connecting Railroad Co, the Greenwich and Johnsonville Railroad Co., Hudson River Estates Corp (a real estate holding company) and everything else related to railroads. The "Personal" property (in other words, not real estate as in land and improvements, but locomotives, cars, paper, fuel, maintenance equipment and all that) was included in the sale. Because of sales tax laws in New York State, sales tax was paid on every one of those items located in the state, so the D&H moved much of that rolling stock and equipment to Pennsylvania a few days before the sale. For a few days you would have thought it was the Erie Lackawanna Railway in New York State, because EL power was all over the D&H in New York.

Dereco also got the rights to the Delaware and Hudson name, so the two former D&H organizations changed their names to Champlain National Company (The D&H Company) and Champlain National Corporation (The D&H Railroad Corporation). I never followed the fortunes of Champlain National, but I heard that they bought International House of Pancakes and a fish cannery on the west coast. They seem to have dropped from the radar screen, either by acquisition, merger or some other nefarious scheme.

Gordon Davids
Wow! That's alot of information! Thanks Alot! :wink:
 #802301  by Engineer Spike
 
The other day at work, someone was talking about Buck Dumaine's scheme to connect/merge his railroading enterprises together. Apparently he got out voted and the shareholders elected to sell to N&W (Dereco). Someone else was talking about the Hudson Estates. I wouldn't be surprised if that is still a Guilford holding.
 #1083477  by staustell92
 
It has only been 2+ years since there was last a comment on this discussion, so perhaps it's not too late for more comment and questions.

I have been having a discussion with a friend about whether the D&H Building in Albany (now the headquarters of the State University of New York) was ever the corporate headquarters or simply the operational headquarters. It may seem like this is a discussion of splitting hairs, but the point has been made in the context of the Delaware & Hudson Company (and its subsidiary, the Delaware & Hudson Railroad Corporation) becoming the Chaplain National Company (and its subsidiary, the Chaplain National Corporation) that there was a Delaware & Hudson Company and then there was a Delaware & Hudson Railroad Corporation, the latter one actually operating the railroad.

According to L.F. Loree's history of the D&H, "A Century of Progress" (published in 1923), the original company name was changed in 1899 from the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company to the Delaware & Hudson Company. From Loree's account, the first office building for the D&H Canal Company was at 13 Wall St. in Manhattan. That property was sold in 1832 and the company apparently operated out of leased quarters at various locations in lower Manahttan until 1876, when it built an office building at 21 Cortlandt St. That property was sold in 1906 and the comapny moved to leased space in the Mutual Life Building at 32 Nassau St. in Manhattan.

Do we know if the Delaware & Hudson Company ever again owned an office building in Manhattan? Where was the corporate headquarters when Buck Dumaine was President? Was the corporate headquarters in Albany (the "D&H Building") at the time Dereco took over? I think I recall seeing Delaware & Hudson ads in Railway Age years ago which listed a Manhattan address, but I may have that confused with the American Locomotive Company. I may have seen a New York address on D&H Annual Reports from the 1940's, but donated those to a library and don't have them readily available to check.

This may seem like trivia to some, but it is Delaware & Hudson history and most people, when they talk about the D&H and the D&H Building, don't really know much, if anything, about the parent company and its headquarters.
 #1084133  by ChiefTroll
 
In 1930, the corporate offices of The Delaware and Hudson Company were still at 32 Nassau Street. The Delaware and Hudson Railroad Corporation was organized that year, and its corporate offices were in the same location as the parent D&H Co. By 1946, the corporate offices had been moved to 230 Park Ave, the New York Central Building which was owned by the NYCRR and also included offices of some other railroads. The operating headquarters of the D&H Railroad had been in Albany since long before the D&H building was completed in 1915.

From my memory, it was around 1959 that the corporate offices of both The D&H Co. and The D&H RR Corp. were moved from 230 Park Ave to the D&H Building in Albany. William White was still Chairman of the Board, and he was also serving Erie Lackawanna as Chairman. He kept a New York office at 250 Park Ave, north of 230 Park. When I worked in the D&H Engineering Department 1966-1972, Engineering and most of the other operating departments were on the fourth floor. We had a great view of the NYC passenger operations from the drafting room windows.

The corporate and operating HQ remained in the D&H Building until about 1974, when they moved to Beaver Street and the train dispatchers went to Colonie Yard Office.

- Gordon Davids
 #1117294  by Engineer Spike
 
You can get some of your information by looking on the Secratary of State websites for NYS, and possibly Delaware, since they are a corporation friendly state. Look up Delaware and Hudson and Champlain National.
 #1117339  by ChiefTroll
 
The Delaware and Hudson Company and The Delaware and Hudson Railroad Corporation were both Delaware corporations for many years before the 1968 sale. I don't recall what year they were incorporated in Delaware. That was common among many corporations, including the New York Central Railroad Company.

- Gordon Davids
 #1120089  by Engineer Spike
 
I looked on the NYS S of S site, and it had Champlain National listed due to being a foreign corporation doing business in New York. It also had various Delaware and Hudson entities, such as the original D&H RR, as well as Dereco, and CP versions. The bankruptsy likely had something to do with one change, so that the debtor corporation could be distinguished from the new one, which CP owns.