by lvrr325
Today's NYS&W is bascially the modern NYO&W - it connects New York City with no place particularly special, or that isn't already well served by another railroad. The reason it was able to be successful in the 1980s was in part through fooling Conrail - letting them connect the former DL&W branches with the existing RR, via haulage and eventually trackage rights - and in part because with the D&H and CSX there was, at first, a complete alternate route for those stacks to run into Little Ferry.
It also was completely independent at that time.
Today, NS and CSX have their means to control the NYS&W, to prevent any such thing from happening again - which in and of itself would require a small miracle, since with CP giving up their rights to Buffalo, there really is no place to connect to. At the least they'd have to reach Hornell and the WNY&P to be able to get anyplace else west, but you'd have to patch together one hell of a network of shortlines and regional roads to get far enough west to have any meaningful connection, and by the time you did the rates would be so divided out it's not likely anyone would make much money that way. (perhaps WNY&P to a B&P connection and in Pittsburgh connect to the W&LE, and that would get you far enough to connect to the Fort Wayne & Eastern and get you to Chicago?)
And then you'd need some kind of traffic to haul, to boot.
It also was completely independent at that time.
Today, NS and CSX have their means to control the NYS&W, to prevent any such thing from happening again - which in and of itself would require a small miracle, since with CP giving up their rights to Buffalo, there really is no place to connect to. At the least they'd have to reach Hornell and the WNY&P to be able to get anyplace else west, but you'd have to patch together one hell of a network of shortlines and regional roads to get far enough west to have any meaningful connection, and by the time you did the rates would be so divided out it's not likely anyone would make much money that way. (perhaps WNY&P to a B&P connection and in Pittsburgh connect to the W&LE, and that would get you far enough to connect to the Fort Wayne & Eastern and get you to Chicago?)
And then you'd need some kind of traffic to haul, to boot.