What if...railroading started from scratch in NY State...

If no railroads existed in NY what would private enterprise build? Assume that railroad builders can raise funds at market rates build what they want where they want but have to pay today's prices to build.

I will submit my own list:

1) The "water level route" which would follow the NY Thruway from PA to the edge of Buffalo across NY to the west side of the Hudson and then down to the NJ border on the route of former West Shore. This would be the main trunk line in NY State. Branches would be built as needed into Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, etc. and to the NY/MA border to connect with the line to Boston.

2) A second line from near Albany to Binghamton and possibly Elmira along the route of the former D&H and part of the Southern Tier line.

3)Three passenger lines from GCT to Peekskill, SouthEast in NY and a line to Port Chester that would continue probably to Bridgeport CT.

Metro North service to Port Jervis would not be built and other freight lines wouldn't be built. Amtrak would not exist.

I doubt any would be built. The rails along the Hudson would not for the fact that the Hudson would be disturbed by fill. Anything else would cut across wetlands and backyards, which would keep them from ever getting off the ground. That and the tax structure in this state would drive investors away.

Railroads would be built much like they were 150 years ago- connecting the major markets of the day, following natural valleys and water courses, avoiding mountain crossings wherever possible. But what are you getting at? The premise that no railroads would exist in New York State until these lines were built is a little far-fetched. Are you really asking what you think the important trunk lines of this state are?

-otto-

New York City would bitch that they aren't getting their fair share of the railroad budget, a state court would order the State of New York to appease them, and the city would fund a survey that concludes that they need another $50 billion.

Tax assessment in NYC would be predatory, like NJ. RR property taxes would be determined by the number of spikes installed in the ROW. Sheldon Silver would be the lone holdout of the "three men in a room budget" mob who would refuse to give the RRs relief.

The standard rail width would be five feet six and 27/64 inches, deviating from the rest of the nation and confounding GE and EMD.

Tollbooths would be present every ten miles, NYS residents carry a card that tallies as the train passes the tollbooths. Every station would have Krispy Kreme and Burger King stores with inflated prices.

Letting of contracts for rail construction to a single bidder would violate state fair competition regulations. Ligitation from corruption through lobbyists would delay construction contracts for ten years.

State labor laws would require that every train carry an engineer, a fireman, a brakeman, and a Barnum-and-Bailey circus clown.

RR Police would confiscate cameras from railfans and take lollipops from children waving to clowns on the trains.

The water level route doesn't build high enough above tidewater along the Hudson. Freight is transferred to canalboats. Passengers are given kayaks and paddles to complete their journey.

The West Shore would cross the State Thruway at grade every five miles with 20 mph speed restrictions for long trains.

The NYO&W would be a state railroad and their route would be a snake route with multiple switchbacks and inclined planes.

The architecture of Grand Central Station would be influenced by the AmShack.

All of the RRs in the state would fail and would be consolidated into a state system called PatakiRail. It would be funded by lottery games which are expanded into high school cafeterias. The paint scheme for the new RR would be patterned after Thomas the Tank Engine.

The native indians would reclaim their land, which inconveniently encompasses the D&H ROW.

Alco Schenectady would be resurrected. They would build locomotives for the state passenger Albany-NYC corridor using salvaged Brill doodlebugs to be converted to natural gas propulsion to line the pockets of NiMO or NYSEG. The star train would be christened "The Lobbyists Limited".

I'm not showing my cynicism to NYS am I?

I have to agree with JBlaisdell that no line would be built. With filing of environmental impact statements, local permits and dealing with NIMBY's in every town, village and city , one would not ever see any rail laid. Plus with the way taxes are in this state, who would invest in such a venture.
Have the government build it. With the looming state budget crisis and the present crisis in Erie County soon to be followed by the other counties, you would see a taxpayer revolt.

Let's face it. Today there would probably be no railroads built if all were done from scratch. Petroleum based asphalt would be smeared evenly from the Hudson to Lake Erie with intemittent gas pumps set upon concrete islands every 25 miles or so. There would be only 6 counties upstate: GM, Ford, Chrysler, Mack, Peterbuiltl, and Import. Traffic lights, if any, would be supplied by Texas Instruments, and police patrols would be Texas Rangers.

One has to look at RRs and how they came to be. They were, in a sense, the interstate highway of their day (early 1800's). They allowed the rapid movement of freight at a rate far cheaper than wagons. In fact, the Boston and Albany RR was built to keep Massachusetts goods in the state. Western Mass farmers were sending produce to Albany by wagon or down the Hudson and Housatonic to NYC because it was a shorter haul and water travel costs were next to nothing.

Given today's economic and environmental situations, I doubt any RRs would be built. The sheer economic outlay for real estate would be immense. Remember, most of the land developed by RRs was open, even into the 1900's. RR's are efficient at moving bulky loads, but if they did not exist other methods could be used.

With the way things look in NY if railroads were to be built today insted of long ago. Face it roads would be the only methed of movement. Rivers and Barge transport are ok but it won't do much here in the north when winter sets in and roads are next to being impassable on occation.

I'd side with there never being a new ROW in NY. It ought to be justification to keep from ripping up any that are in existance now- but it won't.

Tom H>

Sorry guys, the very first premise is where this idea falls flat on its face.
If the railroads had not developed, there would still be no Buffalo or NY City as we know it.

Commerce evolved in these cities because the RR was developed as it did.

We would still be using the canal systems. and we would still be in the dark ages of oil lamps and flint lock rifles. No cars and trucks, no Thruway. The mighty power of steam and rail led the parade. Without all that the rail barons did we would not be fretting the failed government that we try to cope with today.

Isn't it great to fantasize?

..it was the Erie Canal that gave places like Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse a kick if even only 10 to 20 years ahead of the railroad. Remember, too, the Erie Railroad went west from the Hudson as as short cut to Lake Erie and its charter did not allow it to go into any other state. The D&H canal forced it across the Delaware River into PA for a short distance as did the formidable mountains between the Delaware and Susquehanna watersheds. By the time it was complete the Canal had made Buffalo important. The DL came up to deliver rails to the Erie and later coal to the Erie railroad and the Erie canal via Ithaca and Cayuga Lake. As time went on, other coal region rail was laid north from PA.

Don't get me wrong The Erie Canal did serve the state well for a time but even by todays standers I don't think anyone would want to waste the time keeping ice brakers on it even if the railroads never passed though here. The New York State Threw Way Athority runs the Canal Systems in NY they run the rivers like its a road with no idea of what there doing. The state should have sold it to a private firm to run the canal system.

In all ways the Railroad has an important roll to play. If you think about it the St. Lawrence Sea Way and the Great Lakes shipping season shuts down from November to early March. The Railroads gain a major roll in keeping Iron Ore, Coal, Salt, and Grain on the move when outher competeing modes of transport are closed. Shipping dose keep moveing in the winter months with coal from Wisconson to Sarnia, Ontario with mostley coal but a trip that may only take a a few days to do by ship may take longer with Ice jams and one of 4 ice brakers (2 U.S., 2 Canadian) on call to lead.

...seasonal availabilty of the St. Lawrence Seaway-Great Lakes that keeps the railroads from being viable. The cost of keeping equipment and plant in oprating shape to be used only, say, Nov 15-March 15--about 5 out of 12 months, drives the railroads out of the business.

Also, we, today, cannot begin to undrstand the commercial value of the Erie Canal of 1825-1850. Yes the railroads deminished its value but its inception really opened up the "west" to development and made NYC the prominant port it became. And it was not the railroads that pulled the port down but the St. Lawerence Seaway. The airplane, especially jet services, pulled the trans Atlantic passenger plug. Only in the last 15 -20 years with expansion of containers, the enlargement of the ships, and the need to access the opposite coast's water, has the NY port re-emerged and that via much of NJ!

I think NY State would have one trunk line which would form part of a coast to coast system. The line would mostly occupy the same right of way as the NYS Thruway from the PA border (near Erie) to near Albany and then down to near the Tappan Zee in Rockland Co. This line would skirt the cities just as the Thruway does.

Getting the line closer to NYC or Newark would be a problem, but a train/truck terminal could be built somewhere in Rockland Co. (could the Tappan Zee and Hudson down to NY be dredged to accomodate container ships?)

This answers most of the NIMBY issues. The Thruway right of way is already shared by the NY St. Power Auth. and at least one gas transmission line. Adjacent landowners are often glad. I personally owned some swampland in Henrietta NY (adjacent to the Thruway) where the Power Auth and Empire State Pipeline bought easements.

Things do get built. I remember in NJ when gaps existed in I-78 and I-287 and NIMBYs fought for years, but the roads were eventually completed.

The Metro North Lines would probably not be built. As other's have noted, it is easier lay asphalt.

...because for the past 40 or so years I have been driving between North Jersey and The Southern Tier of NY by every imaginable road combinations possible. What has amazed me is what the canal builders and railrod builders did back in the early 1800's with the skills and equipment they had: over coming grades, leaping valleys, going left and/or right, getting the railroad built from where they were to where they wanted to go. A single 0-4-0 could barely pull a child's wagon back then. Today, 6000hp of diesel electric power zips mile long trains at incredible speeds. A 2% grade back then posed super operating problems. Today super power make mole hills out of mountains. Pick and shovel vs giant power shovels, etc. Today's technology certainly would have put the Erie in a more direct line to Lake Erie be it straightening curves, overlapping rivers and canals, or blasting through a mountain or two. And probaly the same could be said of the NYC Water Level route. Draw a straight line from Albany to Buffalo or Utica to Buffalo. See what cities would not have been and others that would be more. But when I drive along the Delaware today I marvel at what they did with the D&H canal and the Erie Railroad. Over the Poconos and imagine what the DL&W people were doing back the 1840s climbing up and then down while the LV and CNJ forces criscrossed rivers, streams, mountains, and each othre. Up north, the U&D people thought they figured it out through the Catskills. And in the Mowhawk Valley they were putting ends of track together like a neighborhood of Lionel track to reach from the Hudson to Lake Erie. Boy did those engineers and contractors do a great job!