New York, Ontario & Western Railway HO Scale Models

The New York, Ontario and Western Railway traced its origins to the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad, chartered in 1866 under the guiding vision of DeWitt C. Littlejohn of Oswego, New York, who sought to create a direct rail connection between the docks opposite New York City and the port of Oswego on Lake Ontario. Construction on the northern portions of the line began in 1868 and was completed in 1873, though the enterprise was badly shaken by the financial panic of that same year. The railroad reorganized and emerged in 1880 as the New York, Ontario and Western Railway, which set about improving its predecessor's infrastructure and secured trackage rights over what would eventually become part of the New York Central system's West Shore line, allowing the O&W to reach a terminal at Weehawken, New Jersey, directly across the Hudson River from New York City. Over the following decade the O&W expanded aggressively. In 1886 it absorbed operations of the Utica, Clinton and Binghamton and the Rome and Clinton railroads from the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, extending its reach into central New York and establishing seasonal resort traffic along Oneida Lake at Sylvan Beach. The most consequential expansion came in 1890 with the completion of a roughly 54-mile branch running from Cadosia, New York, south through Carbondale to Scranton, Pennsylvania, placing the O&W squarely in the anthracite coal trade. Revenue from this Scranton Division sustained the railroad through difficult periods and financed further infrastructure improvements. At its fullest extent the system served branch lines reaching Kingston, Port Jervis, Monticello, Delhi, Utica, Rome, and Scranton, in addition to the main stem running from Weehawken to Oswego. Despite these ambitions, the O&W was perpetually hampered by its geography and traffic base. The railroad served a relatively sparse population corridor with limited industrial development outside of the coal trade, and it faced stiff competition from larger and better-capitalized systems surrounding it. As the twentieth century progressed, the shift away from anthracite coal as a domestic heating fuel devastated freight revenues, while improved highways eroded both passenger ridership and dairy freight that had once moved from upstate farms to New York City markets. Passenger service contracted steadily through the 1940s, with the last passenger train operating between Roscoe and Weehawken on September 10, 1953. By 1948 the accumulated operating losses had surpassed thirty-eight million dollars. An offer from the New Haven Railroad to purchase the property in 1952 was ultimately withdrawn, and state legislative efforts to provide emergency funding came to nothing. A federal bankruptcy court ordered the complete abandonment of the railroad, and the final freight train operated between Norwich and Middletown on March 29, 1957. The O&W holds the distinction of being the first Class I railroad in the United States to be abandoned in its entirety. Scrap dealers purchased the right-of-way and removed virtually all rail and bridges by 1959. Certain segments were transferred to neighboring carriers before operations ceased, with the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western receiving trackage in the Utica area, Norwich, and Scranton, and the New York Central absorbing sections between Fulton and Oswego as well as portions in Rome, Oneida, and Kingston. Some former O&W corridor has since been converted to recreational trail use, and isolated sections of track in the New Hartford area remained in service decades later under the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway.