The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (or New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad and also known as the Susie-Q or the Susquehanna) is a Class II American freight

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

operating over 400 miles (645 km) of track in the northeastern U.S. states of New York,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, and

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

. The railroad was formed in 1881 from the merger of several smaller railroads. Passenger service in northern New Jersey was offered until 1966. The railroad was purchased by the Delaware Otsego Corporation in 1980, and saw success during the 1980s and 1990s in the intermodal freight transport business. The railroad uses three main routes: a Southern Division running from Jersey City, New Jersey to

Binghamton, New York Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflu ...

and a Northern Division formed by two branches north of Binghamton serving Utica and Syracuse. The Utica Branch is notable for

street running A street running train is a train which runs on a track built on public streets. The rails are embedded in the roadway, and the train shares the street with other users, such as pedestrians, cars and cyclists, thus often being referred to as ru ...

down the center of Schuyler Street.

History

Before the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway

The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway can trace its roots back to the failed New Jersey, Hudson & Delaware Railroad (NJH&D), chartered in 1832 to connect industrial Paterson, New Jersey, east to the ports along the Hudson Waterfront opposite

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

at Hoboken and west to Pennsylvania at the Delaware Water Gap. Several competing companies sprang up in 1867 to make routes through this corridor, but the New Jersey Western Railroad (NJW) was the most successful, constructing westward from Paterson and Hawthorne. In 1866, the

New York and Oswego Midland Railroad New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

(NY&OM) was chartered to connect the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

port at Oswego, New York, with New York City. Construction on the NY&OM started in 1868 and progressed rapidly. The creation of this company prompted the NJW to shift its focus towards connecting to this route. Cornelius Wortendyke, president of the NJW, signed a lease agreement with DeWitt Clinton Littlejohn of the NY&OM giving his road a through route into New Jersey. Construction on the NJW had stretched from Hackensack, New Jersey all the way through to Hanford by the time it changed its name to the New Jersey Midland Railway (NJM) in 1870 and consolidated with three other competing companies, including the NJH&D.Krause, John, New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad, Carstens Publications, 1991, p. 5 The NY&OM reached Middletown, New York, and leased the connecting Middletown, Unionville and Water Gap Railroad (MU&WG), which reached the NJM at Hanford. The last stretch of construction from Hackensack to Jersey City completed the NJM in 1872. The first through train from Oswego to Jersey City operated on July 9, 1873. While the goals of the two partners had been reached, the Panic of 1873 caused financial ruin for both companies. The NY&OM suspended lease payments, and the agreement was broken. The NY&OM was reorganized as the New York, Ontario and Western Railway in 1879, and went its separate way. The NJM took over the lease of the MU&WG as well. Unable to weather the financial storm, the NJM was put into

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in c ...

in 1875. In 1880, the NJM was reorganized as the New Jersey Midland Railroad (NJM), and attention was once again turned to the lucrative coal fields of eastern Pennsylvania.

Formation and as an independent railroad

In 1881, the New Jersey Midland Railroad was consolidated with five other railroads to form the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway. The new New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway had extended west to Gravel Place, Pennsylvania, and a connection with the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railway (DL&W). The NYS&W also had a connection to the DL&W at Delaware, New Jersey via the

Blairstown Railway {{Blairstown Railway The Blairstown Railway (BRWY) opened in 1877 and ran between Blairstown and Delaware, New Jersey, a distance of approximately 12 miles (19 km). The single-track railroad was built under the direction of railroad magnat ...

. Due to the increased volume of traffic, the railroad was double-tracked from Paterson to Jersey City in 1887. To reach the

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

on the Hudson River waterfront, traffic was handed off to the Pennsylvania Railroad at Marion Junction via the Hudson Connecting Railway. To keep more of the line haul revenue for themselves, the Susquehanna extended their line from their

Little Ferry Yard Little Ferry Yard is a railyard and intermodal terminal in the Port of New York and New Jersey served by the CSX River Subdivision (CSXT), New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (NYSW), Norfolk Southern Railway and Conrail Shared Assets Operati ...

through the new Palisades Tunnel to a new terminal at Edgewater where they had constructed coal docks for transfer from train to boat in 1892. The NYSW also reached west of the Delaware River and leased the Wilkes-Barre and Eastern Railroad to access the Scranton area directly and divert traffic away from the Lackawanna. American financier

J.P. Morgan JP may refer to: Arts and media * ''JP'' (album), 2001, by American singer Jesse Powell * ''Jp'' (magazine), an American Jeep magazine * ''Jönköpings-Posten'', a Swedish newspaper * Judas Priest, an English heavy metal band * ''Jurassic Par ...

began to take notice of this rapidly expanding coal-hauler, and quietly bought up its stock on behalf of the

Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the northeastern United States, originally connecting New York City — more specifically Jersey City, New Jersey, where Erie's Pavonia Terminal, long demolished, used to stand — with Lake ...

. The railroad was leased in 1898 by the Erie, which soon after took over complete operation of the line.Robert E. Mohowski (2003). ''The New York Susquehanna & Western Railroad''. The Johns Hopkins University Press. The NYS&W was reported as the first Class I railroad in the US to completely replace its

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the loco ...

s with internal combustion motive power, in the form of diesel electric locomotives, in early June 1945. By that time the railroad was profitably operating a suburban commuter passenger service across New Jersey, as well as being a bridge line for freight connecting to several regional carriers. Motorailers were employed for passenger service. The NYS&W fell on hard times during the economic recession of 1957. The NYS&W lost its western connection to the Lehigh and New England Railroad when the L&NE ceased operations in 1961, resulting in the NYS&W pulling up all its track west of Sparta Junction (which now comprises what is now known as the Paulinskill Valley Trail). Thereafter, the NYS&W sold-off its nearly new Budd passenger cars and replaced them with second-hand used equipment. Desperate to close its money-losing commuter service, the railroad's trustees offered its commuters $1,000 each to stop using the trains. Permission to end commuter service was granted in 1966. Washouts caused by

Tropical Storm Doria (1971) Tropical Storm Doria was the costliest tropical cyclone in the 1971 Atlantic hurricane season. The fifth tropical storm of the season, Doria developed from a tropical wave on August 20 to the east of the Lesser Antilles, and after five days with ...

cut off other connections, and the railroad retreated to

Butler, New Jersey Butler is a borough in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 8,047, an increase of 508 (+6.7%) from the 2010 census count of 7,539, which in turn reflected an increase of 1 ...

Under ownership of the Delaware Otsego Corporation

The NYS&W declared

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debto ...

in 1976 after failing to pay New Jersey state taxes, though managed to stay out of Conrail, which had surrounded it. The bankruptcy court ordered that the railroad be abandoned and its assets sold. By then, the NYS&W was down to a line from Croxton and Edgewater through Paterson to Butler. The State of New Jersey, aware of Delaware Otsego Corporation's reputation at rehabilitating short lines, asked them to take over the railroad. Delaware Otsego was founded in 1966 to operate a section of the former New York Central Railroad Catskill Mountain Branch outside Oneonta, New York. This was the first of many cast-off short line acquisitions. Between 1971 and 1986, D.O. acquired several other branches and short lines, including the Cooperstown Branch of the

Delaware & Hudson Railway The Delaware and Hudson Railway (D&H) is a railroad that operates in the Northeastern United States. In 1991, after more than 150 years as an independent railroad, the D&H was purchased by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). CP operates D&H ...

in 1971; the Richfield Springs Branch of the Erie Lackawanna Railway (EL) in 1973; the

Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad The Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad (FJ&G) was formerly a 132-mile steam engine and electric interurban railroad that connected its namesake towns in east central New York State to Schenectady, New York. It had a successful and profita ...

in 1974 and the EL Honesdale Branch in 1976. In 1980, the Delaware Otsego Corporation purchased the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway. In 1988, Guilford Transportation Industries, (now Pan Am Railways), then owner of The Delaware and Hudson Railway, declared that road bankrupt and abandoned it after two nasty labor strikes. The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway was ordered by the federal government to operate the D&H until a new buyer could be found. In 1990, CP Rail (now Canadian Pacific) bought the Delaware & Hudson Railway System. 1990 saw the NYS&W end service on its Edgewater Branch, a long line connecting its former Hudson River terminal with the mainline in Fairview at Undercliff Junction. As of 2008, the tunnel carries a pipeline owned by the Amerada Hess Corporation. In 1994, Onondaga County, New York purchased the former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W) line into Syracuse, with the provision that the NYS&W operate RDC service in Syracuse between Syracuse University, Armory Square and the Carousel Mall, with the option for further routes, leading to the creation of

OnTrack KiwiRail Holdings Limited is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise responsible for rail operations in New Zealand, and operates inter-island ferries. Trading as KiwiRail and headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, KiwiRail is the largest rail ...

. With operations on this segment, the Syracuse branch was rehabilitated and the Conrail interchange relocated. Regular steam excursions were offered and RDCs refurbished for OnTrack use. Intermodal trains rolled beyond Binghamton to Syracuse for interchange with Conrail. After a few years, regular excursions were halted.

New ownership

With the impending break-up of the Conrail system to Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation, the NYS&W was a ripe target for acquisition, as it could potentially siphon lucrative traffic away from either road. On October 3, 1997, DOCP Acquisition LLC announced it had completed the short-form merger of Delaware Otsego Corporation (NASDAQ:DOCP) with a wholly owned subsidiary via a stock tender offer of $22 per share. This deal essentially brought the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway (NYS&W), under control of Norfolk Southern and CSX, as DOCP Acquisition LLC was owned 10% by Norfolk Southern, 10% by CSX and 80% by Walter G. Rich of the Delaware Otsego Corporation. In 2005, the NYS&W leased the former Erie Main Line from Port Jervis to Binghamton from Norfolk Southern. Leased and operated under the name Central New York Railroad (CNYK), the CNYK is a "paper" railroad and all train operations and line maintenance is performed by Susquehanna personnel, while Norfolk Southern Railway retains overhead trackage rights. Currently, there are only 6 trains a week operated by the NYS&W on the line, one in each direction, three times a week. The

Stourbridge Railroad The Stourbridge Line is a shortline railroad that operates of former Erie Lackawanna Railroad trackage between Honesdale and Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania where it connects with Norfolk Southern Railway. The line was previously owned by the Lack ...

(SBRR) depends on the NYS&W for interchange at Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania. In 2006, NYSW's Utica Main Line had storm damage. The storm damage washed out sections of track in Chenango County putting the branch to Utica out of service. NYS&W continued serving customers on the line in the Utica area and south to Sangerfield from the CSX connection in Utica. In 2011, a project to restore the line was started by the Chenango County Industrial Development Agency with funding by the agency, Chenango County, the New York State Department of Transportation, and the federal Economic Development Administration. Work began in March 2016 with the clearing of brush along the right-of-way in Chenango County. Subsequent work included filling in washouts, replacing ties, resurfacing bridge decks, repairing and reactivating crossing signals, and other repairs. The restoration project was completed and rail service restored in May 2017. On August 9, 2007, Delaware Otsego founder Walter Rich died of pancreatic cancer. After Rich's death, the new president, Nathan Fenno, canceled all passenger operations and excursions and the fleet used on them was sold-off. Many older diesel locomotives were sidelined, retired and sold during this time as well. In July 2011, NYS&W took possession of five leased CEFX locomotives, to ease the railroad's continually worsening power shortage. These five locomotives were used as a supplement to its current EMD 645 fleet in road train service, and occasionally on local duty. It was not uncommon to see road train line-ups consisting of entirely-leased power. In 2021, the railway formally abandoned the Lodi and Passaic branch lines.

Passenger service restoration

The Bergen-Passaic Rail Line was a New Jersey Transit initiative in the mid-2000s, studying restoration of passenger service on a segment of NYS&W trackage between

Sparta Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referr ...

and

Hackensack, New Jersey Hackensack is a city in and the county seat of Bergen County, New Jersey, United States.New Jer ...

to alleviate traffic congestion on Route 23. The project encountered delays when a suitable location for a NJ Transit rail storage yard in or near Sparta could not be agreed upon. In October 2015, U.S. Congressman

Bill Pascrell William James Pascrell Jr. (born January 25, 1937) is an American politician who is the U.S. representative for , having served in this position since January 2013. A member of the Democratic Party and a native of Paterson, New Jersey, Pascrel ...

joined state legislators in creating a coalition to revive the project, and in January 2016 the local governments of the involved municipalities passed concurrent resolutions to restart the project. New

FRA A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the o ...

-compliant diesel multiple unit rail cars will be used. The project has been promoted via social networking blogs and Facebook, resulting in

Kinnelon Kinnelon () is a borough in Morris County, New Jersey, United States, located approximately west of New York City. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 9,966, a drop of 282 (-2.8%) from the 2010 census count of 1 ...

officials publicly voicing support for the project.

Chinese steam operations and history

In the 1990s, NYS&W President Walter Rich wanted a

China Railways SY The SY () class 2-8-2, 2-8-2 Mikado is one of the main industrial locomotives used by China Railway Corporation, China Railways built mostly by Tangshan Railway Vehicle between 1960 and 1999. History and design The SY class was the last major c ...

type

. The engine purchased, SY 1698M, was to be NYS&W #141, delivered eventually to

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, Yonkers, and Rochester. At the 2020 census, the city' ...

. Transport was to be by cargo ship from the Tangshan Works in China via the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

. Due to the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

, shipment was delayed for several months. Then, the Norwegian freighter ''M/V Braut Team'' encountered a major cyclone in the Indian Ocean, flooded and sank on June 7, 1991, in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...

with all cargo lost. After the loss of #141, NYS&W made an offer to the Valley Railroad to purchase their Tangshan-built SY #1647 steam locomotive, which the Valley Railroad accepted in 1992. The engine, altered and painted to look like a 1920s-era engine, was lettered and renumbered to #142, the next locomotive after the lost #141. The engine made runs throughout the NYS&W system, participating in such events such as the

Steamtown National Historic Site Steamtown National Historic Site (NHS) is a railroad museum and heritage railroad located on in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, at the site of the former Scranton yards of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W). The museum is buil ...

grand opening in 1995, the Dunellen Railroad Days and Lincoln Park Railroad Days. The engine also has double-headed with other steam locomotives, such as Chesapeake & Ohio #614 and Milwaukee Road #261. The engine is now operated by the

Belvidere and Delaware River Railway The Belvidere & Delaware River Railway Company also known as Delaware River Railroad is a class III railroad in the United States. It was formed in 1995 when the Conrail Delaware Secondary line was purchased by the Black River Railroad System, wh ...

for tourist excursions along the Delaware River. The locomotive was pulled from service in late 2017 for a rebuild, which had not yet been completed as of late 2022.

Connections with other railroads

* The railroad has connections with two Class I railroads: # CSX Transportation -

;

Utica, New York Utica () is a city in the Mohawk Valley and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most-populous city in New York State, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 U.S. Census. Located on the Mohawk River at the fo ...

;

North Bergen, New Jersey North Bergen is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the township had a total population of 63,361. The township was founded in 1843. It was much diminished in territory by ...

# Norfolk Southern Railway -

Marion Junction (New Jersey) Marion Junction is a railroad junction in western Jersey City, New Jersey. Currently, it connects CSX's River Line (via Conrail's Northern Branch) to Conrail's Passaic and Harsimus Line. The two lines merge towards the west, allowing through ...

and the

Passaic Junction (rail yard) Passaic Junction is a rail yard owned by New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway along the border of Elmwood Park and Saddle Brook in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States.

rail yard in Saddle Brook, New Jersey * The railroad has connections with five other railroads: #

Morristown & Erie Railway Morristown & Erie Railway is a short-line railroad based in Morristown, New Jersey, chartered in 1895 as the Whippany River Railroad. It operates freight rail service in Morris County, New Jersey and surrounding areas on the original Whippany ...

and New Jersey Transit -

, Saddle Brook, New Jersey # Middletown and New Jersey Railroad -

Warwick, New York Warwick is a town in the southwestern part of Orange County, New York, United States. Its population was 32,027 at the 2020 census. The town contains three villages ( Florida, Greenwood Lake, and Warwick) and eight hamlets ( Amity, Bellvale ...

# Finger Lakes Railway -

Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern Railroad The Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern Railroad (MA&N) is a class III railroad operating in Central and Northern New York. Specifically, it serves Oneida, Jefferson, Lewis, and St. Lawrence counties. It operates over trackage of the former New Y ...

(MHWA) -

- Lackawaxen,

Stations

Rolling stock

Gallery

File:Train 3012.jpg, EMD SD40T-2 #3012 at

File:Susquehanna pa (4176893271).jpg,

GE B40-8 The GE Dash 8-40B (or ''B40-8'') is a 4-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by GE Transportation Systems between 1988 and 1989. It is part of the GE Dash 8 Series of freight locomotives. A total of 151 examples of this locomotive were built for ...

#4002 passes under the Erie RR coaling tower at Susquehanna, Pennsylvania April 1989 File:NYSW-SD45-3618.jpg, Former Burlington Northern EMD SD45 #3618 at Ridgefield Park, New Jersey File:Rprx78rpnj.jpg, ALCO C636 #3660 at Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, September 2005 File:NYS&W Alco 236 suburban train, Hackensack, NJ station on September 3, 1965 (24689046542).jpg, ALCO RS-1 #236 suburban commuter train at

Hackensack, New Jersey Hackensack is a city in and the county seat of Bergen County, New Jersey, United States.New Jer ...

, September 1965 File:NYSW models.jpg, N and HO scale model trains representing the NYS&W File:Paulinskill Valley Trail gate, Marksboro, NJ.jpg, Paulinskill Valley Trail by former station site in Marksboro, New Jersey File:NYSW Historical NJ and PA.svg, Historical route of NYS&W File:New York City Railroads ca 1900.png, Edgewater Terminal, circa 1900

References

Other sources

Maywood Station Historical Committee
* * * *

Volunteer Railroaders Association

Maywood Station Museum

''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', March 11, 1880

External links

NYS&W Web Site
— Official Corporate Site
New York, Susquehanna & Western Technical & Historical Society

Railfan.net NYS&W Site

— NYS&W Early History

Susquehanna Surviving Locomotives and All-Time Roster.
{{DEFAULTSORT:New York Susquehanna Western Railway Standard gauge railways in the United States New York (state) railroads New Jersey railroads Pennsylvania railroads Erie Railroad Regional railroads in the United States Former Class I railroads in the United States Railway companies established in 1980 Companies operating former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad lines