The Cayuga and Susquehanna Railroad was a railroad in the state of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, in the United States. Its line ran from

Ithaca, New York Ithaca () is a city in and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metrop ...

, to

Owego, New York Owego is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Tioga County, New York, Tioga County, New York (state), New York, United States. The population was 18,728 at the 2020 census. The name is derived from the Iroquoian languages, Iro ...

. It was founded in 1829 and began operations in 1834. The

Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, also known as the DL&W or Lackawanna Railroad, was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey, and by ferry with New York City, a distance of . The railroad was ...

(Lackawanna) leased the company in 1855, but it remained in existence as a non-operating subsidiary. It was conveyed to

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

in the bankruptcy of the

Erie Lackawanna Railway The Erie Lackawanna Railway , known as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad until 1968, was formed from the 1960 merger of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The official motto of the line was "The Friendly Service Route ...

, successor to the Lackawanna, in 1976.

History

The railroad was chartered on January 28, 1828, as the Ithaca and Owego Railroad. It was the third railroad built in North America, and the longest of the three. It connected the town of Ithaca, on the southern shore of

Cayuga Lake Cayuga Lake (, or ) is the longest of central New York's glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area (marginally smaller than Seneca Lake) and second largest in volume. It is just under long. Its average width is , and i ...

, with the town of Owego on the

Susquehanna River The Susquehanna River ( ; Unami language, Lenape: ) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, crossing three lower Northeastern United States, Northeast states (New York, Pennsylvani ...

to the south. By 1818, the

Cayuga–Seneca Canal The Cayuga–Seneca Canal is a canal in New York (state), New York, United States. It is now part of the New York State Canal System. The canal connects the Erie Canal to Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake (New York), Seneca Lake and is approximately l ...

connected the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigability, navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, ...

to the north end of Cayuga Lake. The Ithaca and Owego was planned to provide a missing link connecting the Erie Canal and the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

to the coal fields of Pennsylvania and the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...

. Little construction was done until the Chemung Canal was built along a similar course in 1833, via Seneca Lake and Elmira, diverting trade from Ithaca and Owego. At this point, construction was started and the work was completed by 1834. The chief engineer for the construction was John Randel Jr. The track was

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

strap-iron rails— strips of cast iron attached to wooden rails. The line covered a distance of approximately . It comprised an ascent from Cayuga Lake of in followed by a descent to Owego of . Two inclined planes accomplished the lift from Ithaca, one driven by a

stationary engine A stationary engine is an engine whose framework does not move. They are used to drive immobile equipment, such as pumps, generators, mills or factory machinery, or cable cars. The term usually refers to large immobile reciprocating engines, ...

and the second by a horse-drawn windlass. Originally the cars were pulled by horse power, An engine, "The Pioneer", built by Walter McQueen of Albany, was purchased in 1840. This engine was in service for a few years before crashing through a bridge, killing the engineer and fireman, and the railroad returned to horse power. In 1842, the railroad defaulted on its debts and was foreclosed and sold to Henry Yates and Archibald McIntyre, who reorganized the company as the Cayuga and Susquehanna Railroad. At this time the track was changed to

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , more known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union countries ...

. The

leased the company in 1855 and operated the line thereafter as part of its Cayuga Division. The DL&W reconstructed the line with "heavy T rails" and converted it back to standard gauge, facilitating a connection to the Erie in Owego. In 1956, the physical right-of-way was abandoned; it would later be incorporated into the South Hill Recreation Way in Ithaca. The company remained in existence as a non-operating subsidiary through the merger with the

Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Northeastern United States, originally connecting Pavonia Terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey, with Lake Erie at Dunkirk, New York. The railroad expanded west to Chicago following its 1865 ...

in 1960 to form the

. It was conveyed to

in 1976 in the Erie Lackawanna's bankruptcy.

Notes

References

* {{cite book , last1=Lee , first1=Hardy Campbell , last2=Rossiter , first2=Winton G. , last3=Marcham , first3=John , title=A History of Railroads in Tompkins County , date=2008 , publisher=The History Center in Tompkins County , location=Ithaca, New York , edition=3rd , url=http://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/11518

External links

Ithaca had its own 19th century railway rush
Defunct New York (state) railroads Erie Lackawanna Railway Predecessors of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Predecessors of Conrail Railway companies established in 1828 Railway companies disestablished in 1976 8 ft gauge railways in the United States Standard-gauge railways in the United States Passenger rail transportation in New York (state) 1828 establishments in New York (state) American companies established in 1828