Rondout and Oswego Railroad During the early 19th century, waterways formed the principal transportation network in New York. An important point on this network was
Rondout. Located at the confluence of
Rondout Creek and the
Hudson River, in 1828 it became the eastern terminus of the
Delaware and Hudson Canal. Here, cargo and passengers were transferred from canal boats to the larger vessels navigating the Hudson. By the end of the
Civil War, railroads were pre-empting waterways as the preferred method of transportation.
Thomas Cornell, founder of the
Cornell Steamboat Company and a resident of Rondout, was among those who noticed. Although Cornell made plenty of money from shipping, he planned a railroad that would bring supplies from towns in central or western New York to his port in Rondout. So Cornell chartered the Rondout and Oswego on April 3, 1866, with himself as the first president. With the work of surveying and acquiring rights of way completed, construction started in 1868. Cornell decided to construct this new railroad of 62- and 70-
pound rail. It would go from Rondout to the busy city of
Oneonta on the upper
Susquehanna River, and then to
Oswego on the shore of
Lake Ontario. The R&O at long reached the summer vacation resort of
Olive Branch, near the town of
Shokan, on September 30, 1869. By the next year, the first train was run and the railroad was finally operational. In 1870 the railroad was extended to
Phoenicia, where the railroad built a
stucco station across
Esopus Creek from the village. The same year, ownership of the railroad was transferred to John C. Brodhead and the line reached the small town of
Big Indian. By 1871 construction reached Dean's Corners (now
Arkville) (where it would eventually join the
Delaware and Northern). However, the R&O folded upon completing construction to
Roxbury, and the task of constructing the remainder of the route was left to its newly organized successor, the New York, Kingston & Syracuse (NYK&S). It was a successful railroad, with plenty of passengers coming from surrounding towns and larger cities.
Steamboat passengers could dock at Rondout and transfer to the railroad. Later, passengers could also transfer at
Kingston, first via the
Wallkill Valley Railroad (1872), then via the
West Shore Railroad (1883) and much later via the
New York, Ontario and Western Railway (1902). From the boats, it was a short walk to the R&O station to transfer to the train. Freight was also very well-handled. Much of the freight income was made from coal shipped along the D&H Canal from the
Moosic Mountains near
Carbondale, Pennsylvania, to the port at Rondout. There were also vegetables, fruit and milk from the farms in the Catskills. While steadily grading to Moresville (present-day
Grand Gorge), the great number of curves and
grades created a problem, as more digging, ties and rails meant greater costs to complete the remainder of the railroad. The railroad could not make enough money to pay the debt and continue building the railroad, so in 1872 Cornell appointed John A. Greene to be president pro tempore for a period of 10 years. Greene was expected to have the railroad finished to the town of Oneonta by 1874, pay all of the debts, and withstand future debts of as much as $700,000. However, the railroad was slowly losing money and eventually had to reduce service before going bankrupt in 1872. Later that year, it was re-organized as the New York, Kingston and Syracuse Railroad to continue with the project. Today, the restored second Haines Falls station of the U&D railroad can be viewed at Mountain Top Historical Society in Haines Falls.
Final years of U&D service The U&D's peak year came in 1913, with 676,000 passengers carried up into the Catskills plus substantial amounts of freight. By the time of the Great Depression of 1929 and thereafter, most of the passenger traffic had been lost to private cars on improved highways, buses and shared limousines (called "hacks"); trucks had taken most of the non-commodity freight business; and the railroad was in serious financial trouble and a shadow of its former self. The
New York Central acquired the failing U&D on February 1, 1932, under pressure from the
Interstate Commerce Commission (see "Ulster and Delaware: Railroad Through The Catskills", by Gerald M. Best). In its latter years (the early 1950s) one morning train a day (except Sundays) ran on the route from Kingston to Phoenicia and
Oneonta and one afternoon train in the east-bound direction ran from Oneonta back to Kingston. Passenger service on the route ended on March 31, 1954. ==Narrow gauge rolling stock==