19th century in
Weehawken, New Jersey In 1866, the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad was chartered under the direction of
DeWitt C. Littlejohn, who envisioned a railroad serving a direct connection from the docks opposite New York City to Lake Ontario at Oswego. Construction on the line north of Middletown began in 1868 and was completed in 1873. Branches were also constructed to
Ellenville,
Delhi and
New Berlin, New York; a branch was begun to Auburn from Norwich, but it only was constructed to Scipio Center before being sold to the
Utica, Ithaca and Elmira Railroad in 1876. Access to New York City was provided by the Middletown, Unionville and Water Gap Railroad and the
New Jersey Midland Railway beginning in 1872. On September 3, 1869, the NY&OM began using the
Pennsylvania Railroad's station at
Exchange Place in Jersey City, New Jersey, which provided its passengers with ferry access to the
Cortlandt Street Ferry Depot in lower Manhattan and the
Desbrosses Street Ferry. With the
Panic of 1873, the company began to fold, and it severed its ties with the NJM and the MU&WG. In 1880, O&W inherited the New York & Oswego Midland's lines. The O&W improved the main line by providing a new route to the New York City area from
Middletown, New York, which extended to
Cornwall on the
Hudson River and then to
Weehawken Terminal. This development was made possible by negotiating trackage-rights from the
New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railway, later part of the
New York Central system. In 1886, O&W acquired the operations of both the
Utica, Clinton & Binghamton and the
Rome & Clinton railroads from the
Delaware & Hudson Canal Company. By acquisition of these assets and construction of a new line to
Sylvan Beach on the east shore of
Lake Oneida, the O&W extended its operations into new market areas, and the Sylvan Beach Loop became a seasonally-significant corridor by providing transportation to central New York's recreational resort area. By 1889, the O&W added two new branches, New Berlin to
Edmeston, and
Port Jervis to
Monticello, connecting to the main line at
Summitville, New York. The most significant addition occurred in 1890, when the O&W constructed a 54-mile branch from
Cadosia, New York, through
Carbondale to
Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the rich
anthracite coal reserves in Pennsylvania's
Wyoming Valley. Revenues from this new Scranton Division strengthened O&W's revenues and provided the means for future improvements to the railroad. The railroad's W-in-O logo first appeared in 1892.
20th century During the ill-fated "
Morganization" of the
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NH), the railroad acquired control of the O&W and installed NH president
Charles Sanger Mellen as president for a year. Regulatory difficulties frustrated Mellen's plans to barter the O&W to the
New York Central Railroad for concessions elsewhere. The 1940s saw a receding of passenger service. In the early years of the 1940s, the Summitville-Kingston branch was reduced to a Sundays and holidays, summer-only service. Improved highways ended the O&W's passenger service to the resort areas of the lower
Catskill Mountains (the "
Borscht Belt") and lightly populated portions of Upstate New York, with the last train from
Walton, New York, to Weehawken operating in the summer of 1948. The O&W's Walton-
Delhi branch service, all in
Delaware County, was also eliminated in this period. The last passenger train (from
Roscoe, New York, just north of Livingston Manor, to
Weehawken Terminal) operated on September 10, 1953. By 1948, the operating losses had accumulated to over $38 million A section of the track in New Hartford was still in operation in 2018 by the Northern Division of the
New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway. ==Legacy==