(erielack) Railroads "That Should Never Have Been Built

["Richard Recordon" <recordor_@_comcast.net>]

Whenever I hear a reference to something that "Never should have been built" made by a contemporary in the late 20th-early 21st century I kind of have to chuckle. After all that is an obituary remark, not a remark from the time of the planning and building. It is also ignores the entire complex relationship of the entity to its environment.

Yes the O&W died in bankruptcy in 1957. Not the first railroad nor the first corporation to do so for in our economic system the rules apply pretty equally to any corporation: make money; if not, change; or die. And using excuses for why the "Never Should Have Been Built" applies to a railroad, such as "the O&W siphoned off bridge traffic from X railroad", denies that the American system is competitive. There will be winners and losers. Using the "no competiton" arguement one could just as easily argue the DL&W never should have built West of Hallstead/Great Bend since the Erie was already there.

Corporations are formed to fill a percieved market or need. The world changes and some of those corporations change or die. Studebaker made wagons and changed to cars and trucks. Canals were technologically inferior to railroads and so were supplanted by them, not a few right on the towpaths. But does that mean the D&H or Erie canals should Never Have Been Built? I doubt many would argue in the affirmative.

Consider what the O&W accomplished in its corporate life. It provided new good paying jobs for thousands of families over several generations throughout central New York while concurrently supporting the transition of subsitence farming in the region to truck gardening and a dairy shed for NYC, raising the standard of living for farmers and the buisnesses that supported them. Small manufacturing cities grew along it's tracks. An entire region became a hotel and summer resort mecca for NYC, enriching the quality of life for thousands, and fed by O&W passenger service.

The wood acid industry flourished up till the end of WW II. Blue stone was quarried for the side walks and buildings of towns an cities. It provided a direct outlet for PA anthracite through it ports on Lake Ontario and Roundout, and to New England through it's connections in Maybrook. In short the O&W did what just about every other railroad did within its region.

And the world changed. Railroads can only change so much and when the time came for them to compete with tax subsidized highways as well as the change in fuels of choice for the nation, it was too much for many of them which were concieved and designed in another age.

The litany in the North East is familiar to us all. O&W bankrupt, E-L merger, PC merger, Privately held LNE simply liquidated (easier than a public company) while still solvent, and so on through the collapse of the regions railroads into Conrail.

Give the Old & Weary its due. The railroad changed the face of the region through which it passed and operated to the betterment of most everyone it connected with until supplanted by new technology and cultural changes, just as it sister railroads did all ove the US.

Rusty Recordon

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