A decade ago, The Maybrook Gateway was published. It described the operations of the railroads which connected at Maybrook Yard; the Erie, Lehigh & Hudson River, Lehigh & New England, New York, Ontario & Western and the New Haven, which owned and operated the yard. The book recounted the history of the railroad network of these carriers extending eastward and westward from Maybrook as well as operations on these carriers and in the yard itself.
The Maybrook Gateway II has some similarities as it covers operations on the Erie, L&HR and O&W but the emphasis is on their cooperation with the carriers that brought them fast freight business from the Buffalo Gateway/Niagara Frontier and how they competed with each other. Thus, we look at L&HR/DL&W via Port Morris; L&HR/LV via Hudson Yard; O&W/DL&W via Cayuga Jct. and O&W/LV via Coxton Yard. Operations on the LV and DL&W are covered from these interchange points to their western terminals in the Buffalo Region.
Among the railroads entering Maybrook from the west, the Erie was in a class by itself as it extended all the way to Chicago. Accordingly, the Erie merits coverage the length of its main line. The LV and DL&W only extended to Buffalo/Suspension Bridge/Black Rock and they were dependent on a group of carriers extending to Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis. This group included the Nickel Plate, Wabash and Pere Marquette which were carriers similar in size to LV and DL&W. We give these three roads brief coverage. Other carriers such as NYC (Michigan Central) and Canadian National (Grand Trunk) also connected with LV/DL&W in the Buffalo region but are not covered.
The L&NE is excluded as it really was not a fast freight carrier. The New Haven and its operations in Maybrook Yard are also basically excluded.
These companies competed on many levels. There is some mention of infrastructure projects such as cut-offs, CTC and rebuilt/new yards which served to increase traffic capacity and speed operations. Motive power is extensively covered, as in the steam era, railroads could acquire “custom” power as compared to the standardized offerings of EMD, Alco, etc. in the diesel era. Erie’s fleet of 105 2-8-4 Berkshires dramatically altered the competitive balance until LV and DL&W responded with their 4-8-4’s. O&W’s first trustee, F. E. Lyford, an LV veteran familiar with their 4-8-4’s, bemoaned the fleet of heavy 4-8-2’s he inherited and his plan for complete dieselization at a very early date to accelerate service and reduce operating costs was derailed by the road’s precarious finances.
One group of shippers repeatedly appeared in the research for this book. The “packers” as the railroads referred to the meat packers, were dominated by the Big Five based in Chicago. These and other large meat packers, had built their companies on the basis of fast, dependable service from their main facilities to smaller plants throughout the country. To transport refrigerated meat versus live cattle had required the development of specialized equipment, the refrigerated rail car or “reefer” and these companies amassed fleets of thousands of cars. When a symbol freight was late and missed a connection, that meant certain plants received their meat late and the “packers’ were not shy about contacting the railroad to complain and even threaten to divert their traffic to a competitor. And the railroads responded quickly to the packers’ complaints. There is a chapter on the development of the reefer and the meat packing industry.
The time frame 1905-1957 was selected as 1905 marked the start of DL&W rerouting its New England traffic, per the request of the New Haven Railroad, away from New York Harbor and to a new, all-rail route via Port Morris and the L&HR to Maybrook Yard and beyond via the Poughkeepsie Bridge Route. Maybrook Yard was in its infancy in 1905 as well. The year 1957 was selected as the O&W ceased operations that year and Maybrook lost its first railroad. Just four years later, the L&NE quit operations and Maybrook lost another carrier, a year after rivals, Erie and DL&W, merged and soon killed the Port Morris interchange with L&HR. So, 1957 marked the beginning of a major change in operations at Maybrook, the Gateway to Southern New England.
354 pages; glossy paper; black and white presentation; indexed; 54 photographs; 133 images, maps, track diagrams, magazine ads and illustrations from industry magazine articles over a six-decade period and dozens of copies of DL&W/LV/O&W correspondence.
