The Hartford and New Haven Railroad (H&NH), chartered in 1833, was the first railroad built in the state of

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

and an important direct predecessor of the

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger o ...

. The company was formed to connect the cities of

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

, and

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

. It built northwards from New Haven, opening its first segment in 1838, and reaching Hartford in December 1839. The company reached Springfield in 1844 under the auspices of the Hartford and Springfield Railroad, a subsidiary chartered in Massachusetts. The Hartford and New Haven merged with the New York and New Haven Railroad in 1872, forming the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The Hartford and New Haven Railroad main line between New Haven and Springfield remains busy in the 21st century, now owned by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...

and known as the

New Haven–Springfield Line The New Haven–Springfield Line is a railroad line owned by Amtrak from New Haven, Connecticut, north to Springfield, Massachusetts. As a branch of the Northeast Corridor just north of New Haven State Street station, it is served by approximatel ...

History

Formation and construction

The Hartford and New Haven Railroad of Connecticut was chartered in 1833 to build a railroad between

Hartford Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since th ...

and New Haven. It was one of the earliest railroads built in Connecticut, and was intended both to improve New Haven's access to the interior of the state, and to provide an alternative to ship transport along the

Connecticut River The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island ...

, which froze during the winter.

Alexander Catlin Twining Alexander Catlin Twining (July 5, 1801 – November 22, 1884) was an American scientist and inventor. Twining, the son of Stephen Twining and Almira (Catlin) Twining, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, July 5, 1801. He graduated from Yale Co ...

was commissioned to survey the railroad's route, originally intended to pass through

Middletown, Connecticut Middletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States, Located along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, it is south of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated by English settler ...

. However, Twining decided during his survey that building through the hilly terrain around Middletown would be too difficult, and instead chose an alignment further west, via

Meriden, Connecticut Meriden is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, located halfway between the regional cities of New Haven and Hartford. In 2020, the population of the city was 60,850.

. The citizens of Middletown were unhappy about being bypassed, but they would have to wait for more than a decade before a branch line reached their city. Construction started from New Haven in 1836, with a temporary halt caused by the

Panic of 1837 The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major depression, which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment went up, and pessimism aboun ...

. The first portion of the line, from New Haven to Meriden, saw its first trains in December 1838, while the rest of the line to Hartford opened in December of the following year. When the first portion of the line opened in December 1838, it was the first railroad to operate in the state of Connecticut. With the railroad's two namesake cities now connected, the company turned its attention northward to

. In that city, the Hartford and New Haven would be able to connect with the Western Railroad, which was building its own line from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- m ...

to Springfield. As the company's original charter only authorized a railroad between Hartford and New Haven, new charters from the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts were requested by the railroad company. On April 4, 1839, the Massachusetts legislature granted a charter for the Hartford and Springfield Railroad, which was authorized to build from the Connecticut border to Springfield. The new railroad company never operated independently, as it was simply a vehicle for the Hartford and New Haven to extend its line into Massachusetts. Construction began in 1842, and the first trains between Hartford and Springfield ran at the end of 1844. The complete route was 62 miles (100 km) in length.

Operations

In 1845, the Hartford and New Haven merged with the Hartford and Springfield Railroad to form the New Haven, Hartford and Springfield Railroad. The company reverted back to the Hartford and New Haven Railroad name in 1847. The railroad was noted for the fast speed of its trains by 1848, when a Hartford and New Haven passenger train made the trip from Springfield to Hartford at an average speed of . ''The Hartford Weekly Times'' asserted that "This is the quickest trip ever made in this country with a ''heavy train'' over any railroad, and the road is now regularly run with greater speed than any other railroad in the United States, and with double the average velocity of railroads out of New England." The railroad's largely straight alignment, which followed natural topography and the Connecticut River, made this possible.

New York, New Haven and Hartford

The Hartford and New Haven merged with the New York and New Haven Railroad in 1872, forming the

(the New Haven). For the next 90 years, the route remained a vital passenger and freight route for the New Haven, with continuous passenger service even as most other lines in the region gradually had passenger service discontinued from the 1920s onward.

Penn Central and Amtrak purchase

The New Haven era came to an end in 1969, when the company was merged into the

Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

. National passenger rail carrier

, formed in 1971, purchased the Hartford and New Haven route outright in 1976, becoming its

. Freight service passed to newly-formed

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 bus ...

that same year.

Conrail and Amtrak

From 1976 onwards, Amtrak maintained passenger service on the line, one of the few in the country it directly owned. Shuttle trains ran between New Haven and Springfield, and the line was also host to Amtrak's ''Bay State'', a train between New York City and Boston via Springfield, as well as the Montrealer, travelling between New York City and

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

. In the early 1990s, Amtrak elected to remove one of the two tracks on the line in a bid to reduce maintenance costs, a decision the company would come to regret in the 21st century when Connecticut and Massachusetts began a project to increase train service on the line.

Connecticut Southern and the Hartford Line

Conrail transferred its operations on the New Haven-Springfield line to shortline railroad startup

Connecticut Southern Railroad The Connecticut Southern Railroad is a long short-line railroad operating in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The company was formed in 1996 as a spinoff of Conrail by shortline holding company RailTex and subsequently acquired in 2000 by RailA ...

in 1996. The new freight operator began to improve freight service on the line, reversing a general decline in business during Conrail's tenure. By the mid to late 2000s, Connecticut and Massachusetts were both advocating for improvements and expansion of commuter service on the line, at that point consisting solely of Amtrak's New Haven-Springfield Shuttle, offering six trains each direction daily. Plans for expansion culminated in the

Hartford Line The Hartford Line is a commuter rail service between New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, using the Amtrak-owned New Haven–Springfield Line. The project is a joint venture between the states of Connecticut and Massachu ...

, a joint project between both states to restore double track to the line and significantly increase passenger rail service. Construction on the project began in 2015, and it opened for service in 2018. After completion, service was increased to 29 trains a day, with 17 being a

short turn In public transport, a short turn, short working or turn-back is an earlier terminus on a bus or rail line that is used on some scheduled trips that do not operate along the full length of the route. Short turns are practical in scheduling when ...

between New Haven and Hartford.

Branches

Warehouse_Point_railroad_bridge_postcard

In total, four branches were built off of the main line by other companies, all of which were quickly acquired by the Hartford and New Haven after completion. The addition of these branches brought the Hartford and New Haven's total mileage to 79 miles (127 km).

Middletown Railroad

Middletown was initially planned to be directly served by the Hartford and New Haven, but was bypassed. In 1844, a number of residents of the city took the matter into their own hands by forming the Middletown Railroad, which in 1848 built a 9 mile (14 km) long railroad line between Middletown and the Hartford and New Haven main line at

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constit ...

. The Middletown Railroad was purchased by the Hartford and New Haven in 1850. An extension of the Middletown Railroad, appropriately named the Middletown Extension Railroad, was chartered in 1857 to connect Middletown and the Connecticut River. The railroad was built in 1860, and merged into the Hartford and New Haven in 1861.

Branch Company

In 1845, interests in Hartford formed the Branch Company, which built a short spur from the Hartford and New Haven main line in Hartford, to the banks of the Connecticut River. The Hartford and New Haven absorbed the Branch Company in 1850.

New Britain and Middletown Railroad

New Britain New Britain ( tpi, Niu Briten) is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi the ...

was another city bypassed by the original Hartford and New Haven main line. Much like in Middletown, in 1852 citizens there chartered the New Britain and Middletown Railroad, which built a 2 mile (3.2 km) long branch connecting their city to Berlin in 1865. This short railroad contracted out train operations to the Hartford and New Haven, before the latter company purchased it outright in 1868.

Windsor Locks and Suffield Railroad

Formed in 1868, the Windsor Locks and Suffield Railroad built a 5 mile (8 km) long branch between Suffield and the Hartford and New Haven main line at Windsor Locks in 1870. Upon the completion of construction and the railroad's opening on December 12, 1870, it was operated by the Hartford and New Haven, and was formally merged into that company in 1871.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hartford New Haven Railroad Predecessors of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Defunct Connecticut railroads Railway companies established in 1833 Railway companies disestablished in 1872 Defunct Massachusetts railroads Railway lines opened in 1844 American companies established in 1833 American companies disestablished in 1872