Southern New York Railroad on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The Southern New York Railway (SNY) was an electric rail line that provided passenger and freight service, but also provided electricity for customers along the line until 1924. The railway was previously called Oneonta Street Railway (1888-1897), Oneonta & Otego Valley Railroad (1897-1900), Oneonta, Cooperstown & Richfield Springs Railway (1900-1906), Oneonta & Mohawk Valley Railway (1906-1908), Otsego & Herkimer Railroad (1908-1916), Southern New York Power & Railway Co. (1916-1924), and Southern New York Railroad (1924-1970).
The line was laid north from Oneonta. It reached Laurens in July 1901,
History
The line was laid north from Oneonta. It reached Laurens in July 1901, Cooperstown
Cooperstown is a village in and county seat of Otsego County, New York, United States. Most of the village lies within the town of Otsego, but some of the eastern part is in the town of Middlefield. Located at the foot of Otsego Lake in the C ...
in September 1901, Richfield Springs
Richfield Springs is a Village (New York), village located in the Richfield, New York, Town of Richfield, on the north-central border of Otsego County, New York, United States. The population was 1,264 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from ...
in the summer of 1902, and Mohawk Mohawk may refer to:
Related to Native Americans
* Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York)
*Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people
* Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...
by 1906. A car barn, powerhouse, and dispatcher office were built in Hartwick. There was also a substation to power the line by the station in Schuyler Lake. On April 19, 1901, the Village Trustees of Cooperstown unanimously voted to allow the line to enter the village via Chestnut Street to Main Street, on the condition that no car carrying freight run on village streets except from the southern village boundary to the CACV Railroad.
By the 1920s, ridership numbers were falling. While the SNY still carried 61,403 passengers in 1928, the figure fell to 14,118 passengers in 1931. In 1933, the SNY ended rail passenger service to concentrate on rail freight and the bus operations started in 1926.
In 1939, the SNY was sold to the H.E. Salzberg Company. Full operations continued for a year, but service to Cooperstown was ended in 1940 and in 1941, permission was granted to abandon the line from West Oneonta to Jordanville. The 1.5 mile stretch from Oneonta to West Oneonta was retained and freight service was offered with diesel locomotives. In January 1970, the SNY requested to close the remaining operation after the state Department of Transportation announced that a new connection road between the proposed Interstate 88 and state Route 23 would cut the line. Freight service ended on May 7, 1970, and the ICC approved the abandonment on March 26, 1971. The tracks were lifted in July 1971.
Route
References
{{Reflist Defunct New York (state) railroads Electric railways in New York (state)