Golden Twilight of Postwar Steam, Part 4

Trains and ferries were the way many people traveled to New York City in the pre-expressway late 1940s. Pulsating rail lines stretched in nearly every direction from America’s largest city as rail armadas of steam, diesel, and electric trains transported thousands of commuters and other passengers to and from the city every day.

Inland from the east bank of the Hudson River, trains of the Putnam and Harlem Divisions of the New York Central Railroad brought riders from stations in nearly 50 bedroom communities into the city.

While more riders crossed the Hudson River on ferryboats from Weehawken, New Jersey, after riding trains of the West Shore Line of the NYC, our focus on the west side of the Hudson is the struggling New York, Ontario and Western Railroad – operating into the Catskills from a connection with the West Shore at Cornwall, New York.

Join us as we relive bittersweet memories of when steam power slowly yielded to diesels on these once-critical rail arteries.