Hudson River – New York Central System
Beautiful Vintage 1934 – Hudson River – New York Central System Railroad Poster.
The oldest part of the New York Central Railroad was the first permanent railroad in the state of New York and one of the first railroads in the United States. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was chartered in 1826 to connect the Mohawk River at Schenectady to the Hudson River at Albany, providing a way for freight and especially passengers to avoid the extensive and time-consuming locks on the Erie Canal between Schenectady and Albany. The Mohawk and Hudson opened on September 24, 1831, and changed its name to the Albany and Schenectady Railroad on April 19, 1847.
The New York Central, like many U.S. railroads, declined after the Second World War. Problems resurfaced that had plagued the railroad industry before the war, such as over-regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which severely regulated the rates charged by the railroad, along with continuing competition from automobiles. These problems were coupled with even more formidable forms of competition, such as airline service in the 1950s that began to deprive the NYC of its long-distance passenger trade. The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 helped create a network of efficient roads for motor vehicle travel through the country, enticing more people to travel by car, as well as haul freight by truck. The 1959 opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway adversely affected NYC freight business. Container shipments could now be directly shipped to ports along the Great Lakes, eliminating the railroads’ freight hauls between the east and the Midwest.
The NYC also carried a substantial tax burden from governments that saw rail infrastructure as a source of property tax revenues: taxes that were not imposed upon interstate highways. To make matters worse, most railroads, including the NYC, were saddled with a World War II–era tax of 15{7e4c09e4caec0a44217f929ca51f7dedb640eda8843948493d87a342a85d2b82} on passenger fares, which remained until 1962, 17 years after the end of the war.
