The Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railway was a railway company that operated in the states of New York and Vermont in the 1880s. At its peak it controlled a 61-mile (98 km) network centered on Mechanicville, New York. Plans to extend the line west to Buffalo, New York, on Lake Ontario, were never realized, and the Fitchburg Railroad, a predecessor of the Boston and Maine Railroad, acquired control of the company in 1887 and merged it in 1892.
History
There were initially two companies, both named Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railway, one incorporated in New York (April 16, 1877) and the other in Vermont (April 17, 1878). The two were consolidated into a single company, still with the same name, on April 19, 1880.[1] The company's initial purpose was to establish a new east−west link between Boston, Massachusetts, and points west, via the Hoosac Tunnel, which had been completed in 1875. The Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railway would build between Mechanicville, New York and the Massachusetts/Vermont state line, where it would connect with the Massachusetts-owned Troy and Greenfield Railroad. In the west, the Delaware and Hudson Railway (D&H) would build between Schenectady, New York, and Mechanicville.[2][3] Besides the D&H, the Erie Railroad supported the new line.[4]
The Fitchburg Railroad acquired the Troy and Greenfield Railroad from Massachusetts on February 1, 1887, and the Troy and Boston Railroad on May 3, 1887.[12] Shortly thereafter, the Fitchburg gained control of the Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railway, and operated the formerly separate parallel single-track lines of the Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railway and the Troy and Boston between Williamstown, Massachusetts, and Johnstown, New York, as a single line.[3] A similar arrangement was made with the D&H for the parallel lines between Mechanicville and "Crescent", in the direction of Schenectady.[13] The Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railway and the Troy, Saratoga and Northern Railroad were formally merged with the Fitchburg Railroad on October 1, 1892.[1]
Notes
^There is some confusion over the date of the Rotterdam extension. Karr suggests that the entire Rotterdam–Massachusetts line opened in January 1879. The ICC valuation report for the Boston and Maine misprints "1855."[3][8][9]