A Brief History of the Accord Train Station
“A raging epidemic spread across the United States after the Civil War, carrying its infectious
influence far from the centers of population, straight into the tiny hamlets and the homes of
isolated farmers. …The malady, of course, was railroad fever. Dreams of enormous profits, of
great commercial activity , of tremendous national expansion captured the minds of farmers,
merchants, bankers, day-laborers, and manufacturers, The latent possibilities in the extension
if these iron networks taxed a man’s imagination….
These civic boosters thus set the stage for an exciting railroad panorama - the saga of the
O&W. The scene came alive with colorful characters and miscellaneous machinery, commencing
almost a century of alternating hope and heartache, prosperity and poverty, dignity and
degradation. The New York, Ontario & Western, the name which headed the obituary, was
a railroad of contrasts….
When the last train rumbled south to the graveyard at Middletown, and after the faded
depots had been padlocked for the final time, an era came to an end, The roots of O&W failure
may be found in an American society obsessed with the iron horse and the iron trail.”
From the 40th Anniversary Edition O&W – The Long Life and Slow Death of the New York, Ontario
and Western Railway, William F. Helmer, 1999, Black Dome Press Corp http://
Ontario & Western Railway Historical Society
The New York, Ontario and Western Railway, more commonly known as the O&W or NYO&W, was a
regional railroad with origins in 1868, lasting until March 29, 1957 when it was ordered
liquidated by a US bankruptcy judge.
The railroad began life as the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad, organized by Dewitt C.
Littlejohn in 1868.
The railroad's mainline ran from Weehawken, New Jersey in the greater New York City area to
Oswego, New York, a port city on Lake Ontario. It had branch lines to Scranton, Pennsylvania,
Kingston, New York, Port Jervis, New York, Utica, New York and Rome, New York. The part south of
Cornwall, New York was operated over the New York Central Railroad's West Shore Railroad via
trackage rights.
History
In 1880 O&W inherited the Oswego - New York corridor as well as the branches to Ellenville,
Delhi and New Berlin, NY from the New York & Oswego Midland, which had constructed the lines.
O&W improved the line by providing a new entrance to Gotham from Middletown, NY which ran to
Cornwall on the Hudson river and then to Weehawken, NJ. This development was made possible by
negotiating rights of way from the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railway, later New York
Central.
In 1886 the O&W acquired the operations of both the Utica, Clinton & Binghamton and the Rome &
Clinton railroads from the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company. By acquisition of these assets and
construction of a new line to Sylvan Beach on the east shore of Oneida, O&W extended its
operations into new market areas, and the Sylvan Beach Loop became a seasonally-significant
corridor by providing transportation to central New York's recreational resort area. By 1889,
the O&W added two new branches, New Berlin to Edmeston, and Port Jervis to Monticello,
connecting to the main line at Summitville, NY.
The most significant addition came in 1890, when the O&W constructed a 54- mile branch from
Cadosia, NY to Scranton, PA through the rich anthracite coal reserves in Pennsylvania's
Lackawanna Valley. Revenues from this Scranton division strengthened O&W's revenues and provided
the means for future improvements to the railroad.
During the ill-fated "Morganization" of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, the New
Haven acquired control of the O&W and installed New Haven president Charles Sanger Mellen as
president for a year. Regulatory difficulties frustrated Mellen's plans to barter the O&W to the
New York Central for concessions elsewhere.
Improved highways put an end to the O&W's pioneering passenger access to the lower Catskill
Mountains and lightly-populated portions of upstate New York, and it operated as a virtual 19th-
century "time warp" (then known to locals as the "Old & Weary") until final liquidation in 1957.
The end of coal as a heating fuel for other than major power plants removed its primary freight
business, as did the end of rail transport of high-priority dairy products from upstate New York
to the Metro New York City area. By virtue of its superb online scenery and anachronistic
operations, the O&W retains "cult status" among railroad and history buffs more than 50 years
after its abandonment, with periodic bus tours of remaining railroad artifacts.
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