Railroads - Part II of III

"Here Comes the Train…" Part II of III

by Dr. Paul Loatman, Jr., City Historian

Mergers, modernization, and mismanagement characterized the history of local railroads in the 20th century. Like the Hoosac Tunnel railroad before it, the Fitchburgh system, which had bought the BHT&W in 1887, succumbed to the law of nature that the little fish is swallowed up by the larger fish. In 1900, although its port facilities were huge, the B&M lacked a satisfactory outlet to the west; the Fitchburgh had few facilities at Boston port while it controlled the Hoosac Tunnel opening to the west. Each having what the other coveted, the B&M leased the Fitchburgh for a period of 90 years in 1900, a move which railroad historian E.C. Kirkland pointed out "would make the Mechanicville and Rotterdam Junction gateways points of great importance to the western connections." Business interests throughout New England heaved a collective sigh of relief at the move because it removed any threat that New York Central factors might gain control of the all-important Hoosac Tunnel, the Bay State’s transportation window to the west. Locally, Mechanicville’s position as the pivot point in this great rail network was now insured.

Mergers did not solve all problems, however, and "dot.com" stock price gyrations today have nothing on transportation issue fluctuations 100 years ago. B&M shares sold for $202.50 in 1900; by 1919, despite high inflation, the line’s stock had declined by 82%, selling for only $38.50 per share. Regardless, Mechanicville played an increasingly important role as the western gateway of the road. The line considered transferring its car repair shops here in 1901 but told the local governing board it "needed some arrangement…whereby the boundaries of the village will not be extended to include railroad property." Not surprisingly, "some arrangement" was made along these lines, heralding a theme which recurred throughout a good part of the last century. Indeed, although the Village Board prevented municipal expansion, it extended its water lines outside corporate limits to the railroad. Interestingly, the state legislature had been considering a bill prohibiting municipalities from taking such a step at this time. However, Edwin T. "Boss" Brackett and fellow Republican, State Senator George Whitney of Mechanicville, joined hands in killing the proposal in committee, while simultaneously floating another one through permitting cities and villages to extend water lines beyond their boundaries "for fire protection only." The Brackett-Whitney law also canceled an earlier one which required such largesse to be granted only with the approval of local voters. In 1902, the Village Board extended water service to the B&M at a price 25% below the established legal rate, even making the move retroactive by a year without consulting local voters on the issue. Since the B&M consumed 170 million gallons of water a year, it seems unlikely that it was being used only for "fire protection."

Given all of these behind the scene machinations, some local residents questioned the B&M’s demands and wondered if the railroad instructed its employees how to vote in local elections. Editor Mead’s loud public defense of the B&M against these charges probably raised more suspicions than it allayed. His move was out of character for someone who regularly pilloried the D&H as "the SKUNK" in his columns and who more than once testified against the line at Public Service Commission hearings in Albany.

The D&H had less clout with local elected officials as well, for when it sought the same water privileges granted to the B&M, the Village Board turned it down. The Albany-based line, employing far fewer men locally than the B&M, weakened its own cause since it seemed to go out of its way to rub local citizens the wrong way. Despite being ordered by the PSC to build a passenger station in a location which did not require patrons to cross private property to reach it in 1886, the railroad simply ignored the order for three decades. When complaints arose about the foulness of the D&H’s local passenger toilet facilities, the General Manager of the line refused to clean up the mess by stating, "anyone is a damn fool to use a railroad toilet facility." When the road’s freight house on Park Avenue proved too small for the volume of business transacted there, the public street was used by the line as a dumping ground, and its coal cars also were regularly unloaded on Railroad Avenue. Despite its unlovely relationship with the local governing board, the D&H’s local workforce employed almost 200 men regularly throughout the better part of the 20th century, most working on its freight dock transferring cargoes with B&M trains.

During the first two decades of the 20th century, railroad employment here continued to climb until it reached 900 men in 1915, 700 of whom were employed by the Bay State line. This expansion had its false starts. Plans to build a round-house in 1906 were delayed for years, as was the development of a hump yard. Part of the reason related to complex changes in the industry which affected all railroads, particularly those in the Northeast where a thick web of overlapping lines led to a highly competitive market. Merger now seemed to be the order of the day, and in 1908, J.P. Morgan and Charles Mellon linked the B&M with the New Haven road. However, six years later, both lines went bankrupt, while little money had been spent on improving the system’s rolling stock and yard network. The lone exception to this was the expenditure of a couple of million dollars in creating a hump yard to replace the old flat-yard layout here, thus increasing switching capacity from 800 to 4000 cars per day. The "Siberia" yards just north of Saratoga Avenue were removed to the west side of town, the new facility occupying a two-and-a-half mile strip of land which included almost 60 miles of track.

Four hundred Italian immigrants brought here by labor agents along with 200 African-American convict laborers shipped in from Louisiana completed the yard in September, 1913, a full year ahead of schedule. The B&M now abandoned its Rotterdam Junction classification yard and relocated it here. A roundhouse with fifty-two engine stalls, stock pens, coal pits, and an icehouse were also built, along with an electric powerhouse which permitted lighting of the yard, increasing efficiency and safety.

Despite a vast increase in traffic during World War I, the B&M’s finances threatened the health of the line because it was committed to paying guaranteed dividends to bond holders of all lines it had leased over the years, regardless of its income. To repeat an oft-quoted cliché of that era, "that’s a hell of a way to run a railroad," and the line was reorganized in 1918 at the instigation of the federal government. As Railway Age editors noted three years later, 2% of the line’s problems had been due to operations, the other 98%, to financial mismanagement. Just when stability seemed in the offing, a new threat appeared, noted by V.P. Gerritt Fort when he remarked on the "astonishing development of the use of motor vehicles…so rapid that its history is hard to trace." To meet the competition, employment was cut beginning in 1921, even though freight tonnage remained stable between 1916 and 1925. The I.C.C. approved a refinancing program in 1925, and the line abandoned some right-of-way in New Hampshire as it faced a competitive situation with motor trucks analogous to that which the advent of railways presented to stagecoaches. But it would take more than financial slight-of-hand to stave off competition, and as we shall see, major innovations were in the works.