? First abandoned railroad?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

What was the first railroad to be abandoned?

2

First, you need to more clearly define what you mean by ‘abandoned.’ Then you’ll have to go way back in history to find the answer.

Do you mean one that was actually built and then abandoned, or abandoned even before a single spike was driven – there’s a big difference.

In the very earliest railroad days, many lines were proposed but abandoned because they could get no financing, and there may be no written record of which was the first…

3

Indeed - there’s a fellow here in NY who has made a hobby of studying railroads that were planned, but for which track was never laid. Some actually did some grading, etc, but in the end they never ran a train.

4

…And the South Penn Railroad proposed by Vanderbilt, back in the early 1880s has to be one of those of some size, and that quite a bit of work actually was done, but never got to the point of laying rail before it was abanded.

5

It may not be the first but the Harvard Branch Railroad in Cambridge, MA, was opened in 1849 and its entire 0.75 mile length was abandoned and torn up in 1855. The railroad connected with and was operated by the Fitchburg RR but was a separate company.

6

Well, I thought that might have been one of the first railroads - the Granite Railway near Boston, from the quarry to the docks to go to the Bunker Hill Monument. But apparently it lasted long enough to be upgraded from iron-on-wood rails on stone blocks, and to be connected to another railroad and taken over by same, etc. - see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_Railway

  • Paul North.
7

I’m with Paul North on this. Especially since there is no definition of railroad. In fact this could be wrong because there were similar installations of wood rail guidways well back in the 1700’s. But if you are looking for chartered railroads, state or federal, or of a specific length (say more than 5 miles or 100 miles) or intercity or interstate or private or commommon carrier, then you can get many answers all of which would be right.

8

In relatively modern times, I’d say the Colorado Midland, ca. 1913, was the first major railraod to be abandoned…

9

Sections of the graded right of way for this project became the right of way for the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

10

Living in Milton, Mass in 1956, I was told that a parallel line of stone blocks along the bank of the Neponset R was, in fact, the remnant of a long abandoned railway line that lay between the then-current Brush Hill Rd and the River. I was told that the sleepers supported a pair of ‘rails’ ( strap iron on top of a hewn ‘beam’). All that was left in 1956 was just the stone blocks. No idea what the line was. (?)

Maybe someone can tell us?

11

Your date is 10 years too early and hardly the first in Colorado. Kansas Pacific/Arkansas Valley abandoned 80 miles in 1878. The first abandonment [in Colorado] was a short piece of Colorado Central RR around Table Mountain/Golden in 1874. (Colorado was only 7 years into its railroad era from when the UP Transcon clipped the northeast corner of the state in June 1867 )

12

Your date is 10 years too early and hardly the first in Colorado. Kansas Pacific/Arkansas Valley abandoned 80 miles in 1878. The first abandonment [in Colorado] was a short piece of Colorado Central RR around Table Mountain/Golden in 1874. (Colorado was only 7 years into its railroad era from when the UP Transcon clipped the northeast corner of the state in June 1867 )

13

…And six of the partly bored tunnels across the Alleghenies were for the most part…used, and finished for use in the alignment of the Pennsy Turnpike. Work stopped on SPRR 1885…Pennsy Turnpike opened Oct. 1940. {Original 160 mi. built in 23 mo.}

14

I think we need to clarify things a little bit. My thought was which was the first ENTIRE railroad to be abandoned after it was built and put in operation. You could fill many pages with railroads which were proposed/chartered but never built In my home state of Massachusetts I know of two railroads, the Lancaster and the Hampden, which were fully completed but never operated a revenue train. There are also railroads which were completely abandoned and then resurrected under a different operator. Most of the Rutland is now part of the Vermont Rail System.

15

Sam, that sure seems like the Granite Railway for which I referenced the WIkipedia link above. Since I understand that Wikipedia will be “dark” (off-line) tomorrow in protest of some proposed anti-copyright-piracy legislation (see: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout ), I’ll quote from the first paragrpah of that article here to hold us over in the meantime:

"The Granite Railway was one of the first railroads in the United States*, built to carry granite from* Quincy to a dock on the Neponset River in Milton*. From there boats carried the heavy stone to* Charlestown for construction of the Bunker Hill Monument*. The Granite Railway is popularly termed the first commercial railroad in the United States, as it was the first chartered railway to evolve int*

16

…I have a good size picture book on the Pennsylvania Railroad that dates back to about 1943…{When I got it}.

I’ll have to dig it out for accurate specifics.

But I do remember a photo of placed stones that served as support {ties, “sleepers” ?}, for some form of RR tracks back…I believe the date was stated to be around 1830…Somewhere right next to a current {then}, Pennsy track.

17

I’m thinking of a RR with steam power and more modern than one propelled by a horse or wind. It could be a branch line or an entire RR. I really don’t care about exacting definitions. Maybe as said earlier there are multiple answers to my question and we can have a lot of fun with this thread.

18

The first link below claims this railroad in Delaware was the first in the US to be abandoned in 1853. The second link says that some of the route was absorbed by the PRR

http://www.pencaderheritage.org/main/landmarks/phland_p10.html

http://www.abandonedrails.com/New_Castle_and_Frenchtown_Railroad

19

Prompted by Quentin/ Modelcar’s post above, I was going to mention the ‘New’ Portage Railroad from roughly Hollidaysburg to Johnstown, PA, which was rendered superfluous by the completion of the PRR main line in the area in 1854, resulting in the NPRR ceasing operation in 1857. But the NC&F in Delaware as cited by MidlandMike above beat all that by a few years.

And with the former NC&F being not far away - and having done a fair amount of work in the area - I should know more about it than I do. I can tell you that the NC&F ran through what is now Amtrak’s Bear, Del. car repair and MOW shop facility - though in a much different direction, SW to NE - at about these Lat./ Long. coords: N 39.60665 W 75.69960 If the links cited by Mike are correct, the former NC&F R-O-W is still being used by a NS branch, roughly between these coords.: N 39.61419 W 75.68589 - N 39.63187 W 75.65289 (Del. Rt. 1 overpasses) - N 39.65153 W 75.61921 (bridge over US 13, S. DuPont Hwy.) - N 39.65499 W 75.60797 (turnout to industry spur) - N 39.65183 W 75.59834 (turnout that splits into 2 tracks) - N 39.64888 W 75.59453 (one track would have crossed Del. Rt. 9, River Rd. at this point) - N 39.64701 W 75.59278 (other track ends in “PrintPack” [?] plant on river).

Thanks much for digging up that historical info, Mike ! Someday when it’s warmer, I’ll have to get down that way, do some exploring, and get some photos !

  • Paul North.

P.S. - I thought that last site/ area looked familiar ! On the northeastern side of these tracks (towards Army Creek) used to be an Amoco Plastics plant where I supervised some trackwork in the late 1970’s. They were real big on using explosive gas sniffers, and required "Hot Work Perm