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From: "John C. Rutherford" <>
Subject: [OHHURON-L] New York Central R.R History
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 22:57:22 -0500 (CDT)


Since many railroad families exist out there, I think that I shall take a
shot at this one.

The beginnings of a rail line in Huron County was in 1851 with the Toledo,
Norwalk & Cleveland Railroad Company. Norwalk was considered the center
of the line, so it had most of the carbuilding and repair shops.

In 1854, this line merged with the Junction Railroad, whose line projected
north through Sandusky and became the Northern Division. The southern
branch through Norwalk was called the Main line. The new company was
called the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company. It operated as a
separate rail line until leased for 99 years to the Cleveland,
Painesville, and Ashtabula RR (also informally called the Lake Shore
Railway because its trackage ran so close to Lake Erie). It linked with
the C, P, & A Railroad at Cleveland and at Toledo with the Michigan
Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad.

In 1869, the Cleveland and Toledo merged with these two rail lines plus
the Buffalo and Erie Railroad to form the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern
Railway Company. This east-west line prospered very well for about 50
years and managed to purchase several rail lines in Michigan and the
Mahoning Railroad for coal and oil.

In 1914 the Vanderbilt family, which owned a major chunk of the shares in
the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway and the New York Central &
Hudson River Railroad, made a buy out bid, but the minority stockholders
held out for a higher price until 1915. The new rail line became the New
York Central System.

Today, in the era of ConRail, the old main line (known as the Norwalk
Division) has been mostly abandoned and the Northern (or Sandusky
Division) has become the main line of freight and passenger service.

I do not know if your relative specifically worked at Norwalk's passenger
station as a telegrapher, but if so, he worked in the oldest building
(built in 1851) on the old rail line.

By the way this information is derived from the 1) New York Central
Railroad's 1915-1927 valuation records which are in the National Archives
and controlled by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the 2) History
of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company and its
representative employees.

I hope that this helps.

John C. Rutherford

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