Archives Cover 150 Years : Railroad Files Open Window on History

Stored in neatly packed containers lined up like boxcars in a crowded freight station are the untold stories of the New Haven Railroad.

No one is quite sure what is in the thousands of documents generated by the railroad before its demise in 1968, but scholars and rail enthusiasts will soon learn, when the material is made available to the public at the University of Connecticut.

The university acquired more than 2,000 boxes of the railroad’s files in 1979 and 1980, and for nearly two years, the school archivists sorted, analyzed and catalogued the material at the Wilbur Cross Library.

“It’s one of the largest and probably one of the most nearly complete collections of railroad files in New England,” Rand Jimerson, director of the historical manuscripts and archives division, said.

Soon after the material arrived, officials started receiving requests for information, including that on railroad rights-of-way, the impact on coastal ecology and how to preserve stations.

Lore of Railroading

Jimerson said no one on his staff is familiar with all the documents, which cover 150 years of railroading in Connecticut in overwhelming detail and also contain information on 300 related railroads and transportation companies.

The New Haven Railroad was formed in 1872, with the merger of the New York & New Haven and the Hartford-New Haven railroads, two companies formed when about 100 smaller railroads were merged. The ultimate merger formed the major transportation link between Boston and New York.

There were further mergers after the railroad was acquired by financier J. P. Morgan and a band of New York investors.

After World War I, the railroad entered a long period of financial problems. In 1968, it became part of the Penn Central system, which was short-lived.

Morgan Years Missing

The only gap in the documents is the Morgan era. Jimerson said that when the rail line ran into financial problems some documents were destroyed.

“One can speculate on reasons why those files weren’t kept,” he said.

Jimerson said the files show that railroads in the 1950s were having some of the same problems they suffer today. He said railroads 30 years ago also flirted with the idea of high-speed trains.

The archivists’ work is nearly complete, and a February opening is expected. Jimerson also is compiling a catalogue, to run about 200 pages when finished.

The documents fill three floors and the file cards occupy another room. They were organized with the help of $93,000 in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The treasures include old railroad stock certificates, blueprints of rail lines and rail buildings, surveyor’s documents, minutes of shareholders’ meetings, accounting, legal and personnel records, boards of directors documents and the files of the New Haven Railroad’s company secretary. There are also records of trolley, steamship and trucking companies.

Jimerson said he expects business at the library to be brisk, because of “the extent and depth of feeling people have for railroads.”