MBTA Commuter Rail

The MBTA Commuter Rail system serves as the commuter rail arm of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's transportation coverage of Greater Boston in the United States. Trains run over of track to 141 different stations, with 58 stations on the north side with the remaining 83 stations on the south. It is operated under contract by Keolis, which took over operations on July 1, 2014, from the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company (MBCR).
As of the third quarter of 2019, average weekday ridership of the system was 119,800, making it the sixth-busiest commuter rail system in the U.S., behind the three New York-area systems, the Chicago-area system, and the Philadelphia-area system. The line's characteristic purple-trimmed coaches operate as far south as North Kingstown, Rhode Island, and as far north as Newburyport and as far west as Fitchburg, both in Massachusetts.
Trains originate at two major terminals in Boston—South Station and North Station—with both transportation hubs offering connections to Amtrak, local bus, intercity bus via South Station Bus Terminal, and subway lines. Currently the only rail infrastructure "directly" connecting them is a single track only used to move equipment, however, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) is studying the possibility of an underground tunnel to unite the two halves, the North-South Rail Link.
Current lines.
The following lines terminate at South Station (listed from southeast to west):
The following lines terminate at North Station (listed from west to northeast):
The northside and southside lines are a legacy of their roots in separate railroads. The lines terminating at South Station were once part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and New York Central Railroad, while the lines terminating at North Station were once part of the Boston and Maine Railroad. No lines feed into both the North and South Stations.
Operational history.
Consolidation under MBTA control.
Boston & Maine Railroad.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts's involvement with the operating facets of commuter rail began in 1967 when the Boston & Maine Railroad (B&M) petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to discontinue all passenger services. Service north of the state line was discontinued, but most service in Massachusetts was preserved through a contract between the Commonwealth and the B&M, at this time still an independent railroad company. The Commonwealth and MBTA began to purchase several lines, like the Lowell Line between Somerville and Wilmington, from the B&M.
In 1969 the B&M transported 24,000 passengers every weekday on four separate routes. Its yearly deficit was . A pool of 86 Budd Rail Diesel Cars provided the service. B&M filed for bankruptcy protection in 1970. All remaining B&M commuter assets, with the exception of yard tracks and freight-only branches, were sold to the Commonwealth on December 14, 1976, though B&M was contracted to operate the service using its existing fleet of diesel railcars.
New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad.
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NYNH&H), the long-time operator of most South Station commuter trains, filed for bankruptcy for the last time in 1961. Two years earlier in 1959, the railroad had discontinued passenger service on the Old Colony division in southeastern Massachusetts. On July 28, 1965, the MBTA signed an agreement with the New Haven Railroad to purchase of the former Old Colony mainline from Fort Point Channel to South Braintree in order to construct a new rapid transit line along the corridor. The line was expected to be completed within two years. The agreement also provided for the MBTA to subsidize commuter service on the railroad's remaining commuter rail lines for annually.
The NH was included in the Penn Central Transportation Company (PC) merger in 1968, which itself filed bankruptcy in 1970. MBTA purchased many PC southside commuter lines on January 27, 1973, including the Providence/Stoughton Line as far as the Rhode Island border plus the branch to Stoughton, the Franklin Line and Needham Line and the Framingham/Worcester Line from Riverside to Framingham, as well as a number of abandoned lines and lines without passenger service including the Old Colony mainline from Boston to Braintree and the Plymouth/Kingston Line (which were later restored). PC merged into Conrail on April 1, 1976; the MBTA bought the equipment but Conrail took over operations of the southside lines. The MBTA also purchased the Fairmount Line to restore it for passenger service as a bypass during Southwest Corridor reconstruction.
New York Central Railroad.
The Framingham/Worcester Line, historically part of the Boston & Albany Railroad (B&A), was merged into the New York Central Railroad (NYC) and its ownership subsequently passed to PC in 1968. As part of the Massachusetts Turnpike Boston Extension's construction in the 1960s, the Worcester Line's roadbed between Route 128 and Boston was sold to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, with the provison that the control of the railroad remain with NYC. Conrail inherited the line which formed a vital freight artery between Boston's Beacon Yard and Conrail's Selkirk Yard. The Riverside-Framingham section was sold to the MBTA in 1976 as part of their larger acquisition of PC commuter assets, but the section past Framingham remained in Conrail control. In September 2009, Conrail successor CSX Transportation and the Commonwealth finalized a agreement to purchase CSX's Framingham to Worcester tracks, as well as the Grand Junction Railroad plus lines which will be part of the South Coast Rail project, to improve service on the Framingham/Worcester Line. After several years of construction and negotiations, ownership of the line was transferred to the commonwealth on October 4, 2012, with increased service on the outer section of the line beginning several weeks later.
Combined operations.
The Penn Central combined the operations of the New Haven and the New York Central in 1968. Conrail succeeded them 1976, but would only operate the south-side lines until March 12, 1977. B&M won the contract for the southside lines; for the first time, all Boston commuter service was operated by one entity. After bankruptcy, B&M continued to operate trains under the protection of the federal bankruptcy court, in the hopes that a reorganization could make it profitable again. It emerged from the court's protection when Timothy Mellon's Guilford Transportation Industries (GTI) bought it in 1983. GTI let the contract expire in 1987, after a bitter strike had shut down most of the northside lines in 1986.
Amtrak won the contract for the MBTA Commuter Rail network in 1987, and held it for 16 years. While MBTA observers saw Amtrak as a reliable operator and manager, the relationship between MBTA and Amtrak was often rocky. Quibbles centered on equipment failures, crewing issues about the number of conductors per train, and responsibility for late trains. Because of these issues, and Amtrak's repeated statements that the MBTA contract was unreasonable, few were surprised at Amtrak's decision not to bid again when the contract expired in 2003.
Two tenders were submitted, one from GTI and another from the newly formed Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company (MBCR), a partnership between Connex (later Veolia), Bombardier Transportation and Alternate Concepts, Inc. MBCR won the contract, and took over the MBTA Commuter Rail operation from Amtrak in July 2003. The MBCR contract originally expired in July 2008 but had an additional five-year option; it was later extended three years to July 2011 and then another two to July 2013. After concerns about on-time performance, the 2011 extension increased the fine for late trains from $100 to $300.
In August 2012, MBCR and Keolis were the two bidders for the contract. On January 8, 2014, the MBTA awarded Keolis the contract for $2.68 billion over eight years, with the possibility of two two-year extensions that could bring the total price to $4.3 billion. Keolis took over the operations on July 1, 2014. Keolis lost $29.3 million in its first year of operation. In June 2020, the MBTA extended the contract through at least 2025. The final segment of the system to have Positive Train Control activated was the inner Worcester Line on August 15, 2020.
Weekday service was substantially cut on March 17, 2020 due to reduced ridership during the COVID-19 pandemic. On June 22, service was increased to 85% of normal weekday levels. Changes effective November 2 reduced peak service and increased off-peak service, providing more consistent midday headways on some lines; Foxboro pilot service was suspended.
Service changes since MBTA takeover.
Expansions.
Several significant improvements have been made during MBTA's period of stewardship which started circa 1973. However, the Commonwealth's support for rail operations began in the 1950s with contracted operations and subsidies to railroads providing commuter service, and more so in 1964 with the advent of MBTA.
Contractions.
During the period of MBTA control, services have also been curtailed:
Rolling stock.
All MBTA commuter rail service is provided by push-pull trains powered by diesel locomotives with a cab car on the opposite end. Trains typically have four to eight coaches (with six the most common) and seat between 400 and 1400 passengers. Approximately 65 trainsets are needed for weekday service.
The primary heavy maintenance facility is the MBTA Commuter Rail Maintenance Facility, located in East Somerville on the former site of the Boston and Maine's Boston Engine Terminal. It is also used for midday and overnight storage of trains on the northside lines. Southampton Street Yard and the Readville Interim Layover facility are used for light maintenance and layover service. Various other layover facilities are used for midday and overnight storage; most are located near the outer ends of the lines.
Locomotive fleet.
, the MBTA owned 125 locomotives. Of these, 85 were in active passenger service, four used for work service, and 36 inactive for various reasons. The current fleet of diesel locomotives comprises a mix of purpose-built passenger locomotives (such as the EMD F40PH) and freight locomotives rebuilt for passenger use (such as the GMD GP40MCs, which were originally GMD GP40-2LWs). All passenger locomotives are equipped with head end power (HEP), though some locomotives exclusively used for non-revenue work service are not.
Coach fleet.
, the MBTA owned 481 coaches. Of these, 420 were in active service and 61 inactive for various reasons. Coaches whose designations start with BTC (Blind Trailer Coach) are conventional coaches, while those starting with CTC (Control Trailer Coach) are cab cars. Cab cars will occasionally also appear in the middle of a consist. Coaches acquired before 1990 were single-level cars with 88 to 127 seats; those since are bilevel cars with 173 to 185 seats.
Various coaches are equipped with electronic doors for use on the Old Colony Lines and Greenbush Line, which have full-length high-level platforms at all stops. All BTC-3, CTC-3, BTC-4C, and BTC-4D coaches have restrooms. Trains usually have one of these cars adjacent to the locomotive, as that car will be platformed at all high level platforms regardless of length, and thus handicapped riders will be able to access the restroom car.
During winter months, a Ski Train serving Wachusett Mountain runs on the Fitchburg Line, using a coach car which is equipped for carrying bicycles or skis. During summer months, some Newburyport/Rockport Line trains to Rockport include one of two cars equipped to carry bicycles. The CapeFLYER uses car 224, which has been modified as a cafe and baggage car.
In January 2019, the MBTA issued a Request for Qualifications to design additional bilevel coach cars. The agency approved a $279 million contract (total project cost of $345 million) for 80 additional Rotem bilevel coaches in September 2019, with delivery expected from September 2022 to June 2024. The MBTA plans an additional procurement of 100 bilevel cars, delivered from 2024 to 2027.
Retired equipment.
As the Commonwealth assumed the control of the Commuter Rail during the 1970s, it inherited various non-standard equipment from predecessor railroads. These included:
Wi-Fi.
Free Wi-Fi internet service with limited bandwidth is provided on all trains. A two-tiered model where riders can pay extra for faster service is in planning.
The program started with a pilot in January 2008 on the Worcester Line, where 45 coaches were fitted with routers which connected to cellular data networks. This was the first Wi-Fi available on a commuter rail service in the United States. The Worcester Line was chosen for the pilot phase in part to compensate for low on-time performance, as well as to test the service across the line's varied terrain. The program was considered successful; in December 2008, the MBTA announced that Wi-Fi would be available on all trains by mid-2009. Of the 410 coaches then owned by the MBTA, 258 would receive Wi-Fi equipment at a rate of about 30 per month.
In July 2014, the MBTA announced that a private company would be building a new network to replace the 2008-built network. The MBTA is not paying for the new network; instead, the company expects to recoup its investment by providing a two-tiered offering. Free limited-bandwidth Wi-Fi will continue to be provided, along with local television broadcasts; a monthly fee will be charged by the company for access to higher bandwidth and other broadcasts, with 7.5% of the fee returned to the MBTA. The new system was to be completed in 2016, with the revenue agreement lasting until 2037.
By December 2016, the new system was still in permitting and design, except for enhanced Wi-Fi at Back Bay, South Station, and North Station expected to be complete by the end of the year. In August 2017, the MBTA canceled the $140 million plan due to local opposition to the erection of 320 monopoles, each tall, as well as the need to focus on more critical projects like the Green Line Extension.
Fare policy.
The MBTA Commuter Rail uses a fare zone policy whereby origin and destination stations are not individually priced, but assigned a zone based on distance from Boston. There are a total of eleven zones (1A, then 1 through 10) with an increasing fare to or from Boston the higher the zone number. Most stations in inner Boston, as well as stations in Cambridge, Chelsea, Malden and Medford, are located in zone 1A; trips from this zone are the least expensive and cost the same as rapid transit ($2.40), while the highest priced Zone 10 fares are $12.50 per ride. Travel between suburban zones without going to Boston is charged an "interzone" fare based on the number of zones traveled. Seniors, those with a disability, and middle and high school students with proper identification receive a 50% discounted rate; children under eleven travel free with a paying adult. Fares are collected by train conductors; while fare evasion is explicitly illegal, it is not criminal.
Tickets may be purchased at automatic vending machines located in principal stations and at suburban stations from nearby businesses and vendors. Passengers joining at stations without ticketing machines or vendors can purchase tickets on board. Alternatively, riders can use the MBTA mTicket app to purchase tickets on iPhone and Android devices, which allows them to display their tickets on their mobile phone screens rather than presenting paper tickets or passes. Travelers can purchase tickets as a one-way, round trip, ten ride (no discount), or monthly pass (discounted over daily round-trip purchase).
Ridership.
Ridership levels on the Commuter Rail have grown since the MBTA's involvement began in the late 1960s, with overall average weekday ridership growing from 29,500 in 1969 to 76,000 in 1990 and 143,700 in 2008. This was accomplished by a series of rationalizations, such as closing lightly used lines, concentrating service on heavily utilized lines, and re-opening formerly abandoned branches with high traffic potential, such as the Old Colony Lines. A general growth of transit usage in the Northeastern United States also contributed. Growing ridership in this way required substantial capital investment, which was provided by a mixture of Federal mass transit funds and Commonwealth transportation bond issues.
Train operations.
Like most commuter railroads in the Northeastern United States, MBTA is a member of the Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Committee (NORAC) and uses the rulebook promulgated by that organization. Much of the MBTA Commuter Rail system is governed by NORAC rule 251, as the tracks are signalled for movement in one direction of travel only. During the 1990s, parts of the system, such as the Framingham/Worcester Line, were re-signalled to allow a more advanced mode of operations known as NORAC rule 261, which allows trains to operate in either direction on both tracks where double track is available. During the morning rush hour, both tracks can be simultaneously used for inbound traffic, allowing one train to make local stops while an express train overtakes the local train.
On each train, the cab car is attached at the end closest to the downtown Boston terminal station for the particular line (either North or South Station), and the locomotive is attached at the end farthest from the terminal station. On each train serving the North Station lines, the "ADA" coach used to carry mobility-limited persons is attached next to the locomotive, allowing level boarding at all suburban stations featuring mini-high platforms. On the other hand, on each train serving the South Station lines, the cab car also serves as the "ADA" coach. (The "ADA" coaches support compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.)
Trainlined doors that open automatically via central control are available on some equipment, but at low level platforms the conductor in each car must manually open a trap to allow passengers to descend via stairs onto the platform.
Positive Train Control is scheduled to be implemented on the entire system per a federal mandate, which requires installation by the end of 2018 with the possibility of a two-year extension. , the MBTA expects to complete PTC on the southside lines by December 2018, on the northside lines by March 2020, and an overlay for freight on the sections of Pan Am Railways' Freight Main Line which overlap MBTA territory by August 2020. In August 2020, the MBTA reported the system was deployed and undergoing a calibration phase until full operation begins in December 2020 (in time to meet the twice-extended federal deadline).
Future operations.
In November 2019, the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board voted to back plans to further electrify the Commuter Rail system and increase service along key corridors. The resolution in which the board passed instructs the MBTA to prepare to launch a pilot service along the Fairmount line and a portion of the Newburyport/Rockport line where Commuter Rail service would be increased and fares reduced to that of a rapid transit ticket. Both of those lines, as well as the Providence/Stoughton line, are also to be electrified under the plan. The projected cost of such plans were not immediately clear at the time of the board's vote, but projections range from $10.6 billion to $28.9 billion, depending upon the results of the pilot program and future possible expansion.
Expansion projects.
Regional rail.
The MBTA plans to convert the system from diesel-powered commuter rail – which is primarily designed for Boston-centric trips at peak hours – to an electric regional rail system with frequent all-day service. Initial steps were taken in fall 2020 when some peak service was moved to midday, and in April 2021 when 9 of the 15 lines were moved to clock-face scheduling. , the MBTA aims to pilot electric multiple units on Providence service (on the Northeast Corridor, which is already electrified for Amtrak service) in 2024, with the Fairmount Line and the inner section of the Newburyport/Rockport Line electrified later in the decade. A previous attempt at regional rail service was made in 2013–2014 with a procurement for diesel multiple units for the Fairmount Line, new Track 61 service, and several other lines. That procurement was cancelled in 2015.
North–South Rail Link.
No direct connection exists between the two downtown commuter rail terminals; passengers must use the MBTA subway or other modes to transfer between the two halves of the system. (For non-revenue transfers of equipment, the MBTA and Amtrak use the Grand Junction Branch.) The proposed North–South Rail Link would add a new rail tunnel under downtown Boston to allow through-running service, with new underground stations at South Station, North Station, and possibly a new Central Station. A feasibility study was conducted in 2018.
South Coast Rail.
The South Coast Rail project is under construction to extend service to the South Coast cities of Taunton, Fall River, and New Bedford, which were last served by commuter service in 1958. A full planning process was held from 1990 until its suspension in 2002. Planning restarted in 2007, with environmental documentation completed in August 2013. Plans were modified into two phases in 2017 due to an increase in costs. Phase I is under construction to run diesel service beginning in 2023 as an extension of the Middleborough/Lakeville Line via the Middleboro Secondary. Phase II, planned for 2030, would extend the Stoughton Branch of the Providence/Stoughton Line over a reactivated line with electric service.
Other extensions.
A one-year pilot of service to Foxboro station began in 2019. It operated as a branch of the Franklin Line, with most service operated as extended Fairmount Line trains rather than diverted Franklin Line trains. The pilot was suspended in due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Work to double-track the Franklin Line mainline is also underway.
Extensions of several lines are proposed, though none are funded or under construction:
Infill stations.
Several infill stations on existing lines are under construction or proposed:
Station renovations.
Several station renovations for accessibility or expanded service are under construction or planned:
Freight service.
On the North Side lines, as part of the original sale agreement, B&M and its successor Pan Am Railways (formerly Guilford Transportation Industries) retains "perpetual and exclusive" trackage rights for freight service. Pan Am provides freight service on those lines.
Boston Sand and Gravel has an agreement with Pan Am to operate its shortline New Hampshire Northcoast Railroad trains from Ossipee, New Hampshire to just north of Boston's North Station to supply aggregates to its plant on the Boston/Cambridge border. An occasional move occurs with run-through power from Norfolk Southern Railway to supply coal the Merrimack Station power plant in Bow, New Hampshire, over the Fitchburg Line. The Haverhill and Fitchburg lines also host four to six Pan Am manifest freight trains per day.
On the South Side lines, CSX Transportation retains trackage rights over much of the former New Haven territory. Limited service is also provided by the Providence & Worcester Railroad on the Providence Line, principally from Central Falls (the intersection with its main line to Worcester) through Providence towards New Haven (although some freights go as far east as Attleboro before leaving the corridor). The Bay Colony Railroad provides a limited amount of service on some lines.
CSXT used to provide intermodal, autorack, and general merchandise over the Worcester Line, a part of CSXT's Boston Line. This part of the Commuter Rail network could host over 12 mainline freight trains per day, including descendants of Conrail's expedited intermodal Trail Van trains. Currently most freight service terminates in Framingham, and a trainload facility in Westboro, with limited freight service east through Beacon Park Yard in Allston to a few local customers. In 2013 CSX moved its intermodal service from Beacon Park to an expanded yard in Worcester.
On its former Old Colony division, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NYNH&H) essentially vacated its right of freight operations by abandoning the tracks in 1959. As MBTA rebuilt the tracks, it gained freight service rights, and those rights were franchised to Conrail (predecessor to CSX), which provided freight service on the former Old Colony division.
Art and architecture.
As parts of their Arts on the Line program, the MBTA has public art at certain commuter rail stations. Large sculptures and murals are present at South Station, Back Bay, and Lynn, while a number of other stations include historic information panels on station signs.


Owasco River Railway

The Owasco River Railway was a switching railroad that provided rail service to several industries on the Owasco River in Auburn, New York, interchanging with the New York Central Railroad and the Lehigh Valley Railroad via trackage rights on the New York Central. Incorporated on June 2, 1881 and opened by 1886, it was initially owned by the International Harvester Company, but the New York Central gained control of the company and sold half of the stock to the Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1931.
The company was eventually acquired by the Penn Central Transportation Company, successor to the New York Central, and was abandoned in 1976 when Conrail was formed. Penn Central later used the company to own real estate from abandoned rail lines, and it remains as a subsidiary of American Premier Underwriters, successor to Penn Central.


Atlantic Short Line Railway

The Atlantic Short Line Railway was chartered on May 24, 1890, and formed on December 9, 1892, from the failed Macon and Atlantic Railway. Leadership consisted of John R. Young, president, W.C. Hartridge, secretary and treasurer, and J.T. Millen, general superintendent. It managed to build a stretch of railroad east out of Brewton, Georgia, (spelled Bruton at the time) before going bankrupt. Allegations arose that the railway's directors sought to defraud investors by enabling a monopoly of rail transportation in Georgia led by Southern Railway. It was sold to the Central of Georgia Railway in 1896 and reorganized as the Bruton and Pineora Railway in 1897.


Virgil Bogue

Virgil Gay Bogue (1846–1916) was an American civil engineer who worked initially in his home state of New York before taking jobs internationally and in the western and northwestern United States. He primarily worked for railroads, though also became involved in city planning.
Civil engineering.
Bogue was born in Norfolk, New York, on July 16, 1846, the son of George Charles and Mary W. (Perry) Bogue. He received a degree in civil engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, in 1868.
Bogue worked consecutively on Oroya Railway in Peru to 1879, the Northern Pacific Railway to 1886. On the Northern Pacific, he named Pasco, Washington after a region known for vicious sandstorms he had seen while in South America; built the Northern Pacific and Puget Sound Shore Railroad connecting Tacoma, Washington to Seattle, Washington; and discovered Stampede Pass.
After the Northern Pacific, Bogue served as chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad until 1891. Following this, he was also chief engineer on the Western Maryland Railway and headed up the construction of the Western Pacific Railroad through California's rugged Feather River Canyon.
As a consulting engineer, Bogue worked on Columbia River Navigation, Commencement Bay and Grays Harbor, the New Zealand Railway, the New York Department of Public Works, and finally, shortly before his death, the Greater Seattle Plan. Bogue died at sea aboard the steamship "Esperanza" on October 14, 1916.
His "Bogue Plan" was rejected by voters on March 5, 1912 by a 10,000-vote margin. It would have established Seattle's first comprehensive plan and a variety of improvements, including a civic center in the new Denny Regrade area. The civic center was eventually realized five decades later as Seattle Center, more or less in the location Bogue proposed.


Raritan Valley Line

The Raritan Valley Line is a commuter rail service operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) which serves passengers in municipalities in Union, Somerset, and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey, United States. The line's most frequent western terminus is Raritan station in Raritan. Some weekday trains continue farther west and terminate at the High Bridge station, located in High Bridge. Most eastbound trains terminate in Newark; passengers bound for New York make a cross-platform transfer. A limited number of weekday trains continue directly to New York.
Raritan Valley Line trains use three lines owned by three entities. Between High Bridge and the Aldene Connection, east of Cranford, it uses the former Central Railroad of New Jersey Main Line, now owned by New Jersey Transit and also called the Raritan Valley Line. From the Aldene Connection to Hunter it uses Conrail's Lehigh Line, formerly the east end of Lehigh Valley Railroad Main Line. Finally, it uses Amtrak's Northeast Corridor from the Hunter Connection to Newark and New York.
The Raritan Valley Line is colored orange on New Jersey Transit's system map, and its symbol is the Statue of Liberty, an homage to the Central Railroad of New Jersey, whose logo was also the Statue of Liberty.
Description.
Most of the line follows the main line of the former Central Railroad of New Jersey. Historically, CNJ trains ran on this line, as part of its Lehigh-Susquehanna Division, from Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton in eastern Pennsylvania, through Elizabeth and Bayonne to Jersey City. In peak years of service the line was the basis for trains, such as the "Queen of the Valley" and the "Harrisburg Special," reaching as far west as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Until 1967 CNJ service terminated at the company's Communipaw Terminal in what is today Liberty State Park. This station, which was also served by Reading Company trains to Philadelphia and B & O service to Washington, D.C. and beyond, had connections by chartered bus or ferry into Manhattan.
At the end of April 1967, the Aldene Connection opened, connecting the CNJ main line to the Lehigh Valley Railroad (now Conrail's Lehigh Line), and trains were re-routed to Newark Penn Station on the Northeast Corridor via Hunter Connection. This allowed CNJ to end the ferry service between Jersey City and Manhattan, which was losing money.
The former CNJ Main Line was conveyed to Conrail on the former's bankruptcy in 1976. Conrail sold the line to the state of New Jersey in 1978 but continued to operate commuter service under contract. Service on the line was cut back from Phillipsburg to High Bridge on January 1, 1984.
Trains initially could not go beyond Newark Penn Station to New York Penn Station because the locomotives were diesel-powered, and diesel locomotives cannot operate in the North River Tunnels. The introduction of ALP-45DP dual-mode locomotives allows for direct service to New York Penn Station. Limited, service to New York Penn Station started as a pilot program on March 3, 2014. Select trains scheduled to arrive at New York Penn Station provide one-seat rides to New York. This original "pilot project" schedule has been subsequently expanded to include additional trains.
Unlike the Northeast Corridor, the majority of station stops on the Raritan Valley Line are not wheelchair accessible. Newark Penn Station, Union, Cranford, Westfield, Plainfield, and Somerville are accessible, high-platform stations. Roselle Park has a high platform but does not have a ramp or elevator to the street.
In September 2018, all Raritan Valley Line service was truncated to Newark Penn Station to allow for positive train control installation. Direct service to New York resumed on November 4, 2019.
Rolling stock.
The Raritan Valley Line uses all diesel service. The locomotives originally consisted of the GP40PH-2(A and B) and Alstom PL42AC with a 5- or 6-car set of Comet series coaches. Since late 2008, Bombardier Multilevel Series Coaches were added and displaced most of the Comet coaches. As of late 2013, the trainsets' consist use an ALP-45DP and a 6- to 8-car set of Multilevels. However, some occasional trains use the Comet coaches coupled with a PL42AC or an ALP-45DP. NJT had acquired several GE P40DC locomotives from Amtrak in 2007, but were soon transferred to ACES in 2009 and then back in 2011 due to a planned discontinuation. Due to the lack of buyers, the locomotives stayed in NJT's property indefinitely until 2014, when they were sold to the Connecticut Department of Transportation for their CTrail commuter rail services.
With the initiation of select, direct, service to New York Penn Station on the Raritan Valley Line in March 2014, dual-mode Bombardier ALP-45DP locomotives (combination diesel and electric power) were added to the RVL rolling stock to incorporate the "one seat ride" to and from Raritan or High Bridge and Penn Station in New York.
The line's rolling stock is stored at the Raritan Yard, the line's only rail yard, located just west of the station of the same name. All eastbound trains change crews here and trains are normally stored here overnight. This is also one of two fueling facilities for NJT locomotives (the other is at Hoboken Terminal). All trains terminating in Newark head to the Meadows Maintenance Complex in Kearny, New Jersey to be stored.
In May and June 2018, NJ Transit leased 10 MARC coaches to be exclusively operated on the Raritan Valley Line. These cars have since been sent back to MARC.
Proposed extensions.
Phillipsburg.
Service beyond High Bridge to Phillipsburg Union Station in Phillipsburg was discontinued in December 1983 because of low ridership. Then, in November 1989, the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJ DOT) severed the rail line between Alpha and Phillipsburg during construction of I-78. This was done in order to avoid having to build an overpass over the out-of-service trackage.
Since 1984, there have been repeated calls for resumption of service to Phillipsburg to relieve traffic congestion on the parallel I-78 and U.S. Route 22. The Raritan Valley Rail Coalition, formed in 1998 by former U.S. Congressman Bob Franks, is currently looking for cost-effective ways to improve mobility, reduce highway congestion, and increase transit ridership along the Raritan Valley Line. Their study was completed in January 2010. In addition, real estate developers have touted former industrial hub Phillipsburg as an excellent candidate for restored commuter rail service, saying "P'burg. . .a good candidate for rail service..."
NJ Transit has been responsive to the idea, and initiated an environmental impact statement. It was determined that service restoration will take approximately four years and cost $90 million.
In 2010, Easton Mayor Sal Panto Jr. promoted the restoration of rail service to Easton or Phillipsburg and possibly Allentown or Bethlehem.
West Trenton.
Another plan that has been proposed is to restore service on the former Reading Railroad's Jersey City branch track between Ewing and Bound Brook which is the current day CSX Transportation Trenton Subdivision, the NJ Transit rail service on the Trenton Subdivision would be NJ Transit's version of the West Trenton Line, providing a direct link to the SEPTA service of the same name and establishing an additional link to Philadelphia. To date, no funding for the proposal has been secured.


John Leander Billard

John Leander Billard (July 18, 1842 - December 18, 1924) was a coal merchant. He initiated a hostile takeover of the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1914.
Biography.
He was born on July 18, 1842 in Saybrook, Connecticut to John Denton Billard and Emeline E. Spencer. He attended Yale University. He married Harriet Yale Merriman on May 26, 1868 and they had a son, Frederick Howell Billard (1873-1906). In 1914 he attempted a hostile takeover of the Boston and Maine Railroad.
He died on December 18, 1924.


Rick Harnish

Rick Harnish is executive director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association (MHSRA), which he helped found in 1993.
Career.
Harnish's quotes and opinion pieces frequently appear in national, Midwest and Illinois media, and he regularly speaks around the country on high-speed rail issues and railroad infrastructure.


Carolina Piedmont Railroad

The Carolina Piedmont Railroad is a class III railroad and subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming Inc. operating in the Upstate region of South Carolina. From an interchange with CSX Transportation at Laurens the railroad runs to the northwest, terminating at East Greenville.
Primary commodities include plastic resins, gas turbines, wind turbines, food products, forest products, and chemicals with the railroad accumulating about 5,500 annual carloads in 2008. The railroad serves a General Electric facility that provides a source of high value cargo for the line, shipping several gas and wind turbines via rail on a weekly basis.
History.
What is now the Carolina Piedmont railroad began as the Greenville and Laurens Railroad, which was chartered in 1878 and arrived in Greenville in 1882. The railroad was later merged with three others in the region to form the Port Royal and Western Carolina Railway in October 1886. In 1896, the railroad was merged, this time with the Port Royal and Augusta Railway to create the Charleston and Western Carolina Railway, and was promptly acquired by the Atlantic Coast Line in 1897.
Additional mergers came in 1959, as the Charleston & Western Carolina was formally merged into the Atlantic Coast Line. The ACL was merged into the Seaboard Coast Line in 1967, and the SCL was merged into the Seaboard System in 1983. The final merger came in 1986, when the Seaboard System was merged into CSX Transportation.
Shortline service begins.
Annual carloads amounted to about 8,000 in 1988, which prompted CSX to sell the portion from Laurens to a point short of downtown Greenville to the Carolina Piedmont Railroad on November 5, 1990. A key factor in the sale was the fact that the line could not support intermodal or automotive shipments on account of low clearances. The railroad was operated as a division of the South Carolina Central Railroad, a subsidiary of RailTex. For the year 1995, about 6,000 annual carloads originated or terminated on the line.
Expansion and acquisition.
In April 1997, the railroad acquired the Greenville and Northern Railway, running from Greenville to Travelers Rest for a distance of . The G&N was slated for abandonment, along with of track located at the end of the Carolina Piedmont near the Greenville Downtown Airport. However, on May 28, 1999 the railroad reached an agreement with the Greenville County Economic Development Corporation (GCEDC) to purchase both sections in their entirety. The Greenville & Northern was converted into the Swamp Rabbit Trail walking trail after the GCEDC failed to find a new operator, while the southern portion was operated by the Carolina Piedmont under contract by the GCEDC and is primarily used for railcar storage.
An additional change came in 2000 as the South Carolina Central's parent company, RailTex, was purchased by RailAmerica. Around the same time the railroad teamed with General Electric to upgrade rail infrastructure in order to accommodate heavy turbine loads originating from the Greenville facility. Heavier rail was installed, and significant upgrades to the ballast and roadbed were made.
The railroad continued to operate under RailAmerica, hauling 5,529 annual carloads in 2008. until December, 2012 when RailAmerica was absorbed into the competitor Genesee & Wyoming company.
The current CPDR.
Locomotive Roster.
The CPDR currently owns 3 locomotives, all of which being EMD GP38-2s.
CPDR GP38-2 2079:Build Date:11/79:Ex-CPDR 3881 < CFE 3881 < NREX 3881 < nee CNW 4613.
CPDR GP38-2 2007:Build Date:9/69:Ex-CPDR 3899, [GMTX 2659] < LLPX 2740 < NS 2740 < nee Sou GP38 2740.
CPDR GP38-2 2149:Build Date:10/74:Ex-NS 5158 < nee CG/Sou 5158.
Day to day operations.
NB Crew starts working the yard in Laurens around 10:00 AM, and is out anywhere from 10:10-11:00.
Crew runs around their train at East Greenville, where they take the train back south to Sealed Air in Simpsonville where they tie down.
SB Crew is out of Simpsonville anywhere from 10:00-11:00 PM. This crew takes the train all the way back to Laurens.
Regular train is M-F. They will run Saturday for as needed GE Turbine moves.


Benjamin Hafner

Benjamin (Ben) Hafner (March 24, 1821 – 1899) known as "The Flying Dutchman" and "Uncle Ben," was an American locomotive engineer, who worked for the Erie Railway, and at the end of his life known as the oldest engineer in point of service in the United States.
Biography.
Benjamin Hafner, who departed this life in the spring of 1899, was at that time the oldest engineer - in point of service - in the United States. "Uncle Ben," as he was affectionately and familiarly known on the Erie, was born in Baden, Germany, on March 24, 1821, and came to the United States with his parents in 1832. His father was Valentine Hafner, one of Napoleon's soldiers, serving as a first lieutenant, and was in the march to Moscow.
Mr. Hafner began railroading as a fireman in 1839, and in 1840 commenced running as engineer on the old slab-rail road between Baltimore and Cumberland, Maryland. He came to the Erie in 1848, and was one of the pioneer engineers running between Piermont and Port Jervis. Later he ran on the Illinois Central, and in 1857 made a business trip to Europe. On his return he re-entered the employ of the Erie and continued in active service until March, 1892, when he quit running, and was given the position of depot master at Port Jervis, in which capacity he acted until his death.
He was married February 14, 1858, to Miss Mary Catherine Goetz of Baltimore, and eleven children were born to them, five of whom are living. Mr. Hafner was an honored member of the B. of L. E., and stood high in the esteem of the Erie's officials, while every railroad man on the two divisions had a tender regard for the aged engineer, who was one of the best in his day.
Work.
Railroad engineer.
Ben Hafner was an active locomotive engineer for fifty years, who completed his semi centennial as active engineer on August 17, 1890. In this period he wrecked several locomotives, and was himself buried under the locomotive five times. Hafner was a man of romance and of glamor, and known among railroad men in the country as the "Flying Dutchman.
He came as engineers on the Erie in 1848 while there was still no railroad beyond Port Jervis. Before he had served nine years on the Baltimore and Ohio. His first locomotive on the Erie was the "Susquehanna," a Rogers engine. There were then less than 200 men on the pay-roll of the Company, and a majority of them were freight handlers at Piermont. Ben Hafner left the Erie in 1854, and ran on the Illinois Central Railroad, but returned to the Erie in 1858. He has been buried under his locomotive five times so that it took hours to dig him out, and he never got a scratch.
The "Locomotive Engineers Journal" (1875) published the following story about Hafner:
Once, at Ramsey's, the train running at fifty miles an hour, he collided with a coal car. The train was behind time, and he had already made up forty minutes between Port Jervis and that place - a run of about fifty-five miles. His engine turned upside down, and some of the cars were wrecked. Mrs. James Gordon Bennett was a passenger on the train. A brakeman was badly hurt. Mrs. Bennett took up a collection for him among the passengers, contributing liberally herself.
The 1854 strike at Erie.
In a way Hafner triggered the 1854 strike at the Erie Railroad. It all started early in 1854, when Daniel McCallum then superintendent of the Susquehanna division, had drafted a renewed code of rules regulating the running of trains, which he submitted to the Directors of the Company. They were pleased with it, and officially adopted it as supplementary to the existing rules. Charles Minot was then the general superintendent. The McCallum rules were adopted March 6, 1854, and Minot was directed to put them in force. He did not approve of some of them. He refused to promulgate the new code, and resigned.
McCallum took charge as general superintendent May 1, 1854, and his new rules were at once put in force. Trouble was not long in following. The engineers objected to the new order of things, particularly to Rule 6 of the McCallum code, which declared that every engineer would be held responsible for running off a switch at a station where he stopped, whether he should run off before or after receiving a signal to go forward from a switchman or any other person. The engineer, under this rule, was expected to see for himself whether the switch was right or not, and take no person's authority for the same at stations where trains stopped. The engineer, however, had a right to run past stations where he did not stop at a rate he was willing to hazard on his own account, the Company reserving the right to decide whether such running was reckless or not. " The road must be run safe first and fast afterward," the management declared.
The engineers also protested against the alleged " posting rule " of the Company, under which notices of dismissal of engineers was at once posted with other railroad companies to the injury of the men. An abrogation of the distasteful rules was requested, June 15, by a committee, consisting of John Donohue, William Schrier, and John C. Meginnes. Superintendent McCallum's explanation and reply not being satisfactory, the engineers struck on June 17 - the first strike in the history of the railroad. This strike on the Erie was settled after ten days' paralysis of the business of the railroad, and a loss of many thousands of dollars to the Company.
The engineer over whose case the strike resulted was Benjamin Hafner of the Eastern Division. On the evening of June 10 ran off a switch at Turner's. He was dismissed. After he was dismissed Hafner was sent for by Superintendent McCallum to talk about the incident. Hafner refused to go unless he was reinstated first. McCallum declined to reinstate him without a consultation. The matter was taken up by all the leading engineers on the Delaware and Eastern divisions, with the above result.
The "Flying Dutchman".
In 1869, while Jay Gould was President of the Erie, he ordered a locomotive made at the Brooks Locomotive Works at Dunkirk, which he named the George G. Barnard, after the famous Judge of that name. It was the handsomest locomotive ever made up to that time. It was decorated by paintings in oil, on every spot where one could be placed, by the late Jasper F. Crapsey, the artist. There were fourteen coats of varnish on the boiler. Gould selected Ben Hafner to be the engineer of the locomotive. The first trip Jay Gould ever took behind this locomotive with Ben at the throttle he was in a special car, bound for Susquehanna, 104 miles from Port Jem's. Gould told Hafner to go pretty fast. He went so fast that before they had gone many miles over the crooked Delaware Division Gould sent his colored porter ahead to tell Ben to go slower, much to the disgust of Ben.
Ben Hafner got the name of the "Flying Dutchman" in this way: One day in the summer of 1871 No. 8 was late when he took that train at Port Jervis. He had orders to make the run to Jersey City in as short a time as he could. The distance was eighty-nine miles. Hafner made the run in just two hours, including seven stops, one of which was fourteen minutes at Turner's for supper. The passengers were badly frightened at the speed of the train. When the train reached Jersey, one of the passengers passed Ben as he was leaning out of his cab, and yelled at him:
From that day to this Ben Hafner has been the "Flying Dutchman" to all railroad men. In 1893 Hafner retired as an engineer after more than half a century on a locomotive, and since then has been depot master at Port Jervis. He was hale and hearty at seventy-six.
References.
 This article incorporates public domain material from H.R. Romans (eds.) "American locomotive engineers: Erie Railway edition, illustrated" Crawford-Adsit Co. Publishers, W.H. Welch, Proprietor in Chicago. 1899, p. 304; and other public domain material from books and websites.


Byesville Scenic Railway

Byesville Scenic Railway is a tourist railroad located in Byesville, Ohio. Service was suspended in 2011, and as of 2019 has not resumed.
The railway is a non-profit group dedicated to preserving the local coal mining and railroad history in Guernsey County, Ohio, United States. The railroad runs on track that was originally known as the Cleveland & Marietta Railroad and later became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The primary freight hauled was coal, as Guernsey County was a large producer of coal. It later became part of the Penn Central Railroad due to a merger of the Pennsylvania and New York Central and later Conrail.
In the early 1980s most of the C&M was removed, the remaining portion from Cambridge to C&M Junction (just south of Derwent) was sold to the Chessie System (which later became CSX Transportation). Guernsey County purchased Byesville to C&M Junction in 1999 which lay dormant until 2003 when the Buckeye Central Scenic Railroad began operating a tourist train from Byesville, Ohio to Derwent. In 2006, the newly formed Byesville Scenic Railway (BSRW) began operations and has continued the rehabilitation of line to C&M Junction. BSRW plans call for the rebuilding the old B&O Eastern Ohio branch to Cumberland, Ohio.
Trains have not run since 2011.


Atlantic and Northwestern Railroad

The Atlantic and Northwestern Railroad was a railroad that served the Upstate region in the period after Reconstruction.
The Atlantic and Northwestern was formed when the Union, Gaffney City and Rutherfordton Railroad, chartered by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1878, changed its name to the Atlantic and Northwestern in 1885.
In 1887, the Atlantic and Northwestern Railroad merged with the Augusta, Edgefield and Newberry Railroad to create the Georgia and Carolina Midland Railroad.


Chauncey Depew

Chauncey Mitchell Depew (April 23, 1834April 5, 1928) was an American attorney, businessman, and Republican politician. He is best remembered for his two terms as United States Senator from New York and for his work for Cornelius Vanderbilt, as an attorney and as president of the New York Central Railroad System.
Early life.
Depew was born in Peekskill, New York on April 23, 1834, to Isaac Depew (1800–69) and Martha Minot (Mitchell) Depew (1810–85).
Family.
Depew's father was a merchant and farmer who pioneered river transportation between Peekskill and New York and was descended from François DuPuy, a French Huguenot who purchased land from natives at the present site of Peekskill. Through his mother, Depew was descended from Rev. Josiah Sherman, who served as a chaplain with rank of captain in the Revolutionary War and who was the brother of American founding father Roger Sherman and Rev. Charles Chauncey, the second president of Harvard College.
Education.
Depew attended Peekskill Military Academy for 12 years before matriculating at Yale College in 1852. At Yale, Depew joined many clubs and won several honors. He won second dispute appointments in his junior and senior years and was an honored speaker at Junior Exhibition and Commencement. He joined the Thulia Boat Club, Kappa Sigma Epsilon, Kappa Sigma Theta, Psi Upsilon, and Skull and Bones. He served as third president of the Linonian Society. At Yale, he was a classmate of two future United States Supreme Court Justices, David Josiah Brewer and Henry Billings Brown. He graduated in 1856.
Legal and business career.
After graduating from Yale, Depew apprenticed in the office of Edward Wells in Peekskill and read law with William Nelson. He was admitted to the New York state bar in March 1858 and opened an office in Peekskill, where he practiced until 1861. For a few months, Depew engaged in the brokerage business in New York City as a member of the firm Depew & Potter, but then resumed his law practice in Peekskill. Depew later moved to New York City. During the American Civil War, Depew served as Adjutant of the 18th Regiment of the New York National Guard, and later Colonel and Judge Advocate of the 5th Division on the staff of Major General James W. Husted of the New York Guard.
In 1865, Depew was appointed and confirmed to the position of United States Minister to Japan, but he declined the appointment to pursue his career as a railroad and business lawyer.
Railroad attorney.
In 1866, Depew became the attorney for New York & Harlem Railroad, owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt. Three years later, he took the same position for Vanderbilt's New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. Having earned recognition for his work with subsidiary companies, Depew became general counsel and director of the entire "Vanderbilt System" in 1876. He joined the executive board of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad in 1882 and became its second vice president. In 1885, Depew was elected the railroad's president and served in that capacity until 1898 when he was succeeded by Samuel R. Callaway. Depew then became chairman of board of directors of New York Central Railroad Company until his death in 1928.
While Depew was primarily active in the Vanderbilt railroads, he held concurrent positions with many other railroads and companies. He was president of West Shore Railroad and served on the boards of directors for the New York and Harlem Railroad, the Chicago and North Western Railway, the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, the New Jersey Junction Railroad, the St. Lawrence and Adirondack Railroad, the Wallkill Valley Railroad, and the Canada Southern Railroad.
Aside from railroads, Depew also served on the boards of directors for Western Union, the Hudson River Bridge Company, the Niagara River Bridge Company, the New York State Realty & Terminal Company, the Union Trust Company, Equitable Life Assurance Company, and Kensico Cemetery Association.
Political career.
As a young student and lawyer, Depew stumped the state of New York for John C. Frémont in 1856 and for Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
New York politics.
Depew represented Westchester County in the New York State Assembly in 1862 and 1863. During the latter year, he sometimes acted as Speaker of the New York State Assembly pro tempore while Speaker Theophilus C. Callicot was under investigation. In 1863, he was elected Secretary of State of New York on the Union ticket and served from 1864 to 1865.
In 1867, Depew became clerk of Westchester County but resigned after a short service. In 1870, the New York Legislature named Depew Immigration Commissioner, but he declined to serve. Depew had also been commissioner of quarantine and president of Court of Claims of New York City as well as commissioner of taxes and assessments for the city and county of New York. Depew was one of the commissioners appointed to build the state capitol in 1874 and a member of the state's boundary commission in 1875.
In 1872, Depew was ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York on the Liberal Republican-Democratic ticket but was defeated.
In 1886, Depew gave an oration at the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty.
On October 7, 1897, Depew inaugurated the New York pneumatic tube mail, declaring: "This is the age of speed. Everything that makes for speed contributes to happiness and is a distinct gain to civilization. We are ahead of the old countries in almost every respect, but we have been behind in methods of communication within our cities. In New York this condition of communication has hitherto been barbarous. If the Greater New York is to be a success, quick communication is absolutely necessary. I hope this system we have seen tried here to-day will soon be extended over all the Greater New York."
In 1898, Depew nominated Theodore Roosevelt for Governor of New York at the Republican state convention.
Presidential politics.
Depew served as a delegate-at-large to each Republican National Convention from 1888 to 1904 and was elected delegate to all following conventions, including 1928, being elected the day before he died. At the convention in 1888, Depew received 99 votes for the presidential nomination. He made presidential nominating speeches for Benjamin Harrison in 1892 and Governor Levi Morton in 1896. In 1904, he made the re-nominating speech for Vice President Charles Fairbanks.
U.S. Senate.
Depew was a candidate for United States Senator in an 1881 special election, but withdrew his name from consideration after the 41st ballot. He also declined nomination as a senator in 1885.
In 1899, Depew was elected to the Senate from New York and was re-elected in 1905 United States Senate election in New York. He served from March 4, 1899, to March 3, 1911.
In 1906, David Graham Phillips began a muckraking series entitled "The Treason of the Senate" for William Randolph Hearst's new "Cosmopolitan" magazine, and targeted Depew in the first article. The article's sensational charges included labeling Depew a "boodler" owned "mentally and morally" by railroad magnates Cornelius and William Vanderbilt. The piece provoked outrage from President Roosevelt, the "New York Sun" and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.
Death.
In spring 1928, Depew became ill while returning from Florida to Manhattan. He died of bronchial pneumonia in Manhattan on April 5, 1928. He was buried in the family mausoleum in Hillside Cemetery, Peekskill. In his honor, the huge concourse of Grand Central Terminal was draped in mourning.
Personal life.
Depew married twice. On November 9, 1871, he married Elise Ann Hegeman (1848–93) in New York City. She was the daughter of William and Eliza Jane (Nevin) Hegeman. Before her death on May 7, 1893, they had one son, Chauncey Mitchell Depew, Jr. (1879–1931), who died unmarried.
On December 27, 1901, he re-married to May Eugenie Palmer (1866–1940) in Nice, France. She was the daughter of Henry and Alice (Hermann) Palmer.
He attended Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in New York.
Yale.
Depew was a member of the Yale Corporation (1888–1906). In 1887, Yale conferred him an honorary doctorate of letters. He was a founding member of the Yale Alumni Association of New York and served as its third president from 1883–92. He was also among those founding members of the Yale Club of New York City in 1897. He was a vice chairman of the $20,000,000 Yale Endowment Campaign and was elected an honorary member of Yale Class of 1889 in 1923. In his will, he left $1,000,000 to Yale without restrictions as to its use.
Civic associations.
He served as trustee of his alma mater, the Peekskill Military Academy.
In 1877, Depew became a regent of the University of the State of New York and served until 1904.
Depew became a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1885 and served as its vice president from 1904–08.
In 1918, Depew was made life member of Lawyers' Club of New York.
Depew was active in a number of patriotic and hereditary societies. He served as president of Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution from 1890–99, the Pilgrims Society from 1918 until his death, the Saint Nicholas Society. He joined the Union League in 1868 and served as its president for seven years. He was elected an honorary life member at the close of his presidency. He was also a member of the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati, the New York Society of Colonial Wars, Holland Society, Huguenot Society and the New England Society of New York. Other cultural memberships included the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Association for the Advancement of Science, France-America Society, New York Historical Society, Historical Society of St. Augustine, Florida, American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, National Horse Show, Lafayette Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and the citizens' committee to complete the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Honors.
Depew received the French Légion d'honneur in the rank of Officer.
Depew was an honorary member of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
In 1887, Depew became an honorary member of Columbia chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
Legacy.
Depew was a distinguished orator and after-dinner speaker and published many of those speeches. Recordings of his speeches were commercially issued as gramophone discs by Zonophone Records in the late 1890s. Depew was remembered as a prodigious speaker years after his death; many years after his death, Senator Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma quoted Depew in an attack on a Senator from Indiana: "As I gaze on the ample figure of my friend from Indiana, and as I listen to him, I am reminded of Chauncey Depew who said to the equally obese William Howard Taft at a dinner before the latter became President, 'I hope, if it is a girl, Mr. Taft will name it for his charming wife.' "To which Taft responded, 'if it is a girl, I shall, of course, name it for my lovely helpmate of many years. And if it is a boy, I shall claim the father's prerogative and name it Junior. But if, as I suspect, it is only a bag of wind, I shall name it Chauncey Depew.'"
In 1929, May Palmer-Depew donated her late husband's papers and $120,000 to establish a department of public speaking to George Washington University. The collection is currently cared for by the university's Special Collections Research Center, located in the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library.
Namesakes.
In 1908, Depew gave land to Peekskill, New York, which became Depew Park. A decade later he expanded the donation by acres and paid for a statue of himself for display in that park.
The Village of Depew, New York was incorporated in 1894 along the New York Central Railroad main line. The town of Depew, Oklahoma, is also named for him.
The ship "Chauncey M. DePew" was built for the Maine Central Railroad Company in 1913 to carry passengers to Bar Harbor. She worked along the Maine coast until 1925 when she was sold to the Day Line as an excursion boat between New York and Albany. In 1940 she was drafted to carry men and supplies between New York City and Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook. In 1950, she was sold to the government of Bermuda and spent the next 20 years as a ship's tender, harbor ferry, cruise ship and pilot boat. Back in the States, in 1971, a storm slammed her against a breakwater in Chesapeake Bay, where she lay for three years. She was refurbished and moored in the Hackensack River between Harmon Cove and the Hackensack River Route 3 Bridge,
 Another boat, a tugboat owned by the New York Central, was also named for him.
Depictions.
Many artists painted Depew, including George Burroughs Torrey. The Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury painted Depew numerous times. A three-quarter length portrait of Depew seated on a bale of furs was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1890 and is now in the Yale Club of New York City. Several other portraits followed including a portrait painted for the New York State Capitol at Albany showing Depew as he was in 1863 (now New York State Museum). The artist gave a bust-length portrait to the Museum at Peekskill in 1918. Copies of an etching Müller-Ury made of Depew, signed by the artist and the sitter, are in the American National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, the collection of the Newport Preservation Society of Rhode Island, and the University of Cincinnati College of Design. Müller-Ury also painted Depew's first wife in 1893, and his second wife in 1902 in 18th-century costume.
References.
Notes
Sources
External links.


CSX milepost prefixes

Most CSX railroad lines are given lettered prefixes before milepost numbers. These prefixes are one to three letters long with the first letter usually refer to the former company. For instance, prefixes beginning with "S" were part of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. Some of these company prefixes include the following:
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.
Lines that were formerly part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad system are given milepost prefixes beginning with the letter A. For instance, milepost A790 is on the main line in Orlando, Florida, 1000 miles south of the beginning in Richmond, Virginia, and milepost AN587 is in Waycross, Georgia, 587 miles south of Richmond on the branch to Montgomery, Alabama (which splits near milepost 548 in Jesup). Three-letter prefixes are used for minor branches of these branches, or minor branches off the mainline - for instance ANA is the northernmost branch of AN.
Before the ACL merged into the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad in 1967, none of the prefixes had the initial "A". The letters "I" and "Q" were skipped, and double-lettered prefixes (like KK, which would be AKK post-1967) were not used.
A is given to the main line from Richmond, Virginia to Port of Tampa, Florida. It has been pieced together from many sections of original main lines and newer connections; the full line is still in use by CSX.
AA is the northernmost spur, running from A89/AA89 at Halifax, North Carolina southeast and south to AA178 in Kinston, North Carolina. It was all built as the Scotland Neck Branch of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad.
Seaboard Air Line Railroad.
Lines that were formerly part of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad system are given milepost prefixes beginning with the letter S. The mainline is numbered similarly to the Atlantic Coast Line route with the exception of the prefix. Also, like the ACL, the SAL mainline ran from Richmond, Virginia to Tampa, Florida.
The S Line is today discontinuous and segments of the original line have been abandoned (notable abandoned segments are between Chester, Virginia and Norlina, North Carolina, and between Riceboro and Seals, Georgia. The Seaboard main line from Richmond to Tampa, heart of its 2600-mile system in 1900, had been built by the following companies:


Keith Fitzhugh

Keith Callay Fitzhugh (born November 11, 1986) is a former American football safety who briefly was in the National Football League. He was signed by the New York Jets as an undrafted free agent in 2009. He played college football at Mississippi State.
High school.
Keith graduated from Lovejoy High School in Hampton Georgia a semester early to attend Mississippi State University. He was the first recruit for Coach Sylvester Croom and chose Mississippi State.
College.
In 2005, Keith played in 11 games as a true freshman making 13 tackles (including a tackle for loss). In 2006, Keith played in all 12 games and had 59 tackles and 1 interception. In 2007, Keith played in all 13 games and had 58 tackles, 5.5 Tackles for Loss, 1 Sack, and 2 Interceptions. In 2008, Keith played in all 12 games and had 50 tackles, 2.5 sacks and 1 interception
He was ranked the 12th best safety in the 2009 NFL Draft by NFL Draft Scout.
Professional career.
Fitzhugh went undrafted in 2009 and tryouts with the Jets and Ravens were unsuccessful. On December 8, 2010, Fitzhugh declined an invitation to rejoin the Jets after injuries to safeties Jim Leonhard and James Ihedigbo, in order to provide a steady income for his parents. His father is disabled and unable to work. He works as a conductor for the Norfolk Southern Railway in Atlanta.
Personal life.
Keith currently resides in Hampton, Georgia with his father Keith Fitzhugh, Sr. and mother Meltonia Fitzhugh. Keith has an older brother named Toran and his sister Brittany died at the age of 14 from complications of the West Nile virus.


Babbitt, North Bergen

Babbitt is a neighborhood in North Bergen Township in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. The area, located west of Tonnelle Avenue within the New Jersey Meadowlands District, is home to light manufacturing, warehouses, transportation facilities, and part of the wetlands preservation area known as the Eastern Brackish Marsh.
Babbitt's Best Soap.
The name is taken from the company that produced "Babbitt's Best Soap", named after its founder, Benjamin T. Babbitt. In 1904 the company purchased a tract of between Granton and Faiview, and in 1907 relocated from its former premises, a facility on West Street in Lower Manhattan. to what was then one of the largest soap manufacturing plants in the world. Sinclair Lewis's novel "Babbitt" about an industrialist used the surname.
Granton Junction and Babbitt station.
The West Shore Railroad, the Erie Railroad's Northern Branch, and the New York, Susquehanna, and Western (NYSW) all passed through the area running parallel to each other. Both Erie and NYSW maintained minor stations nearby 83rd Street, which crossed under the right-of-way of the West Shore. Granton Junction was located just south of the stations and was where NYSW and Erie converged after the latter had also passed under the West Shore. For a time Granton was busy railroad junction used by both the Erie and NYSW, which shared track and stations, including the Susquehanna Transfer. The name Granton comes from a former quarry that later was site of an important fossil find of a phytosaur. Joint operations between the Erie and NYSW were controlled by GR Tower, which in 1959 was destroyed by fire, ending the relationship. Originally the soap works were outfitted with rail spurs by the NYSW, but by 1909 they had been removed in a renegade action in which factory workers where locked-up and the tracks removed and hauled away. In August 1922, a full Sunday evening Erie train heading south to Pavonia Terminal was struck by bombs thrown at it in what was considered an act of sabotage and an attempt to cause a collision.
CSX and HBLR Northern Branch 91st Street station.
The West Shore subsequently became Conrail's River Line, and eventually the CSX River Subdivision which begins to the south at North Bergen Yard. Road access to its Little Ferry Yard is located in Babbitt.
The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail extension into eastern Bergen County known as the Northern Branch Corridor Project calls for the closure of the at-grade crossing at 83rd Street and creation of a new one at 85th Street.
A 91st Street (HBLR station) is planned.


Philip E. Thomas

Philip Evan Thomas (November 11, 1776 – September 1, 1861) was the first president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) from 1827 to 1836. He has been referred to as "The Father of American Railways". The Thomas Viaduct bridge in Relay, Maryland, was named after him.
Biography.
Philip was born in Mount Radnor, Colesville, Maryland, the third son of Evan and Rachel (Hopkins) Thomas. His mother was the daughter of Gerard Hopkins whose family include Samuel Hopkins and his son Johns Hopkins, the founder of Johns Hopkins University.
He married Elizabeth George of Kent County, Maryland, and worked in the hardware business in Baltimore under Thomas Poultney, his brother-in-law. He commenced his own business in 1800 with Evan Thomas, Jr., his younger brother, and William George, his wife's brother. He became active in both the Baltimore community and the banking business. He served as a cashier at Mechanics' Bank, became the first president of the Mechanical Fire Company, was the founder of the Baltimore Library Company and an organizer of the State Temperance Society. Thomas donated $25,000 to the State for the Washington Monument. A prominent figure in the Society of Friends (the Quakers) from 1821-1832, he was also served chairman of the Society's Indian Affairs Committee. His efforts to help Native Americans earned him the title of "Hai-wa-nob" (the Benevolent One) from the Swan tribe of the Seneca people. Thomas was the representative to Washington for the Six Nations of Indians.
He died in 1861 while living with his daughter in Yonkers, New York. He had seven children.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
In 1825, Thomas became involved with the early canal enterprises in New England and acted as commissioner of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal system in Maryland. He became disillusioned with the project after realizing that it would not benefit Baltimore and he resigned his commission in 1828.
Inspired by his brother Evan's description of an English mining railroad, Thomas, George Brown and 25 other civic leaders of Baltimore determined to build a railroad from Baltimore to the Ohio River and beyond. They obtained corporate charters from the Maryland and Virginia legislatures in 1827. With Thomas as president, George Brown as treasurer and Alexander Brown as one of several other investors, Thomas founded a railroad to compete with the canals. Construction of the B&O Railroad began in Baltimore in 1828, and the first passenger train to Ellicott's Mills (now Ellicott City) began service in 1830. The B&O was the first common carrier railroad in the United States.
In building the new railroad, Thomas and the B&O encountered many obstacles - political, legal, financial and technical - but construction of the main line continued westward during the 1830s. The line reached the Potomac River across from Harpers Ferry, Virginia (later West Virginia) in 1834. The B&O also completed a branch line from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. in 1835. By 1836, Thomas was in poor health, and he resigned from the B&O presidency on June 30, succeeded by Louis McLane.


FEC Strauss Trunnion Bascule Bridge

The FEC Strauss Trunnion Bascule Bridge is a double track railroad bridge spanning the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida.
Completed in 1925 by the Florida East Coast Railway, this structure replaced a single-track swing bridge which opened on January 5, 1890. The current structure is a simple truss bridge with plate girder approaches and a bascule lift allowing ships to pass. It is adjacent to the Acosta Bridge.


Chicago City Railway

The Chicago City Railway Company (CCRy) was an urban transit company that operated horse, cable, and electric streetcars on Chicago's South Side between 1859 and 1914, when it became merged into and part of the Chicago Surface Lines (CSL) metropolitan-wide system. After that time it owned electric streetcars, along with gasoline, diesel, and propane – fueled transit busses. Purchased by the government agency Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) in 1947, it was liquidated in 1950.
Beginnings (C.C.Ry.).
In the 1850s, Chicago was growing and better public transportation was needed. Horse drawn omnibuses were shuttling passengers between several recently built interstate railroad stations for radiating lines like spokes of a wheel by 1853, but city/town streets, roads and turnpikes were often muddy, rutted and potholed with travel very difficult. In 1858, omnibus operator Frank Parmelee and a group of investors were awarded a city franchise for a rail horsecar line, but legal challenges caused them to seek a state charter instead. On February 14, 1859, the Chicago City Railway Company (C.C.Ry.) was incorporated and in two months horsecars were running on State Street between Randolph and 12th Streets.
Horsecars.
The horsecars were a success from the start. The smooth rail and reduced rolling resistance allowed larger cars to be used in all weather. A typical car was long, wide, and could carry 20 passengers.
Although horsecar lines were inexpensive to build, they were expensive to operate. Horses could be up to of the value of a company. They were expensive to buy, needed people to maintain them, were subject to illness, and made a huge amount of manure/waste. By 1880, the C.C.Ry. was looking for a better, mechanical replacement.
Cable cars.
In 1880, superintendent Charles Holmes visited San Francisco to see the new and successful cable car lines there, and could see a use for cable cars in Chicago. As with most cities which would use cable cars, the problem in flat-landed Chicago was not one of grades and steep hills and valleys, but of pure transportation capacity.
Construction began in 1881 on a system designed by William Eppelsheimer, with lines going south from the downtown area on main thoroughfare State Street and Wabash-Cottage Grove Avenues. This system was to become the largest and most profitable cable car system in the world.
State Street service started on January 28, 1882, Cottage Grove Avenue on February 26. Counter to some people's expectations, the cable cars did not suffer much from the elements, and the harsher Chicago climate with extreme variations in summer heat and winter cold was no problem for them.
The number of passengers caused a different approach to the cars than the San Francisco cable car system. Rather than using a grip car and single trailer, or combining the grip and trailer into a single car, like the "California Cars", CCRy used short bi-directional grip cars to pull trains of up to three trailers.
The cable cars did not completely replace the horsecars, but they rather created a transportation backbone. In fact, even as the horse lines were being converted to trolleys, the electrical cars from some feeder lines had to be pulled by grip cars through the downtown area, due to the lack of trolley wires there.
Electric streetcars.
As the cable system was being built electric traction was being developed. Although the individual cars cost more, stringing wire cost far less per mile than digging conduits. In 1892, the Chicago City Council allowed C.C.Ry.'s first electric lines. Since the cable lines were already effective, and there was opposition to wires downtown, electric cars were used to replace horsecars on feeder routes when they became available. It was not until 1906, that all CCRy lines were converted to electricity. From then on, the CCRy primarily operated electric streetcars.
Chicago Surface Lines (C.S.L.).
By 1900, political corruption, unscrupulous actions by other companies, and public opinion made it difficult for the street railways to plan ahead. Length and terms of franchises, fare caps, taxes, and property owner consent were some of the problems.
Public ownership was discussed, but instead, city ordinances controlling the private companies were passed and appealed for years. One was the Unification Ordinance of November 13, 1913 by the Chicago City Council, which combined management and operations of all Chicago streetcar companies as the Chicago Surface Lines (C.S.L.), taking effect in 1914. The C.C.Ry. became a "paper company". It continued to own equipment, but the equipment was operated by the C.S.L. and used systemwide throughout the metropolitan area.
The CSL was eventually sold to the publicly owned, government agency, Chicago Transit Authority after 88 years of private operations and 34 years since consolidation, on April 22, 1947, and the CCRy was liquidated on February 15, 1950.
Remnants.
In 2015 yard switcher CSL #L202 and flat car CTA #314 are at the Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, Illinois. CCRy #209 cable trailer and CSL #9020 electric trailer are at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. Horsecar #10 and grip car #532 were on exhibit in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry in 1979.
One CCRy streetcar station from 1893 survives at 5529 South Lake Park Avenue in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The former cable car station and waiting room currently serves as the home of the Hyde Park Historical Society.
A shop building from 1902 and streetcar barns from 1906, still remain in service by 2014 at the CTA's 77th Street and Vincennes Avenue yards. Another streetcar barn remains on Wabash Avenue just north of 63rd Street.


Medford branch (Boston and Maine Railroad)

The Medford branch was a railroad branch line of the Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M). Located entirely within Medford, Massachusetts, the branch connected Medford Square to the B&M main line. It had passenger service from 1847 to 1957, with freight service on the inner part of the line until 2010.
History.
The Boston and Lowell Railroad was built in 1835 through West Medford, followed by the Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M) through the east part of Medford in 1844. On March 7, 1845, the state legislature approved the charter of the Medford Branch Rail-road Company to build a branch line from the B&M mainline to Medford Square. The railroad had been formed by a group of citizens including James O. Curtis earlier that year. The group almost immediately acted on the charter provision which allowed them to transfer the line to the B&M, which constructed the line and opened it as the Medford branch on March 2, 1847. It ran about from Medford Junction (north of Wellington station) to Medford Square.
By 1875, an intermediate station - East Medford - had been added at Spring Street. A second stop at Park Street was added by 1889. The East Medford station had been renamed Glenwood by then, and was relocated slightly to the east by 1900.
In the 1890s, the B&M double-tracked the branch to provide more frequent service to compete with electric streetcars. The branch was then a busy commuter route; at the peak levels of B&M service in 1906, the branch had 21 daily round trips. However, ridership was soon decimated by the streetcars operated by the Boston Elevated Railway and the Bay State Street Railway. The B&M attempted to end service in 1917; after negotiations with the town, the railroad kept four daily round trips. This increased slightly to six daily round trips by 1919. Operation of a gasoline-electric railcar on the branch was considered in 1925.
Service on the branch was discontinued for some period in 1933–34; the station buildings remained closed after service resumed. As a marginal route, the branch was often closed entirely during service disruptions like those caused by the April 1946 and March 1948 coal mine strikes. By 1949, only a single daily round trip remained. This trip was discontinued on October 1, 1957.
The section of the line between Park Street and Medford Square was abandoned in 1959, with the Northern Expressway soon built across it. The section between Park Street and Glenwood was abandoned two years later, while freight service continued on the remaining section. In the early 1970s, an underpass for the Orange Line and Reading Line was built at Medford Junction as part of the Haymarket North Extension. (Never-realized plans in the 1940s had called for the Medford branch to be reused as an Orange Line branch.) Regular freight service ended in 2008, though a single trip to deliver a single carload of fish was run in 2010. The only remaining station structure is the Park Street station, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.


Atlas Car and Manufacturing Company

The Atlas Car and Manufacturing Company was a manufacturer of small railroad locomotives. The company was based in Cleveland, OH, building equipment from 1896 through the 1980s.
Overview.
Atlas specialized in the building of small locomotives and purpose built rail borne equipment for industrial use. The equipment it manufactured seldom ran on the rails of Class I railroads, but were often used to shuttle freight cars around inside manufacturing plants. Atlas's products ranged from small 2-ton end cab switchers up to 65-ton center cab switchers. They also built a wide variety of equipment for the steel industry including blast furnace transfer cars, scale cars, coke quench cars, coke quench locomotives (to 75 tons), furnace cars and self-propelled flatcars. While most equipment was built for steel and coke plants within the United States, some equipment was shipped outside the country (for example 5 scale cars to Russia).


Horatio Washington Bruce

Horatio Washington Bruce (February 22, 1830 – January 22, 1903) was a Confederate politician during the American Civil War.
Early life.
Horatio Bruce was born February 22, 1830 about one mile south of Vanceburg in Lewis County, Kentucky. He was the son of Alexander and Amanda (Bragg) Bruce and named for two of his uncles, Horatio and Washington Bruce. His paternal grandfather was a soldier in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, and his father was a wealthy landowner who served as a Whig in the Kentucky General Assembly in 1825 and 1826. His maternal grandfather also served in the Revolutionary War. He was of Scottish ancestry on his father's side and English ancestry on his mother's side.
Bruce was educated in private schools in his native Lewis County, as well as Manchester, Ohio. At age sixteen, he began work as a salesman in a general store, a job he held until 1849. Concurrently, he was postmaster of the post office in Vanceburg. In 1849, Bruce taught at a school in Vanceburg for a five-month term. The following year, he taught for five months in another school in Lewis County. In December 1850, he relocated to Flemingsburg, where he read law in the office of Leander M. Cox. He was admitted to the bar in July 1851 and opened his practice in Flemingsburg. Later that year, he was appointed examiner by the circuit court of Fleming county, and soon after was elected to the Flemingsburg Board of School Trustees.
Antebellum political career.
Bruce first became active in politics in 1852, making campaign speeches for the Whig presidential ticket of Winfield Scott and William Alexander Graham in the 1852 election. When the Whig Party collapsed, Bruce associated with the Know Nothing Party, and was elected to represent Fleming County in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1855 and 1856.
On June 12, 1856, Bruce married Elizabeth Hardin Helm, daughter of two-time Kentucky Governor John L. Helm, at "Helm Place", the bride's home in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. The couple had five children: Helm Bruce, Elizabeth Barber Bruce, Maria Preston Pope Bruce, Mary (Bruce) Smith, and V. Alexander Bruce. In August 1856, Bruce was elected Commonwealth's Attorney for the Tenth District, comprising Mason, Lewis, Greenup, Rowan, Fleming and Nicholas counties. He held this position until 1858.
In late 1858, he resigned his position as Commonwealth's Attorney and moved to Louisville. There, he formed the law firm of Helm and Bruce with his brother-in-law, Benjamin Hardin Helm. During the 1860 presidential election, Bruce actively supported the Constitutional Union ticket of John Bell and Edward Everett. In 1861, he adopted a states' rights platform and unsuccessfully sought a seat in the United States House of Representatives, losing to Robert Mallory.
Civil War.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Bruce sided with the Confederacy and left Louisville for Bowling Green, the headquarters of the state's Confederates, on August 17, 1861. He was a delegate to Kentucky's first Confederate sovereignty convention, held at Russellville from October 29–31, 1861. This self-constituted convention laid the groundwork for Kentucky's secession from the Union, and called for a second convention to be held in Russellville November 18 and 19, 1861. This second convention passed an ordinance of secession, declaring Kentucky to have withdrawn from the Union. The convention also established a provisional Confederate state government, and Bruce was elected a member of its legislature. Shortly thereafter, Kentucky was admitted to the Confederate States of America.
On January 22, 1862, Bruce was elected as a Representative in the First Confederate Congress. He was chosen to represent Kentucky on a committee to arrange and conduct the inaugural ceremonies of Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens as Confederate President and Vice-President, respectively. He was also named to the Foreign Relations Committee and the Committee on Patents. On January 10, 1864, he was re-elected to the Second Confederate Congress, serving until the end of the war. Records of his service in the Confederate Congresses have been lost to history.
Bruce and the other members of the Confederate Congress – along with President Davis – remained in Richmond, Virginia until April 2, 1865. They then fled to Danville, Virginia, where they remained until Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Afterward, Bruce traveled first to Greensboro, North Carolina and Augusta, Georgia before returning to Richmond after President Andrew Johnson declared amnesty for ex-Confederates. Bruce then traveled to Washington, D.C. where he arranged a meeting with his close friend and fellow Kentuckian, Attorney General James Speed. Speed informed Bruce that he had been granted a pardon for any actions of disloyalty during the war.
Post-war life.
Bruce returned to Louisville June 19, 1865 and in August 1865, formed the law firm of Bruce and Russell with Samuel Russell, his former pupil. They dissolved the partnership in 1868 when Bruce was elected to the circuit court in Kentucky's ninth district, comprising Jefferson, Oldham, Shelby, Spencer, and Bullitt counties. He was elected by the overwhelming majority of 10,611 votes in a contest where only 14,817 votes were cast. Bruce was among the first Kentuckians to call for courts to recognize negros' testimony as competent and valid, writing a letter to the "Chicago Evening Post" in support of this cause on February 20, 1869.
Beginning in 1872, despite never having attended college, he served as a law professor at the University of Louisville, holding the chair of history and science of law, law of real property, and contracts and criminal law. He also served as president of the Louisville Medical College. In 1873, Governor Preston Leslie appointed Bruce as a chancellor of the Louisville Chancery Court to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Chancellor Cochran. At a special election held in February 1874, he was elected to fill the remainder of the unexpired term. In August 1874, he was re-elected to a full, six-year term. He resigned from the chancery court on March 10, 1880 to accept the position of attorney for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Shortly after taking this position, he also resigned his professorship at the University of Louisville.
Bruce died on January 22, 1903 in Louisville. He is buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.


Plant Investment Company