Nostalgia & History > Railroad sank with Titanic

My first article that I'm getting paid to write appeared in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette last Sunday. The rules are that I have to wait a period of time before I can offer it elsewhere.



RAILROAD SANK WITH TITANIC

By Richard Peiffer, Special to the Heritage T&G

The Black Tavern was overflowing Feb. 16, as visitors packed into the lecture hall and two adjoining rooms to hear Larry Lowenthal present his tale of the “Titanic Railroad”.

Mr. Lowenthal, a resident of Brimfield and a former historian for the National Park Service, was modest when talking about his 1998 book, “Titanic Railroad: The Southern New England”, saying, “It has sold 5 or 6 copies.” One would conclude it has been more than that since he has presented his lecture across the northeast and hosted bus tours to view the archaeological relics of a railroad never finished or operated.

In 1910, railroads were at their zenith of power, wealth, influence and mileage. Over 200,000 miles of steel railways covered the United States and most of the stocks traded in New York were railroad.

The rich and famous invested heavily in the giants of their time and stock symbols like PRR and NYC were coveted like IBM and GOOG are now. However, all business is a speculative enterprise and some win, some lose - and some lose badly.

The story of New England’s Last Great Railroad War stretches across New England, over the Atlantic Ocean and into the business and governments of three countries. The Southern New England was a true multinational company: affiliated with the Grand Trunk Railroad in Canada, built in the United States from a connection with the Central Vermont Railway in Palmer and financed by banks in England.

The president of the Grand Trunk, Charles M. Hays, an American, was to head up the venture.

But why build it? It had been over 40 years since the last major railroad was constructed in New England.

The established railroads had the best and easiest routes and the Southern New England was to go across mountains instead of along them. For the SNE to go the 50 miles between Palmer and Providence, 75 miles of railroad would be required to overcome multiple ridges and rivers.

More than three quarters of the proposed route would have another railroad paralleling it; so close in places that engineers of separate trains could have tossed a baseball to each other.

In two locations, a triple-level crossing would have been required with three rail lines intersecting at or near the same spot. Of the two, one is still evident in Millville and both have only a single railroad operating through them.

Therein lays another fact. Railroads in New England were overbuilt, some calculate by as much as a factor of four, and Hays had dreams of building other lines: from Douglas to Worcester, Blackstone to Boston and on to White River Junction on the Central Vermont.

This ambition would not go unnoticed by already entrenched and sometimes hated competitors. And maybe that was it: a bluff to ruffle the feathers of competitive foes without so much as turning one spade of dirt.

Time and events would reveal it wouldn’t be that simple as many other forces were at work, both of men and of nature.

What Hays had to overcome in geography paled in comparison to the effort to deal with laws and men. Some of the laws had to do with crossings where the railroad intersected with streets and highways. The SNE was ordered to avoid all such encounters and built over or under every path it couldn’t block.

The effort required to go through Dudley and keep a reasonable grade to the line would be amplified tenfold going through densely populated areas like Southbridge, Webster, Woonsocket and Providence. What was an example of safety then became a nuisance later as communities rebuilt and highways were widened.

The rest was the process of seizing property to keep the railroad on more or less a straight line. This was made rather easy by the local governments through which the line would pass since, it was thought, another railroad made for more competition and, hopefully, lower shipping rates. The city of Providence clung to this dream for decades after the SNE’s demise since they were at the mercy of “The Consolidated”, a railroad conglomerate represented by Hayes’ chief rivals.

The men were the likes of J. Pierpont Morgan, owner of “The Consolidated” whose financial interests surrounded the SNE and kept it from attaining a charter in Connecticut; and Charles S. Mellen, president of the New Haven, a Morgan financed railroad.

One of the visible results was the forcing of the SNE to twist through Dudley on immense earthen fills.

This affected mainly investors in England whose fortunes were squandered on Hays’ dream. The whole situation would lead to accusations and lawsuits that would remain in court for decades to come and reached into the seats of government in London, Ottawa and Washington.

The connection to the Titanic was simply that Hays was acquainted with the owners of the White Star Line which operated the ill-fated ship, and he went down with it on April 15th, 1912. His body was recovered on April 26th and is buried in Montreal.

His secretive ways, however, prevented anyone from knowing his true purpose for the trip or future plans for the SNE.

That should have been it. But, on April 25th, 1912, one day before Hays’ body was discovered, contracts were signed and construction began. Seemingly overnight, over a dozen work camps sprung up from Palmer to Providence. Right of way was being graded, concrete abutments and piers poured, cuts driven through ridges, fills appeared in valleys, a tunnel project began in Southbridge and a bridge construction started in Webster. Contractors, it seemed, wanted their piece of the action.

This frenzy lasted 8 months and then went on in fits and starts through 1914. World War I intervened and investors in England had much more to worry about than a financial albatross in America. Lawsuits over the unfinished contracts would last decades too. When construction was halted for good, much work was complete but the SNE never became a railroad.

New England’s Last Railroad War had much in common with such modern scandals as the Savings and Loan crash of the 80’s, Dot Com bubble of the 90’s and the recent court cases involving Enron, Tyco and WorldCom.

Each of these has a cast of characters, both famous and infamous, and a story that reaches into multinational business and politics that cost millions. English investors lost 7 million in 1914 dollars.

Remnants of the Southern New England are still evident, mostly from Palmer to Blackstone. A look on a satellite photo reveals features hard to distinguish from ground level. Deep in many wooded locations, towering concrete bridge piers stand as monuments “which seem now to belong to an age as remote as Stonehenge.”

Indeed there is a striking resemblance. “Although”, as the author noted, “they were poured, in historical terms, only the day before yesterday.”


Richard Peiffer of Dudley is an Operation Lifesaver Rail Safety Education presenter. He has provided presentations on railroad safety to over 20,000 people in nine states.

“Titanic Railroad” by Larry Lowenthal is available from the author (e-mail marker_press@comcast.net), at Booklover’s Boutique in Dudley and online at Amazon.com. The last bus tour can be viewed at http://www.massbayrre.org/PSNE0400.htm

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This is a very engaging and well-written article. Though I've spent several years in the historical ocean-liner hobby, before today I never knew of Hays' role in this bizarre rail venture. You illuminated it in a way that was informative, as well as a pleasure to read. Thank you for sharing it with us at TO!

Mellen sure was Morgan's pet poodle...remember that Morgan once blithely told the Sec'y. of the Treasury, in reference to anti-trust legislation, "Have your man discuss it with my man [Mellen]." The roots of Enron and Halliburton sure run deep! ;)

I aim to find a copy of the book referenced in your article. Sounds like a good tale.

Thanks for the compliments anthracite! The author of the book liked it too.

The reason why the T&G editor in Webster, MA, recruited me as a freelance writer was that she said she doesn't have to edit my articles much. I've had two other pieces published in the T&G through her office.

One day, while waiting for an oil change, I stopped in for a visit and she asked, "How would you like to get paid for your next submission?" That didn't take much thought! She continued, "I've got college graduates that can't spell." College grads can't use spell-check? Even Trainorders offers that (thanks Todd)!

It doesn't pay the rent but is a lot of fun. I've also been tasked with writing about topics outside of railroads.

The book "Titanic Railroad" is a fascinating read though a "sleeper" as it should have a wider audience. It is more about the personalities and politics of the day than about railroading.

C. S. Mellen proved he could hold his own without Morgan. At a federal hearing in December 1915, concerning the handling of the "Grand Trunk situation" by the New Haven, Mellen testified, "I wanted them to build it. I wanted to see them punished for all the trouble there had been between us. I knew they'd lose money and lots of it."

J. P. Morgan's funeral had taken place on April 14th, 1913; the 1st anniversary of the Titanic disaster.

As for ocean liners, two ships were ordered constructed by the Grand Trunk for Providence-New York passenger service. One, the Narragansett (photo in the book) was completed in 1913. It spent a few years tied to State Pier in New London before being conscripted by the government for service in WW1.

I'll bait your curiosity as to the name of the other one (ha, ha)!

E-mail the author. Say, "I saw it on Trainorders.com" and that you corresponded with me. Larry Lowenthal will sell you an autographed copy.

The plot twists, turns and thickens.

- PRR 5711

Thank you very much for this extremely interesting and well-written article!!

Congratulations on the "for pay" work. I'm sure you were extremely pleased at the compliment paid by the newspaper editor in reference to your skills!

Spell check? Yes, and all too often it's seen by the given writer as "the" answer and no further reading takes place, leading to silly and unnecessary errors.

Thanks again!

John