WAYCROSS, GA (Railfan Journal) – CSX today unveiled its New York Central heritage unit, CSXT 1853, the second heritage unit to wear Central colors unveiled recently, following Metro North 212 unveiled in November, 2023. The unit is also the second class 1 locomotive to honor the Central, with Norfolk Southern 1066 having worn the famous streamlined design since 2012. The locomotive was painted at the CSX shops in Waycross, Georgia.
CSX is the first company to honor the Central by including the year of its founding. In 1853 Erastus Corning combined eight railroads in to one New York Central Railroad. In 1867 the road came under the control of Cornelius Vanderbilt who merged the Central in to his Hudson River Railroad to form the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, which is what the road would be known as until 1915 when more subsidiaries were merged in and the New York Central Railroad was reborn, with the combined system being known as “New York Central Lines” before giving way to the more familiar “New York Central System” from 1935 through the Penn Central merger in 1968. The System eventually stretched to 12 US states and 2 Canadian Provinces.
The NYC was best known for its passenger trains, among the finest in the land. On the Central’s passenger timetable one could find the 20th Century Limited between New York and Chicago, the Commodore Vanderbilt, which also ran between New York and Chicago but with a few more stops. The famous Mercuries, operating in the Midwest between Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Detroit. The Empire State Express from New York to Buffalo and Cleveland and the Knickerbocker between New York and St Louis round out our peek at Central passenger service but there is so much more.
Being so heavily in the passenger business, the Central was among the hardest hit railroads as passengers left the rails for airlines and personal automobiles in postwar America. This, combined with dwindling industry in the Northeast and thus diminishing freight returns caused the Central to seek out a merger partner. Initially preferring the Chesapeake and Ohio, it was made to settle for the arch rival Pennsylvania Railroad and on February 1, 1968 Penn Central was born out of the company that was the Pennsy, bringing to an end the story of the New York Central Railroad.