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The history of railroads that
operated in Sandusky is a long story involving many mergers and
acquisitions. On September 17, 1835, ground was
broken in Sandusky for the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad. This line was a
predecessor of the “Big Four”
Railroad, which was active in Sandusky in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries.
In 1906 the New York Central and
Hudson River Railroad acquired the Big Four (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and
St. Louis Railway Company), and in 1914, the company changed
its name to the New York Central System. That same year, the New York Central merged with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern
Railway to form the New York Central Railroad. Below is an undated postcard of the New York
Central crossing Sandusky Bay, just north of Medusa Cement in Bay Bridge.
You will recall that
in an earlier blog post, we learned
that the Amtrak Station was originally built for the Lake Shore and Michigan
Southern Railway, and was used by the New York Central for many years.
In 1968 the New York
Central merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad to form the Penn Central, which went bankrupt by 1970.
From the 1920s
through the 1960s, members of the Lake Shore Pioneer
Chapter, New York Central Veterans, had reunions at Cedar Point. Below is a
picture of a souvenir plate from the 1934 Reunion of the Lake Shore Pioneer
Chapter of New York Central Veterans, now in the collections of the Follett
House Museum.
In the Twin Anniversary
Edition of the Sandusky Register Star
News, dated November 24, 1947, Paul Laning provides a history of Steam
Railroads in Erie County, up to that point in time. For more information about
railroads in Ohio, there area number of books available for loan through the
ClevNet system at the Sandusky Library.
5 comments:
Hello, back in the 60's there was a drawbridge device in the cove area (boat houses) behind the city building in Sandusky. I remember watching the trains go by whilst watching my dad play softball down there. Do you have the dates in which the device was built, years of operation and when it was removed. I have a picture of it taken in the 70's but I can't find it. Thank you,
Dave
The original drawbridge was built in 1853. The track and drawbridge operated until the late 1970s or early 1980s; the exact ending date is unclear. If a reader has information on this, please feel free to post.
Thank you for the information. If I come across the picture I took, I'll send it to you. If I remember right, it was taken from a pretty interesting angle.
My father worked for NYCRR for a couple of decades back in the 30's and 40's. Is there any record of who belonged to the Lake Shore Pioneer group?
Unfortunately we don't have that information in our collections. There is a collection of archives of the New York Central and Penn Central in the New York Public Library, but it's not clear if that is within those records. http://archives.nypl.org/controlaccess/16119?term=New+York+Central+Railroad+Company. So far, we haven't found any other likely sources.
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