"Nowhere to Nowhere"

Of the 32 class 1 U. S. railroads now undergoing reorganization, none is more disorganized than the New York, New Haven & Hartford, whose securities were once a glistering gilt-edge investment. Of the New Haven's tremendous grab-bag of subsidiaries, none is in more pitiable state than the New York, Westchester & Boston Railway Co. Last week the ax which has long hung over this starving little line finally fell in the form of an order lopping off almost a third of its mileage.

The New York, Westchester & Boston is 30 miles of track "from nowhere to nowhere." Chartered in, 1872, begun in 1909, it started not from Manhattan, but from across the Harlem river, in The Bronx, headed in the general direction of Boston, closely paralleling the right-of-way of the New Haven. About the time the first Westchester train ran in 1912. the New Haven was just completing a ridiculous program of buying up all transportation systems in its territory. Among them it acquired the Westchester (99.6% of whose stock it now owns).

The Westchester never reached Boston, never even reached Connecticut, much less Massachusetts. By 1929 the New Haven had pushed it, on a right-of-way side by side with its own main line, as far as the suburb of Port Chester--just in time for Depression. It was expected to speed the suburban growth of Westchester County, provide greater traffic for both roads. Over its modern line, electric trains carried commuters at about half the New Haven fare. This was fine for commuters and for Westchester County real estate values but hard on the New Haven. During its career the Westchester never showed an operating profit. During the last seven years it has lost $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 annually. Meanwhile passenger traffic dropped from 14,000,000 in 1929 to 9,600,000 last year, to about 8,500,000 this.

When the New Haven went into reorganization under the Bankruptcy Act, the trustee decided that the Westchester & Boston could not be satisfactorily reorganized. Last week it was ordered by court to abandon its nine-mile run between New Rochelle and Port Chester on Nov. 1. Expenses on the remaining 21 miles are to be pared to the bone and if no improvement shows in earnings in two months, the whole railroad will be liquidated.

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