Competition
Competition soon arose, in the form of the Stony Clove & Catskill Mountain and the Kaaterskill railroad companies, both controlled by the Ulster and Delaware Railroad. These narrow gauge railroads brought passengers much closer to their final destinations, saving them the difficult stage trip CMRR patrons had. To counter the competition, the Otis Elevating Railway was formed, hiring the company of Elisha Otis's sons to build a cable railroad. This railroad was completed in 1892. 7,000 feet (2,100 m) in length, it raised passengers 1,600 feet (490 m) in x minutes saving saving a one hour stage ride. At the summit, 1-mile (1.6 km) of track was laid to connect with the terminus of the Kaaterskill Railroad.
By 1897 connecting service on the Kaaterskill Railroad had become so bad, that a new railroad, the Catskill and Tannersville Railway was constructed to run from the Otis to Tannersville. This line paralleled the existing Katterskill one as far as Tannersville. Hastily built, this line had curves as sharp as 20 degrees and a maximum speed of 7 miles per hour. Locally, it was affectionately known as the "Huckleberry" for the fruit which grew along its right of way.
During a 1904 reconstruction of the Otis, a switch was installed to connect with the C&T permitting through freight to operate from Catskill to Tannersville. Because of the slanted seats necessary on the Otis, passengers still had to change cars.
A great boon to the CMRR was the development of the shale brick in 1888 by the Elmira Shale Brick Company. By 1898, raw material mined on the Cairo branch for the Catskill Shale brick company comprised, by tonnage, 95% of the freight carried.
The last trains were run in 1918.
Read more about this topic: Catskill Mountain Railway
Famous quotes containing the word competition:
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—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)
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