New York New Haven & Hartford Railroad

FreightWaves Classics/Fallen Flags: Railroad served Cape Cod

The railroad terminal and dock at Woods Hole, MA in the early 1900s. (Image: transportationhistory.org)

On January 26, 1848, the first section of the Cape Cod Branch Railroad opened in southeastern Massachusetts. The 14.7-mile section ran between the towns of Middleborough and Wareham in Plymouth County. By May of that year, an additional 12.9 miles of railroad track had been added, extending the railroad to the town of Sandwich on Cape Cod. 

“The main track is now completed, and in good running order, and well equipped,” noted the Cape Cod Branch Railroad Company in its 1849 annual report to...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-classicsfallen-flags-railroad-served-cape-cod

FreightWaves Classics/Fallen Flags: The Alphabet Route offered shippers an alternative to the Big 4

A P&WV hopper with The Alphabet Route markings. (Photo: thepvwhiline.com)

There are many people interested in former transportation companies, whether they were trucking companies, railroads, airlines or ocean lines. They are called “fallen flags,” and the term describes those companies whose corporate names have been dissolved through merger, bankruptcy or liquidation.

The Alphabet Route was not actually an operating railroad; it was a coalition of railroads that worked together to connect the Midwest and the Northeast via their combined rail lines. The Alphabet...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-classicsfallen-flags-the-alphabet-route-offered-shippers-an-alternative-to-the-big-4