The story
Original Providence and Worcester Railroad
Background and founding
The Providence and Worcester Railroad (P&W) was preceded by the Blackstone Canal, which opened between Providence, Rhode Island, and Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1828. While initially somewhat successful, the canal's business was severely harmed by the completion of the Boston and Worcester Railroad between its namesake cities in 1835, with shippers fleeing the slow and unreliable canal for rail transport. Providence therefore lost much of the business the canal had provided, and residents began to plan a response to the opening of the Boston and Providence. The canal company went bankrupt after its canal was severely damaged by flooding in 1841, and was forced to petition the state of Rhode Island for additional funds. The canal also competed for water with the many mills along the Blackstone Valley, which used water power to operate their machinery. As plans for other railroads across New England began, in January 1844 a group of citizens, primarily from Providence, petitioned the Rhode Island General Assembly for a charter to build a railroad from Providence to the Massachusetts state line. This group also petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a charter to build in that state from the state line to Worcester.
The railroad was incorporated in Massachusetts as the Providence and Worcester Railway on March 12, 1844, and in Rhode Island as the Providence and Worcester Railroad in May 1844. Two aspects of the charter were unusual. One provision capped the company's maximum dividend at twelve percent; additional profit beyond that amount was to be invested in improving the railroad rather than rewarding shareholders. A second part of the charter heavily curtailed the voting power of larger shareholders – each shareholder got one vote per share for their first fifty shares, but additional shares granted just one vote per twenty shares. In effect, this made it impossible for any one shareholder to control the company, no matter how many shares they owned. Both provisions were designed to ensure the P&W provided effective rail service and remained in the hands of local shareholders.
As their first order of business, the company's founders commissioned engineer Thomas Willis Pratt to complete a survey of the proposed route, which was completed in the fall of that year. The two companies were merged November 25, 1845, as the Providence and Worcester Railroad. The company bought the Blackstone Canal and began construction, partly on its banks, in 1845. The canal was shut down in 1848, shortly after the railroad was completed.
Delays in construction
Local enthusiasm was high for the new railroad, with one Providence resident quoted as saying "[it is] not so much what will the projected route add to the prosperity of Providence, as can we do without it?" The city's residents feared that without a railroad to connect their city to others, Providence would be reduced in importance compared to other cities in the region. Despite high local support, in July 1845, the railroad was still short $200,000 ($6.91 million in 2025) out of a needed sum of $1,000,000 ($34.6 million in 2025) per the company's charter, and had not begun construction. Residents began to doubt the railroad would ever be built, with one citizen writing in a letter to the editor to a local newspaper that "... any hope of its completion, founded upon the present condition of the corporation, is desperate indeed."
By September 1845, residents worried over rumors that investors from Boston were planning to build a new railroad between Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Dedham, Massachusetts, which would not serve Providence. Despite fears the company would fail, it announced on October 8, 1845, that thanks to additional funding, including a $100,000 ($3.46 million in 2025) investment by Jacob Little, the requisite $1,000,000 had been reached, plus a further $100,000 for the Massachusetts section of the line, and that construction would begin immediately. The funding was obtained entirely from private sources.
Construction and operations
Many immigrants helped build the Providence and Worcester Railroad, particularly from Ireland. The line opened in two sections: the part south of Millville on September 27, 1847, and the rest on October 20. The line from Providence to Central Falls was shared with the Boston and Providence Railroad, which at the same time built a connection from its old line (which ended at India Point via East Providence) over to the P&W. The companies shared the P&W-built Providence Union Station, which opened in 1848; the station was also served by New York, Providence and Boston Railroad (commonly known as the Stonington Line) trains. This station was originally planned to be placed over the Great Salt Cove, a large cove in the city; public opposition led by Zachariah Allen convinced the city to preserve the cove and change the station's location.
Construction was more expensive than anticipated, due to difficulties encountered in building earthworks and to the relatively high prices for iron and labor from 1845 to 1847. The company also spent much money on a large depot in Providence. Still, healthy traffic made the company profitable quickly and to the end of its independent operation. The opening of the P&W and other railroads spurred the region's commercial growth; Providence in particular developed textile, jewelry, and metals industries. The P&W, along with the Boston and Providence, were also credited with bringing the city of Pawtucket out of an economic downturn. Mills in the Blackstone Valley found that the railroads offered more reliable and cheaper transportation than canals. Affordable passenger trains also increased the mobility of residents along the railroad, whose line linked the communities along its route to the busy railroad junction in Worcester. To better reach the docks in Providence, tracks were constructed south towards the water along city streets between 1852 and 1853, eventually reaching Fox Point where steamships docked.
In May 1853, the owners of the Norfolk County Railroad (NCR) attempted a hostile takeover of the Providence and Worcester. They wanted to use the P&W to route more traffic along their NCR, which was bankrupt as a result of insufficient business, and so increase the value of NCR stock. They purchased a majority of the P&W stock, paying well above market value for shares, and moved to add ten members to the company's board of directors. But the P&W's president and clerk refused to recognize a vote to approve the new directors, defeating the attempt and leaving the stockholders from the "ricketty and bankrupt" NCR with nothing but $100,000 ($3.87 million in 2025) in debt to show for their efforts.
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That same year, the worst accident in the company's history occurred in Valley Falls, Rhode Island. Two trains collided head-on, killing 14 people. The incident helped convince the P&W to double-track its mainline. The work began shortly after the accident but proceeded slowly; the final section of single track was upgraded in 1885, 32 years later.
The P&W benefited from a general increase in economic activity and shipping during the American Civil War, though little of its freight was directly related to the war effort. The company paid off its debts and invested $20,000 ($412,000 in 2025) on track improvements in 1864 alone.
Expansion and improvements
The Providence and Worcester leased two other railroads: the Milford and Woonsocket Railroad in 1868, and the Hopkinton Railroad, a northward extension of the Milford and Woonsocket, in 1872. Neither company directly connected to any P&W line; the leases were motivated by a desire to prevent either company from competing with the P&W for traffic. Both leases expired in 1883, with the two railroads resuming independent operation that year; the Milford and Woonsocket took over the Hopkinton the following year.
Following an 1872 agreement with the New Jersey Central Railroad and a coal company to build a coal dock near Providence, the company began construction in 1874 on the seven-mile (11 km) long East Providence Branch between Valley Falls and East Providence. The branch opened the same year, and provided an alternate routing for coal imports that avoided the use of horses through downtown Providence. The East Providence Branch briefly saw passenger service between 1893 and 1896; it was otherwise exclusively used for freight trains. The completion of the branch increased the importance of Valley Falls to the P&W, and in 1878 the company completed a new engine house there. This was followed in the next few years by a variety of repair and maintenance shops, which were all relocated from sites in Providence. An early form of railroad signaling was completed on the joint P&W-B&P line through Providence and Pawtucket in 1882, and upon proving successful it was expanded to the entire P&W main line by 1884, making the P&W the very first American railroad to fully signalize its main line with electric signals.
1980s
As P&W expanded its network, the company spent heavily to improve the condition of lines it purchased, many of which had been poorly maintained by previous owners. The repairs were partially funded by the federal government and by the states served by P&W.
In 1982, the Providence and Worcester acquired all of Conrail's lines in Rhode Island, along with some in Connecticut. While P&W wanted all 530 miles (850 km) of Conrail's lines in Southern New England, it had to compete with the Boston & Maine, at the time in the sights of newly formed Guilford Transportation Industries, which bought portions of Conrail's network in Connecticut. The Providence and Worcester objected to allowing Guilford to form a major railroad network in New England, to no avail. The P&W also purchased two shortline railroads in Rhode Island between 1981 and 1982: the Moshassuck Valley Railroad and the Warwick Railway.
In December 1987, P&W owner Capital Properties Inc. of Providence, announced it was divesting the railroad, with Capital's shareholders each getting 2 shares of the railroad's stock per share of Capital stock.
1990s
The Providence and Worcester further expanded into Connecticut in 1993, when it purchased Conrail's line between Cedar Hill Yard in North Haven and Middletown. Between November 1993 and June 1994, the railroad improved the line in cooperation with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, replacing more than 5,000 ties and 7,000 feet (2,100 m) of rail in a $650,000 project. After the project was complete, its speed limit increased from 10 to 25 miles per hour. The increased speed and frequency of trains concerned some residents along the line, who advocated for the installation of gates and lights at railroad crossings for safety. P&W bought the Middletown-based shortline Connecticut Central Railroad in 1998, adding a cluster of branch lines in that city to its network.
In the mid-1990s, P&W traffic decreased when a number of its major customers closed or moved. In response, the company expanded interchange traffic with other railroads. The company reached an agreement in 1996 for trackage rights over the Northeast Corridor between New Haven and the New York and Atlantic Railway's Fresh Pond Junction yard in Queens, New York. The Providence and Worcester uses the tracks to haul stone between its connection with the Branford Steam Railroad and New York City.
From Wikipedia’s article on Providence and Worcester Railroad, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4