The Personality of American CitiesHungerford, Edward
History
The Personality of American Cities
Hungerford, Edward
Cities and towns -- United States; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
This is not the time or place to discuss the vexatious railroad
situation in New England, but it is worth while to note that when the
New York Central railroad leased the Boston & Albany--a little more than
a dozen years ago--and began blotting out the familiar name upon the
engines and the cars, a wave of sentimental anger swept over Boston that
it had hardly known since it had inflamed over slavery and laid the
foundations for the greatest internecine conflict that the world has
ever known. Boston held no quarrel with the owners of the New York
Central--if they would only not disturb the traditions of its great
railroad. But the owners of the New York Central did not understand. It
was not them. It was that word "New York" being blazoned before Boston
eyes that was making the trouble. The old town had seen the Boston &
Providence and then, horror of horrors, the New England disappear before
a railroad that called itself the New York, New Haven & Hartford. And
after these the offense was being created against its pet railroad--the
Boston & Albany.
The other day the New York Central saw a great light. And in that mental
brilliancy it gave back to Boston its old railroad. As this is being
written "Boston & Albany" is reappearing upon whole brigades of engines
and regiments of freight and passenger cars. A friendly sentiment,
reared in traditions, has not been slow to show its appreciation of the
act of the railroad in New York. And the men in charge of the great
consolidation of the other railroads east of the Hudson river have not
been slow to follow in their action. They have announced that they plan
to build their railroads into one great system called the "New England
Lines." It begins to look as if, after all these years, they have begun
to read the Boston mind.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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