The Norwich & Worcester Connection

Norwich harbor with three boats clearly visible. In the left-center background the smoke from a New London Northern train is barely visible.

The N&W ran a profitable and popular route between Boston and New York City. Passengers and freight would travel from Boston by train to Norwich, Connecticut where they would transfer to steamboats for a short ride down the Thames River to Long Island Sound and into lower Manhattan. At the time, the boats, with their fresh sea air, elaborate dining rooms and well-appointed saloons, were considered far more palatable than trains for the traveling public. The problem was the winter. Norwich harbor iced over regularly. Early on, the N&W had established a stage connection to Allyns Point, about 12 miles south of Norwich. In 1843, based on the presumption that Allyns Point was ice-free year round the N&W completed a rail connection to that point.

Steamboats, like the City of Worcester, were a vital link in the New England transportation network in the 19th century.

While Allyns Point proved to be ice-free most years, it did freeze in exceptionally cold winters, thus preventing the boats from getting any further up the Thames than New London harbor. On January 12, 1856, the Thames froze over, keeping the steamer Commonwealth ice-bound in New London harbor until mid-February.1 During the winters of 1855-56 and 1858-59 the steamboats were unable to make it to Norwich and the N&W ran its boat trains over the NLW&P to New London. Interestingly, the years the boat trains had to run over the NLW&P proved to be the most profitable for the railroad. By 1859, the NLW&P had gone into receivership. The reorganized railroad, now called the New Lodon Northern, agressively pursued operating arrangements with the N&W. In April of that year, the NLN entered into an agreement with the N&W to operate the boat trains over the NLN track to New London at an annual rental of $60,000.00.2 This arrangement lasted for several years. In 1867 the N&W petitioned the Connecticut General Assembly to construct a line down the eastern bank of the Thames. This would, of course, have eliminated the need for the N&W to use the NLN tracks, and eliminate the annual revenue that line received. Despite the objections of the NLN, the Assembly decreed that the NLN should build a second track parallel to its existing line for the exclusive use of the N&W boat trains. If the NLN declined to do so, then the N&W could build its own line. A reduction of the

annual rental fee from $60,000 to $40,000 staved off the situation for a few years, but by December 1873 the N&W was using Allyns Point again as its boat terminal, completely bypassing the NLN.

Two N&W locomotives test the new Shetucket River bridge in 1876.

Boat trains returned to the NLN on July 20, 1874. Farnham hypothesized Perhaps the larger cars were making the gate bridge dangerous for the next year, 1875, saw the start of the extensions greatest improvement.
3

This project, the iron bridge across the Shetucket River and the Laurel Hill tunnel, was the longest single span railroad bridge in New England. By 1883, the N&W had reached Groton, the N&W boat trains no longer ran over the tracks of the NLN, which itself had slipped into history to become part of the Central Vermont system.