Boston & New York Air-Line Railroad

The Boston & New York Air-Line Railroad grew out of a decades-long ambition to run a straight rail line between New Haven and Boston. The first attempt, chartered in 1846, collapsed in the Panic of 1857 with only a few miles built. A second group chartered the New Haven, Middletown & Willimantic Railroad in 1867 and reached Middletown by 1870 and Willimantic by 1873, only to be driven into bankruptcy two years later by the debt the construction had required. Reorganized as the Air Line, the railroad was leased in 1882 to the New York, New Haven & Hartford, which folded it into its southern New England network.

The track between Portland and Willimantic was abandoned in 1965, and the Providence & Worcester Railroad operates what survives. The abandoned right-of-way is now the Air Line State Park Trail.

The Boston & New York Air-Line Railroad, known simply as the Air Line, was a Connecticut railroad conceived as a direct route between New Haven and Boston. The name declared the ambition: a line drawn as straight as possible between the two cities, in defiance of the hills that lay across it.

The first effort to join New Haven and Boston by rail began in 1846 with the chartering of the New York & Boston Railroad. Construction started from New Haven in 1853 but soon faltered, and the company failed in the Panic of 1857. ²

A decade passed before another group of investors took up the scheme. In 1867 they chartered the New Haven, Middletown & Willimantic Railroad. Service from New Haven reached Middletown in 1870, and the track between Middletown and Willimantic was completed in 1873. The cost of building it proved more than the company could carry. Burdened by construction debt, the railroad entered bankruptcy in 1875 and emerged under a new name, the Boston & New York Air-Line Railroad.

Under the New Haven

The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad leased the Air Line in 1882, absorbing it into the system that by then dominated rail transport across southern New England.

Traffic on the eastern portion of the line dwindled over the following decades, and the track between Portland and Willimantic was abandoned in 1965. ¹ The Providence & Worcester Railroad operates what remains. The abandoned eastern section has since become the Air Line State Park Trail.