QLD SAYBROOK RAILROAD STATION HABS No. CT-466 455 …

QLD SAYBROOK RAILROAD STATION 455 Boston Post Road Olcl. Saybrook Middlesex County Connecticut

PHOTOGRAPHS

WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA

HISTORIC At~ERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY National Park Service

Northeast Region Philadelphia Support Office

U.S. Custom House 200 Chestnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19106

HABS No. CT-466_

Location:

Present Owner:

Present Occupant:

Present Use:

Si~nificance:

HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY

OLD SAYBROOK RAILROAD STATION

HABS No. CT-466

455 Boston Post Road, Old Saybrook, Middlesex County, CT

USGS Essex, Connecticut Quadrangle, Universal Transverse Mercator Coordinates: 18.719560.5475200 (Depot, HABS CT-466-A) 18.719560.5475260 (Interlocking Tower, HABS CT-466-B)

National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak)

Depot: Amtrak and Pizzaworks Restaurant; Tower is unoccupied

Depot: Passenger Station and Restaurant: Tower is unused

The Old Saybrook Railroad Station, Depot (HABS No. CT-466-A, about 1900; 1936) and Interlocking Tower (HABS No. CT-466-B, about 1912) are significant as surviving, intact examples of tum-of-the-century rai !road junction architecture and design. Both structures are historically significant as evidence of Old Saybrook's importance as a railroad junction and the development of regional transportation and recreation. Additionally, the Depot is significant for retention of its exterior and interior historic fabric. The Interlocking Tower is significant as evidence of the development of railroad communications and safety technology; for the retention of its original manual switch lever interlocking machine, and as one of three, remaining, early, timber-frame construction interlocking towers on the New Haven Railroad main line between Boston and New York.

PART I: HISTORICAL INFORMATION

A. HISTORICAL CONTEXT

I. Historical Development:

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Old Saybrook is located on Long Island Sound on the west side of the mouth of the Connecticut River in the central coastal region of Connecticut. This strategic geographical location made the Old Saybrook area an important early commercial and transportation center, with English fortifications built there in 1635. The earliest transportation patterns in the region followed the Connecticut River, the Connecticut coast, and the Post Road, and consisted of sailing vessels or overland, stagecoach travel. The Connecticut River provided a route for the shipment of goods to and from central New England, and Long Island Sound was the principal ship route to New York City and points west and south. Old Saybrook was a strategic point for transfer from land or river travel to sailing, and later, steam-powered vessels. These east-west and north-south transportatio~ patterns were duplicated with the coming of the railroad in the 1830s, and railroad travel in the region was strongly linked to connections with steamboats until after World War I (Soulsby 1993:8-1).

The Old Saybrook Station complex, consisting of the Depot (HABS No. CT-466-A) and the Interlocking Tower (HABS No. CT-466-B) is located at Amtrak Northeast Corridor Milepost l 05.10. This location is the former junction of two railroads, the east-west New Haven & New London Railroad and the north-south Connecticut Valley Railroad. The New Haven & New London Railroad was a link in a chain of railroads constructed between Boston and New York starting in the early 1830s with the Boston & Providence Railroad. The New Haven & New London was chartered in 1848 and constructed between its namesake cities between 1850 and 1852. The line was split by a ferry crossing at the mouth of the Connecticut River at Old Saybrook, a mile east of the Station complex. The construction of the short New London & Stonington Railroad in 1858 completed the rail route between New Haven and Providence, and the entire line was taken over by the New York, Providence, and Boston. However, the route along the Connecticut shore was unpopular due to the slow river ferry crossings of the Connecticut and Thames rivers at Old Saybrook and Groton. In 1870 a drawbridge was constructed at Old Saybrook, which prompted the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad to lease the line in 1887. Through rail connection to New York City was not realized until the New York, Providence, and Boston Railroad finally bridged the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut in 1889. The New Haven completed its consolidation of the Boston-New York lines in 1892, and soon became the primary passenger rail path between Boston and New York (Karr 1995 :94-96).

Old Saybrook became a railroad junction with the construction of the Connecticut Valley Railroad, which received its charter in 1868, and was completed in 1872. This railroad served the area between Hartford and Long Island Sound, which had been the domain of Connecticut River barges and steamboats until that time. The line reached its junction with the New Haven at Old Saybrook in 1871, and was extended south across the east-west New Haven & New London tracks, and over a series of causeways to Saybrook Point and ultimately to the borough of Fenwick, an exclusive

·shoreline resort area, in 1872. Although the line carried coal headed for interior New England

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destinations, its major source of revenue was from summer traffic between Hartford and the shore. Coal and steamship traffic on the Connecticut Valley line eventually declined, and the _FBnwick resort line was abandoned in l? 17. All service south of Old Saybrook terminated in 1922, and the southbound tracks, including the at-grade "diamond" crossing at the junction were removed.

Passenger service between Old Saybrook and Hartford ended in 1933. Sections of the line have been operated sporadically for freight service ever since. The section from Old Saybrook north to Essex is currently operated by the Valley Railroad, a tourist steam train operation (Karr 1995:97-99). The New Haven was declared bankrupt the 1960s and merged with the Penn Central Railroad Ceirporation. In 1971 the New Haven main line through Old Saybrook became part of the National Railway Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) Northeast Corridor, a high-speed passenger rail line that connects Boston, Massachusetts to New York City, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. In 1976 Amtrak purchased the Northeast Corridor line. The passenger station continues to serve as a point of ticket purchase and waiting area for passengers on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. The Interlocking Tower is vacant and unused.

2. Trends in American History

The Old Saybrook Station Depot and Interlocking Tower are evidence of the development of the American railroad system in general, and more specifically the growth of east-west, intercity railroads between New York and New England during the mid- and late nineteenth century. The Connecticut Valley Railroad was an example of the mid-nineteenth-century railroad construction boom that followed the birth of the earliest railroad lines in the 1830s, which included the Boston and Providence, the first link in the chain of railroads that eventually linked Boston and New York. After the Civil War, Connecticut became a microcosm of American railroad development, building more track for its size than any other state in the effort to boost industry by linking every community to the financial capitals of New York and Boston (Soulsby 1993:8-2). The New Haven & New London and the Connecticut Valley Railroad were both ultimately swallowed up by the massive New Haven Railroad, which became known simply as "The Consolidated". This holding company, owned by J.P. Morgan and Charles Mellen, consumed more than 300 businesses, and dominated transportation in all of southern New England by the early twentieth century (Soulsby 1993 :8-4). The New Haven included streetcar lines and utilities, and was the first "big business" in the United States. The Old Saybrook Station Depot, constructed about 1900, is evidence of the New Haven's expenditures to improve the quality of its physical plant and to provide comfort for its passengers. Pressures were also placed on railroads to improve safety, out of which came the signal system improvements visible in structures such as the Old Saybrook Interlocking Tower. The ultimate dissolution of the New Haven in 1912, spearheaded by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, was the first federally-mandated breakup of a major industry.

The Old Saybrook Station Depot and Interlocking Tower are also associated with the late nineteenth­century national trend of summer resort development, an important development in Connecticut's social history. Transportation improvements, and increased wealth and leisure time led to the development of Connecticut seaside summer resort communities where the upper class could escape

. from the heat of cities such as Hartford, Middletown, and Waterbury for the summer. Fenwick, laid out as a business venture in 1870, became the summer home of many of central Connecticut's

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socially prominent, wealthy, and politically powerful residents. The resort included the large Hotel Fenwick, it own multi-denominational Protestant church, a golf course, yacht club, tennfsiourts, stables, and other recreation facilities. Political and financial connections played a significant role in the extension of the railroad to Fenwick, and the development of the resort landscape. Fenwick's promoter, the New Saybrook Company, and its main financial backer, the Charter Oak Insurance Company, were financially linked to the Connecticut Valley Railroad, which was extended from Saybrook Point to Fenwick in 1872, over a long stone causeway across South Cove. This connection provided summer residents with direct transportation, and established Old Saybrook Station as a through junction. The Fenwick Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, arid is one of Connecticut's most well-preserved concentrations of Shingle-Style dwellings (Clouette and Cronin 1994 ).

Old Saybrook Station Interlocking Tower is specifically evidence of the development of railroad communication and safety technology, a trend that began when multiple trains began to run on a single track. By 1900 most eastern railroads had adopted mechanical fail-safe systems, or "interlockings" at most junctions. These consisted of a system of mechanical connection~ getween switches and signals and a central control machine, or interlocking, usually located in a two-story building for purposes of clear observation of trains and signals by an operator responsible for safe movement of trains. The interlocking machine was a complicated series of bars and levers that prevented switches being aligned for the convergent movement of trains. These mechanical systems were sophisticated, and were essentially early, large-scale computers (Armstrong 1993: 116; Stilgoe J 993: 153-157). The interlocking machine was connected to a series of bellcranks and iron rods, which were linked to the switches and signals within the junction. This type of system was physically challenging to operate, especially in extreme weather, giving the popular nickname "annstrong" to the levers.

B. SPECIFIC HISTORY OF THE SITE:

1. Initial Planning and Development: A stopping place was established at the community of Old Saybrook with the construction of the New Haven & New London Railroad in J 852. It is not known when the first station building was constructed, or how close it was to the existing station. Old Saybrook' s status as a true railroad junction came with the construction of the intersecting north­south Connecticut Valley Railroad in 1872, which created a railroad "junction" between the two lines. This junction required reconfiguration of tracks to allow safe crossing for trains and efficient interchange of rolling stock. The exact configuration of the early tracks is unknown, however, it had to include both a "diamond", an at-grade crossing of the tracks at an angle, and a set of curving "wye" tracks to link the two lines, much like a highway intersection in plan. Additional yard tracks were required for transfer of freight and storage ofrolling stock. This entire configuration dictated the location of a depot inside the wider, 120-degree angle of the diamond to serve passengers of both railroads, and the installation of an interlocking plant to control train movements, and therefore, an interlocking tower closest to the concentration of switches .

. The Old Saybrook Station Depot is located immediately south of the Northeast Corridor tracks. The Depot consists of two attached sections, passenger station to the east, built about 1900, and a freight

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house added to the west about 1936. The Interlocking Tower was constructed about 1912 to replace a similar struct~re destroyed in a train derailment. ·- :=i

2. Changes in Plan and Site:

Examination of a historic photograph from about 1913 shows the junction in its original configuration. The newly-constructed Interlocking Tower is in its present location, and the Connecticut Valley Railroad tracks cross the New Haven & New London tracks on a diamond. The existing east wye track on the north side of the tracks is in place. A cylindrical brick locomotive water tank is located immediately northwest of the diamond so that it could serve trains on both lines. A small freight house, no longer extant, appears just east of the diamond and the Depot. This evidence suggests that the larger existing attached freight house was built later than the station. This position is strengthened by the fact that the station and freight house are slightly different in proportion and architectural detailing. After 1922, when the Fenwick line was abandoned, the need for the diamond, which was noisy, and wore out car wheels as well as itself, was removed. This change reduced the activity of the Interlocking Tower operator. Freight interchange at t~e_freight house and with the Connecticut Valley line necessitated the installation of two running tracks outside the inner main line tracks. Periodic minor track reconfiguration occurred, but did not require the relocation or demolition of any Depot or Interlocking Tower structures, which remain in their as­built locations. The passenger station was altered in 1936, with the addition of a baggage room to the west, and a new ticket office to the south. The interior was also remodeled at that time. The 1936 site plan accompanying this remodeling does not show the freight house, indicating that it may have been built as late as post-1936.

3. Individuals Associated With The Site: None known.

4. Historical Events or Developments Associated With the Site:

The Old Saybrook Railroad Station Depot and Interlocking Tower are significant as surviving examples of New Haven Railroad timber-frame construction. Around World War I, the New Haven began an extensive construction program associated with the electrification of the territory between New Haven and New York. This program included replacement of many stations and towers with distinctive Spanish Revival-style masonry and concrete buildings designed by the New Haven's architect, F.W. Mellor. Perhaps as a result of their then-recent construction, the New Haven Railroad chose to retain the Old Saybrook buildings rather than replace them. The Old Saybrook railroad structures are more generally associated with national trends in railroad building and safety, and national and regional recreation trends, discussed in section A-1.

PART II: DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION

A. PHYSICAL CHARACTER OF THE SITE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE SURROUNDING ENVIRONMENT (1997)

1. · Phvsical Description of the Site: The Old Saybrook Railroad Station, Depot, and Interlocking

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Tower are located in Old Saybrook, Connecticut at Milepost l 05.10 on the National Passenger Railroad Corporation (Amtrak) Northeast Corridor. This complex is located in a flat area s_otltheast oflnterstate 95, and northwest of U.S. Route !, northeast of the Old Saybrook business district. U.S. Route I crosses over the Northeast Corridor tracks on a modem highway bridge immediately east of the site. The Depot is located immediately south of the four-track main line, and the Interlocking Tower is located approximately I 00 ft. northeast of the Depot, on the north side of the tracks.

2. Surrounding Environment: The immediate area is of mixed use, with a recently-constructed professional/commercial buildings immediately east of the Depot, and a parking lot immediately to the south. The land north of the Depot, within the "wye" junction tracks, is a combination of open, gravel-paved area and woods. A historic burial ground is also located within the wye west of the Interlocking Tower. A rail-served crushed rock plant is located east of the U.S. Route l bridge.

B. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPLEX:

1. According to the Original Plan: The Depot and Interlocking Tower are located at the junction of two historic railroad lines, the east-west New Haven & New London, or "New Haven" Railroad, and the north-south Connecticut Valley, or simply "Valley" Railroad. The exact original junction and yard trackage layout is unclear, however, the two lines were linked by both an at-grade "diamond"­type crossing and curving "wye" tracks, two of which are located north of the Depot and form a triangular area that includes the Interlocking Tower. This configuration dictated the location and plan of the Depot and Interlocking Tower structures. The Depot was angled in plan to conform to the wider angle of the intersecting tracks, with the freight house and west wing of the station running east-west along the New Haven tracks, and the east wing of the station angled toward the southeast, conforming to the orientation of the former right-of-way of the Connecticut Valley Railroad's line to Fenwick.

2. Changes Over Time:

Photographic evidence suggests that the current attached freight house was built after the station, as the station and freight house exhibit differences in size and details. After abandonment of the Fenwick line in 1922 the diamond junction was removed, and two running tracks were installed outside the inner main line tracks. Later track reconfiguration did not require relocation or demolition of any junction buildings. The Depot was altered in 1936, with the addition of a baggage room to the west, and a new ticket office to the south. The interior was also remodeled at that time. The 1936 site plan accompanying this remodeling does not show the freight house, indicating that it may have been built as late as post-1936.

3. Current Features and Appearance:

Although the intersecting Connecticut Valley Railroad tracks have been removed, and yard track has been reconfigured, the basic configuration and physical relationships of the Depot and Interlocking tower have been preserved.

PART III: SOURCES OF INFORMATION

A. ORIGINAL ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS

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Amtrak Document Control Division, 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, PA 19107

B. GENERAL DEPOSITORIES

Connecticut Historical Commission

C. EARLY VIEWS

Cryan, Steven. Old Saybrook, Connecticut

Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Strasburg, PA

D. INTERVIEWS

None conducted

E. BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Primary and Unpublished Sources

None consulted

2. Secondary and Published Sources

a. Periodicals

None consulted

b. Books

Armstrong, John H. 1993 The Railroad: What it is, What it Does. Simmons-Boardman Books, [nc., Omaha,

NE.

Clouette, Bruce and Maura Cronin. 1994 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Fenwick Historic

District. Connecticut Historical Commission, Hartford, CT.

Historic Resource Consultants

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1993 "Historic Resource Summary Sheet: Old Saybrook Interlocking Tower, Old Saybrook, CT," Northeast Corridor Improvement Project: Electrification: Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Historic Resources Technical Report: Connecticut: Photographs, Maps, and Inventory Forms. Hartford, CT.

1993 "Historic Resource Summary Sheet: Old Saybrook Station, Old Saybrook, CT," Northeast Corridor Improvement Project: Electrification: Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Historic Resources Technical Report: Connecticut: Photographs, Maps, and Inventory Forms. Hartford, CT.

Karr, Ronald Dale 1995 Rail Lines of Southern New England: A Handbook of Railroad History. Branch

Line Press, Pepperell, MA.

-Soulsby, Mary

1993

Stilgoe, John R.

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Connecticut Valley Railroad Roundhouse and Turntable Site. Connecticut Historical Commission, Hartford, CT.

1993 Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.

F. LIKELY SOURCES NOT YET INVESTIGATED

Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, CT

New Haven Railroad collection, Dodd Archives Center, University of Connecticut, Stoors

Old Saybrook Public Library

Old Saybrook Historical Society

PART IV: PROJECT INFORMATION

Amtrak, in association with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), is proposing a number of infrastructure projects to upgrade the Northeast Corridor Railroad right-of-way in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. In consultation with the State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs), Amtrak and FRA have determined that the proposed "Northeast Corridor Improvement Project-Electrification: New Haven, Connecticut to Boston, Massachusetts" project will have adverse impacts on significant historic properties. Three memoranda of agreement outlining stipulations to-eliminate, minimize, or mitigate adverse project

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impacts have been drafted by Amtrak, the FRA, and the respective SHPOs, and have been accepted by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. The stipulations include the recordation of the Old ~ajbrook Railroad Station, Depot and Interlocking Tower, to Historic American Buildings Survey standards.

Prepared By: Title: Affiliation: D~

Matthew A. Kierstead Industrial Historian The Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc. July 1, 1997

YBROOK RAILROAD STATION OLD SA HABS No. CT-466

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Location Map --~

South Cove

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Site Plan

AMTRAK NORTHEAST CORRIDOR

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Freight House Passenger Station

DEPOT

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