Events on March 29 in history

The New York, Ontario and Western Railway makes its final run, the first major U.S. railroad to be abandoned in its entirety.

The New York, Ontario and Western Railway, more commonly known as the O&W or NYO&W, was a regional railroad with origins in 1868, lasting until March 29, 1957 (the last train ran from Norwich to Middletown, NY on this date), after which it was ordered liquidated by a US bankruptcy judge. It was the first notable U.S. railroad with its mainline entirely abandoned.The railroad began life as the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad, organized by Dewitt C. Littlejohn of Oswego, NY in 1868. Its mainline extended from Weehawken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City, to Oswego, New York, a port city on Lake Ontario. It had branch lines to Kingston, Port Jervis, Monticello, Delhi, Utica and Rome, New York and Scranton, Pennsylvania. The part south of Cornwall, New York, was operated over the New York Central Railroad's West Shore Railroad via trackage rights.