September 2024
Prior to the automobile, and more so before improved roadways, the New York, Ontario and Western Railway (NYO&W) was the principle way to get to the Catskills. The Catskills resort and Bungalow boom, starting in the 1930s was made possible in a great way by the railways.
The NYO&W was a regional railroad that operated from 1868 to 1957, running from New York City, passing through the southern Catskills and Sullivan County, to the shores of Lake Ontario. Besides transporting vacationing families, the railway was busy transporting raw materials and goods from coal mines and ports to manufacturing plants, and produce from farms to markets.
It all came to an end on 29 March 1957, when a U.S. bankruptcy judge declared the NYO&W insolvent, giving it the unfortunate distinction of being the first major American railroad to be abandoned in its entirety. The tracks are gone and the former lines have mostly been converted to a rail trail, but some of the former NYO&W train stations remain. One is in the Hamlet of Hurleyville in Sullivan County.
Hurleyville was originally settled by William Hurley in the mid-1800s. Originally, dairy farming was the main industry, but Hurleyville gradually became part of the Borscht Belt, a popular vacation destination for New York City area Jews who were looking to escape the summer heat. At its height as a resort community, Hurleyville was home to many popular summer hotels, bungalow colonies and boarding houses, the biggest and best known being the grand Columbia Hotel.
Due to mail frequently getting mixed up with Hurley, a town in neighbouring Ulster county, the hamlet was briefly renamed “Lauzon Station.”
Hurleyville Railway Disaster
Hurleyville was the site of a the tragic NYO&W Railway accident in 1907, around a half a mile to the south. Sullivan County historian John Conway relates the story:
“Late in the afternoon of February 13, 1907 the boiler exploded on an O&W passenger train just before it reached Luzon Station in Hurleyville,” he says. “Two railroad men were killed instantly in the explosion, the train’s engineer was severely injured and would die a few days later, and twelve passengers were hurt when the train careened off the tracks.”
Pieces of the train and bodies of the crew were thrown hundreds of feet from the collision scene by the force of the blast.
Trains no longer roll through Hurleyville and the tracks are long gone. Sections of the old rail line has been transformed into a recreational rail trail, including a 5.4 mile section through Hurleyville. The old rail station and freight house also remains, but vacant at this time.
Some of the other former NYO&W Railway station throughout Sullivan and Ulster Counties:
Monticello
The former station is currently owned by VEO Energy Systems, a propane and HVAC service company, for use as a shop and warehouse.
Summitville
Mountain Dale
It’s the railway station that was never built. The NYO&W Railway made plans for a new station in Mountain Dale back in 1920, as a replacement for the existing 19th Century station. Envisioned was a new 7,000-square-foot railroad station, with brick walls, a slate roof and hardwood floor, but this new station was never built.
After the existing station was destroyed by a fire in 1931, a smaller version of the proposed station was built instead, due in part to financial hardships brought on by the Depression. This new station was demolished in the years after the NYO&W declared bankruptcy in 1957.
On 14 November 2009, a replica of the 1931 station officially opened alongside the old rail line, as a visitor centre and venue for displaying photos and memorabilia from the NYO&W Railway.
Ferndale
Liberty
Fallsburg
Parksville
Sullivan County NYO&W Rail Trail Map
Sources: New York, Ontario and Western Railway – Wikipedia, Our History – Sullivan O&W Rail Trail (sullivanoandw.com), Hurleyville, New York – Wikipedia, nyow.org/kaatskill_complete.pdf, If you love history, you’ll love the Hurleyville History Hike (hurleyvillesentinel.com), O&W Station | The old rail station, and freight house in Hur… | Flickr, HURLEYVILLE, NEW YORK BEFORE 1920 (hurleyvilleny.com), Our History – Sullivan O&W Rail Trail (sullivanoandw.com), Main Page Of the O&Websit, The New Mountaindale Station (nyow.org), The Last Train to Parksville: Sullivan County hamlet clings to life (recordonline.com).
