Erie Railroad
Former US railroad, running from New York City through the far south of New York state to Buffalo and on, around the southern shore of Lake Erie, to Chicago.
The Erie was the first railway in the country to be conceived from the outset as a trunk line (a long-distance main line, rather than a collection of short lines). In the 1860s and 1870s, the company became a byword for financial malpractice, as its directors (such as Jay Gould, Daniel Drew, and Jim Fisk) manipulated stocks, embezzled funds, and bribed state legislatures. In 1960 it merged with the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad Company to become the Erie Lackawanna, but in 1975 went bankrupt and was taken over by the government-owned Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail).
© RM, 2010. All rights reserved. Helicon Publishing is a division of RM.
