This video is compilation of silent films taken of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, collectively known as the New Haven.
The railroad was started in the 1840s and met its demise in 1969 when it was included as part of the conditions for the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central merger that created the beast Penn Central. The Penn Central despised the New Haven and did what it could to ruin it. In the early 1970s, the New Haven's major freight line was severed due to a suspicious fire on the Poughkipsee Bridge over the Hudson River to Maybrook New York. At Maybrook yard, the railroad interchanged directly with the Erie, and Lehigh and Hudson River. This gave the Erie a direct connection to New England, bypassing the congestion of greater New York City.
The New Haven was unique. The railroad not only had custom locomotives, they also purchased locomotives from every builder and it wasn't unusual to see Baldwin diesels running beside Alcos and EMD. The company also had an electrified mainline with plans at one time to electrify the railroad entirely, but that never came about, and the initial plan to electrify to Boston finally occurred 100 years after the initial plan.
The railroad came under the control of JP Morgan in the 1910s. While this was a cash influx, he also held the company over the fire and when he lost his shirt in the 1916 Panic, he cashed out and put this company along with the nearby friendly partner/rival Boston and Maine into bankruptcy. It was during the heyday and cash that the two partnered to electrify the Hoosac Tunnel with plans to electrify the B&M from Boston to Deerfield and for New Haven to electrify its line to Springfield and Boston. Under New Haven influence, parts of the B&M gained a 4-track mainline as well.
If it wasn't for JP Morgan throwing the company into bankruptcy until 1923, the Depression came along and ruined things, and it didn't help that the early interstate system was being built next to its mainline. The New England Thruway, an early bit of Interstate 95, paralleled the New Haven from New Haven south to New York City. Freight and passengers moved off the railroad and on to the highway in droves. A highway built by taxes on the railroad.
In the 1950s Patrick McGuiness got ahold of the railroad through controlling stock interests. He cut corners by slashing maintenance and gave the cash to the stock holders. Perhaps he was forward thinking because this is the modern way of doing business. He cut passenger service and curtailed freight, and eventually also gained control of nearby Boston and Maine where he continued to do the same. When he scrapped and sold the B&M's Talgo train, the companion to New Haven's trainset, and then pocketed the cash illegally, he got caught and was sent to prison. By then, however, the damage was done.
In 1969, the NH became part of the Penn Central and that pretty much sealed its fate. The railroad became a stepchild of Conrail and is now run by CSX.