New York Central Railroad in the context of Penn Central

The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its peak in 1882, the Pennsylvania Railroad was the largest railroad (by traffic and revenue), the largest transportation enterprise, and the largest corporation in the world.

Over its existence, Pennsylvania Railroad acquired, merged with, or owned part of at least 800 other rail lines and companies. At the end of 1926, it operated 11,640.66 miles (18,733.83 kilometers) of rail line; in the 1920s, it carried nearly three times the traffic as other railroads of comparable length, such as the Union Pacific and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads. Its only formidable rival was the New York Central Railroad (NYC), which carried around three-quarters of the Pennsy's ton-miles.

Utica (/ˈjuːtɪkə/ ) is a city in the state of New York, and the county seat of Oneida County. The tenth-most populous city in New York, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 census. It is located on the Mohawk River in the Mohawk Valley at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains, approximately 95 mi (153 km) west-northwest of Albany, 55 mi (89 km) east of Syracuse and 240 mi (386 km) northwest of New York City. Utica and the nearby city of Rome anchor the Utica–Rome metropolitan area comprising all of Oneida and Herkimer counties.

Formerly a river settlement inhabited by the Mohawk Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, Utica attracted European-American settlers from New England during and after the American Revolution. In the 19th century, immigrants strengthened its position as a layover city between Albany and Syracuse on the Erie and Chenango Canals and the New York Central Railroad. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the city's infrastructure contributed to its success as a manufacturing center and defined its role as a worldwide hub for the textile industry.

The High Line is a 1.45-mile-long (2.33 km) elevated linear park, greenway, and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The High Line's design is a collaboration between James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf. The abandoned spur has been redesigned as a "living system" drawing from multiple disciplines which include landscape architecture, urban design, and ecology. The High Line was inspired by the 4.7 km (2.9 mi) long Coulée verte (tree-lined walkway), another elevated park in Paris completed in 1993.

The park is built on an abandoned, southern viaduct section of the New York Central Railroad's West Side Line. Originating in the Meatpacking District, the park runs from Gansevoort Street—three blocks below 14th Street—through Chelsea to the northern edge of the West Side Yard on 34th Street near the Javits Center. The West Side Line formerly extended south to a railroad terminal at Spring Street, just north of Canal Street, and north to 35th Street at the site of the Javits Center. Due to a decline in rail traffic along the rest of the viaduct, it was effectively abandoned in 1980 when the construction of the Javits Center required the demolition of the viaduct's northernmost portion. The southern portion of the viaduct was demolished in segments during the late 20th century.

The Harlem Line is an 82-mile (132 km) commuter rail line owned and operated by the Metro-North Railroad in the U.S. state of New York. It runs north from New York City to Wassaic, in eastern Dutchess County. The lower 53 miles (85 km) from Grand Central Terminal to Southeast, in Putnam County, is electrified with a third rail and has at least two tracks. The section north of Southeast is a non-electrified single-track line served by diesel locomotives. Before the renaming of the line in 1983, it eventually became the Harlem Division of the New York Central Railroad. The diesel trains usually run as a shuttle on the northern end of the line, except for rush-hour express trains in the peak direction (two to Grand Central in the morning, two from Grand Central in the evening).

With 38 stations, the Harlem Line has the most of any Metro-North main line. Its northern terminal, Wassaic, is the northernmost station in the system. It is the only Metro-North line used exclusively by that carrier (no use by Amtrak, though CSX services freight customers as far north as Mount Vernon) and the only one that uses the entirety of existing track. It is colored blue on Metro-North timetables and system maps, and stations on the line have blue trim. The blue color-coding appears to have started with timetables issued by predecessor New York Central for the then-Harlem Division as far back as 1965.

The Hudson Line is a commuter rail line owned and operated by the Metro-North Railroad in the U.S. state of New York. It runs north from New York City along the east shore of the Hudson River, terminating at Poughkeepsie. The line was originally the Hudson River Railroad (and the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad south of Spuyten Duyvil), and eventually became the Hudson Division of the New York Central Railroad. It runs along what was the far southern leg of the Central's famed "Water Level Route" to Chicago.

Croton–Harmon station divides the line into two distinct segments. South of there, the line is electrified with third rail, serving suburban stations located relatively close together. Most of the electrified zone has four tracks, usually two express and local tracks in each direction. For a few miles in the Bronx between Spuyten Duyvil and Yankees–E 153rd St, there are only two or three tracks. Local service is usually provided by electric trains, while diesel trains run express. North of Croton–Harmon, the line is not electrified and is mostly double-tracked (with a few triple track areas), with the stations spaced further apart. Service between Croton–Harmon and Poughkeepsie is provided by diesel trains; these generally run express and skip most of the stations below Croton-Harmon. From just north of Spuyten Duyvil to the end of the line, the Hudson Line forms the southern portion of Amtrak's Empire Corridor, the former main line of the Central. The planned Penn Station Access project would send some Hudson Line trains to Penn Station along the Empire Connection, with two new intermediate stops along the west side of Manhattan.

Riverside Park is a scenic waterfront public park along the Hudson River on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The park measures 4 miles (6.4 km) long and 100 to 500 feet (30 to 152 m) wide, running between the Hudson River and Henry Hudson Parkway to the west and the serpentine Riverside Drive to the east, from 72nd to 158th Street.

Riverside Park was established by land condemnation in 1872 and was developed concurrently with Riverside Drive. Originally running between 72nd and 125th Streets, it was extended northward in the first decade of the 20th century. When the park was first laid out, the right-of-way of the New York Central Railroad's West Side Line blocked access to the river. In the 1930s, under parks commissioner Robert Moses's West Side improvement project, the railroad track was covered with an esplanade and several recreational facilities. Few modifications were made to the park until the 1980s, when it was renovated and extended southward as part of the Riverside South development.

Conrail (reporting mark CR), formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do business as an asset management and network services provider in three Shared Assets Areas that were excluded from the division of its operations during its acquisition by CSX Corporation and the Norfolk Southern Railway.

The federal government created Conrail to take over the potentially profitable lines of multiple bankrupt carriers, including the Penn Central Transportation Company and Erie Lackawanna Railway. After railroad regulations were lifted by the 4R Act and the Staggers Act, Conrail began to turn a profit in the 1980s and was privatized in 1987. The two remaining Class I railroads in the East, CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), agreed in 1997 to acquire the system and split it into two roughly-equal parts (alongside three residual shared-assets areas), returning rail freight competition to the Northeast by essentially undoing the 1968 merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central Railroad that created Penn Central. Following approval by the Surface Transportation Board, CSX and NS took control in August 1998, and on June 1, 1999, began operating their respective portions of Conrail.

The Michigan Central Railway Tunnel is a railroad tunnel under the Detroit River connecting Detroit, Michigan, in the United States with Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. The U.S. entrance is south of Porter and Vermont streets near Rosa Parks Boulevard. The Canadian entrance is south of Wyandotte Street West between Cameron and Wellington Avenues. It was built by the Detroit River Tunnel Company for the Canada Southern Railway, leased by the Michigan Central Railroad and owned by the New York Central Railroad. The tunnel opened in 1910 and is still in use today by the CPKC Railway.

Grand Central Terminal is a major commuter rail terminal in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, serving the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem, Hudson and New Haven Lines, and the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). It is the most recent of three functionally similar buildings on the same site. The current structure was built by and named for the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, though it also served the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Passenger service has continued under the successors of the New York Central and New Haven railroads.

Grand Central Terminal arose from a need to build a central station for three railroads in present-day Midtown Manhattan. In 1871, the magnate Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt created Grand Central Depot for the New York Central & Hudson River, New York and Harlem Railroad, and New Haven railroads. Due to rapid growth, the depot was reconstructed and renamed Grand Central Station by 1900. The current structure, designed by the firms Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore, was built after a 1902 crash between two steam trains had prompted a study of the feasibility of electric trains. The building's construction started in 1903 and it was opened on February 2, 1913.