The Central was originally an upstate New York line paralleling the Erie Canal, and was itself a consolidation of ten smaller railroads built as feeder lines for the canal. In 1853 Erastus Corning, a prominent merchant and politician of Albany, brought these lines together providing for direct and coordinated rail service between his city in the East, to Buffalo on the shores of Lake Erie in the West.

In the early 1860s shipping magnate and Wall Street manipulator extraordinaire 'Commodore' Cornelius Vanderbilt came to control the Hudson River Railroad. The line ran from New York City up the Hudson River north to the state capital at Albany. Always a visionary, even at this late stage (he was in his 60's at the time,) in his life, Vanderbilt saw the potential for a direct rail line linking the port of New York with the state's western hinterlands - and the lake port of Buffalo.

In 1867 Vanderbilt acquired control of the New York Central by allowing it to be - literally - frozen out of New York City. In 1866 the Commodore, who had been accumulating Central stock, made overtures to the Central for its acquisition. His offers were rejected. Not easily deterred, he switched tactics.

Despite the rail link between Albany and New York City, traffic during the summer months still largely moved by river boat on the Hudson. It was cheaper, and at the time, more reliable. In the winter when the river froze over, a connection with Vanderbilt's Hudson River railroad was employed to forward the traffic.

In January of 1867 while upstate New York was in the grip of a blizzard, Vanderbilt opened the next phase of his truly hostile take-over bid; Using an old state law as his pretext (which was written originally at the Centrals' behest to prevent competition in its region,) he abruptly ordered that all of his trains stop on the near side of Hudson, and not make the interchange with the Central on the other side of the river - the crossing of which by rail was forbidden by this dubious and double edged statute. This inconvenience forced struggling Central passengers and its freight, to be trudged an extra 5 miles through the frigid winter wonderland of ice and snow in order to make the rail connection to New York City.

The results were predictable: traffic on the Central was cut, stockholders were alarmed, and in December of 1867, Vanderbilt was in control. Two years later the Central and the Hudson were officially consolidated as the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company.

In the late 19th Century the NYC ranked among the top five corporations in America, and it would remain in the top five transportation companies right up until the bitter end. Some of the companies it either owned or exercised control over during its heyday were: The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, the Michigan Central, the Boston & Albany, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Big Four (CCC&StL), the Nickel Plate (NYC&StL), and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

Prior to World War I and following an acquisition orgy in the 1880s and 1890s the Central moved to streamline its operating structure and provide some protection against the Progressive era legal reforms that were then being directed at the railroads. This final consolidation in 1913 created the New York Central Railroad Company.

After World War II, its fortunes waned; in 1968 it merged with its long time rival the Pennsylvania Railroad to form the ill fated Penn Central, which went bankrupt in 1970. Six years later with most of the rest of the Northeastern rail system in bankruptcy, Congress created Conrail out of six of the failed companies, and the last vestiges of the NYC were wiped away.

In another one of those strange twists of fate, with the 1998 sale of Conrail to CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern companies, the remains of the NYC would be divvied up between the successors to most of the railroads that it had once owned. The wheel had come full circle.