Building for the Meriden & Cromwell Railroad began in 1883, when a dormant charter, granted in 1871, was revived by manufacturers in the town of Meriden, Connecticut . When the line was completed in 1885 it ran from Center Street in Meriden, Connecticut, to a point in Cromwell, Connecticut, on the Connecticut River . It was soon proposed to extend the line to Waterbury, Connecticut, and in 1887, with subscriptions of stock from the citizens of Waterbury, building commenced. It was completed in July 1888 and the name of the railroad line changed to the Meriden, Waterbury & Connecticut River Railroad . By 1889 the line owned five locomotives, seven passenger cars and 154 freight cars.
In October 1892 the MW&CR became part of the New York & New England Railroad system, and then the New England Railroad system in 1895. In 1896 the New England Railroad suspended service on the line and it was abandoned. Service was sporatically resurrected once the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (better known as the New Haven Railroad) took over the entire New England Railroad system, and there was a brief attempt on reverting the line to trolley service in the 1910s, but by 1938 only two short remnants of the original MW&CR remained at Waterbury and Meriden, and these were abandoned in 1976 when Conrail took over the line.
From the guide to the Meriden & Cromwell Railroad/Meriden, Waterbury & Connecticut River Railroad Photograph Album, undated, 1885-1951., (Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center .)
