The Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad began in 1842 as the Watertown & Rome Railroad to link Watertown with Rome, New York on the Syracuse & Utica Railroad, later consolidated as part of the New York Central Railroad. The Potsdam & Watertown Railroad was formed at this time to link Watertown with Potsdam, New York in St. Lawrence County. In 1861 these two railroads merged as the RW&O. A branch line from DeKalb Junction to Ogdensburg was later built. In 1864 the RW&O constructed a line from Pulaski to Oswego and merged with the Syracuse & Northern Railroad. In 1858 the Lake Ontario Shore Railroad was chartered from Oswego to Suspension Bridge, New York. RW&O merged with the LOS in 1875; by that time the LOS was bankrupt. The RW&O was nicknamed "Rotten Wood & Old Rusty Rails" due to its crumbling infrastructure. By 1878 the RW&O had been merged into the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. DL&W built the Ontario Secondary in 1882 from Charlotte, New York to Rochester, New York. By 1891 RW&O became a subsidiary of NYC. On April 12, 1913 the RW&O was formally merged into the NYC. In 20th century timetables for the New York Central Railroad, the line is referred to as the St. Lawrence Division. Revenue passenger service was operated from the NYC's "Water Level Route" mainline. Coach passengers for the route to Watertown, Potsdam and on to Massena changed trains at Syracuse. Passengers for the branch splitting off the route at Philadelphia for Ogdensburg changed at Syracuse. Sleeping car passengers would be able to take a continuous one-carriage ride. The last sleeping cars to and from New York City operated along the route in 1961, falling off the October schedule. The local coach service to Ogdensburg ended by October, 1961 as well. The remaining local coach service for Massena fell off the timetable by April, 1964.
The RW&O was nicknamed the Hojack, but its origins have multiple explanations.
Hojack originated from the engineer of the first train, who was named Jack Welch. Welch used to be a farmer and was more familiar with horses than steam locomotives. When he stopped the trains he would shout "Whoa Jack!". This became Hojack over time.
Many people fondly called the RW&O by its nickname, "Hojack." In the early days of the railroad, a farmer in his buckboard drawn by a bulky mule was caught on a crossing at train time. When the mule was halfway across the tracks, he stopped. The train was fast approaching and the farmer naturally got excited and began shouting, "Ho-Jack, Ho-Jack." Amused by the incident, the trainmen began calling their line the "Ho-Jack."
Considerable mystery has always surrounded the origin of the nickname "Hojack" applied to the R. W. & O. division. Railroad men, when asked, seemed to have but a vague idea of the reason of the term. In a letter to the Oswego Bulletin, a writer who signs himself as an "Old Engineer," writes: "I noticed recently in an Oswego paper there was some doubt as to the origin of the word 'Hojack' as applied to the R, W. & O. division of the New York Central railroad. There are a few persons on the railroad who know how the name came to be applied, but I happen to know the exact circumstances. Along in the early 70's a man named Royal and one John Tobin were employed by the R., W. & O. railroad in running trains between Lewiston and Suspension Bridge. Royal was a gruff, genial fellow and was well liked by the railroad men at the bridge. It was his habit, when after having delivered his cars at the bridge, he was ready to return, to stand at the officer door and call out to his partner in stentorian tones. 'Ho, Jack, time to be going back.' The man and the voice became inseparably connected with the railroad and when his train appeared the men would say, 'Here comes the hojack.' The name sticks to the road and the R., W. & O., is now better known among railroad men as the 'Hojack' than it is by its corporate name." Author Richard Palmer attributes it to a slang term for a slow local passenger train or way freight. The Port Jervis Evening Gazette reported, "hile the Hojack was backing down to the depot Wednesday afternoon a horse in a team attached to a wagon from the country got its foot fast between the rail and the bed of the track in a manner similar to that which a horse belonging to Thomas Cuddeback was ruined some time ago. It was with great difficulty that the horse Wednesday was saved from a similar fate. The foot was got out just in time to get out of the way of the train." A subsequent story in the same newspaper supports that explanation, saying "he name Hojack, which the Gazette gave to the way train leaving here for the west at 1:30 in the afternoon, sticks closer than a brother, and the train is now generally known by that name." NYC attempted to ban the name by way of an edict released in 1906.
