The early operation of this first railway in Westchester County was naturally conducted in very imperfect fashion, but its completion through the whole extent of the county was an event of great importance, not only to the people residing along the route, but to those of all other sections, stage communication with the various stations being immediately established from villages east and west as the work progressed. Before the construction of this central route had been finished, the two other principal railways that now pass through Westchester County had been chartered and put on a basis assuring their early completion. The New York am! Albany division of what is now the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad was originally called the New York and Hudson River Railroad. In the early years of the New York and Harlem enterprise the idea of another line following the river shore had been scouted as both chimerical and inexpedient. In a sober official report it was declared that the chief value of a river route would be its " novelty," whereas the already chartered road "leading from the City of New York through the heart of Westchester County, at nearly equal distances from the waters of the Hudson on the one hand and of the East River and Long Island Sound on the other, and extending from thence through the upper valley of the Croton River near to the eastern border of the State," was the only satisfactory project for bringing the whole country as far as Albany into communication with the commercial metropolis. It was also argued that the same central route would serve the purpose of railwav intercourse with New England, a road from Boston to