Day, 1818, and the next day the road was opened for business. " It was at first a single track road. . . . The numerous curves on the road were caused by the restricted financial condition, making it necessary, as far as possible, to avoid cuttings and embankments. The desire had been to build the road in a substantial and permanent manner, but it was found difficult to complete it in any shape. . It is a curious fact that when the trains first commenced to run the passengers were booked as in the old stage-coach times, their names being duly reported by the conductors to the company. " Thus by the dawn of the second half of the nineteenth century the three great railway routes which traverse Westchester County had been completed and put in successful operation. The other two railways now existing -- the Harlem River Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford, and the New York and Putnam -- were noi built until many years later. The former, at first called the Harlem River and Port Chester Railroad, running on its own line from Morrisania to Now Rochelle, and thence over the New Haven track to Port Chester, was undertaken in 1872, and was from the beginning leased by the Now York, New Haven, and Hartford Company. The present New York and Putnam Railroad at its inception (1871) was designed to run from High Bridge to Brewsters, and there connect with the so-called New York and Boston. This road was not finished until 1881. It was long styled the Now York and Northern. Its complete development was effected by the extension of the line from High Bridge to the terminus of the Elevated Railway at One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, and by the building of the branch from Van Cortlandt Station to Yonkers.