The Ulster and Delaware Railroad Company (U&D) was a Class I railroad located in New York State, headquartered in Rondout and founded in 1866. It was often advertised as "The Only All-Rail Route To the Catskill Mountains." At its greatest extent, the U&D ran from Kingston Point, on the Hudson River, through the heart of the Catskill Mountains to its western terminus at Oneonta, passing through four counties (Ulster, Delaware, Schoharie and Otsego), with branches to Kaaterskill and Hunter in Greene County. The U&D connected with six other railroads: the West Shore, Wallkill, and O&W in Kingston, the D&N in Arkville, the Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley in West Davenport, and the D&H in Oneonta.
Although a small railroad, it was big in stature, as it went through many favored tourist hot-spots. Many elegant hotels kept business going, some of which were sponsored or built by the railroad. Besides the passenger business, there were also plenty of farms and creameries (most of them in Delaware County) as well as businesses shipping coal, stone, ice and various wood products.
One of the few downfalls were the many grades, some as steep as 4.4%. A train took almost four hours to get from Kingston Point to Oneonta, running at an average speed of only 30miles per hour (48 km/h), although some sections permitted running at 60 miles per hour (97 km/h) or more. When roads improved and automobiles became more widely available, the advantages of train travel were nil.
(Short description from Wikipedia)
From the 1904 U&D Travel Guide:
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