The Central New England Railroad's Griffin line was built by the Hartford and Connecticut Western Railroad in the late 1860's as a part of a line that eventually connected Hartford with Campbell Hall, NY as the Central New England & Western Railroad. The line was owned for a short time by the Philadelphia & Reading in the 1890's, when it was reorganized as the Central New England Railway. In 1904, the New York, New Haven & Hartford gained control of the CNE but operated it separately until the merger in 1927. In 1932, the NH started abandoning sections of the CNE and by the time PC/CR took over, only a few miles of the line remained in Hartford as the Griffin Line and a bit in Canaan, CT. In the summer of 2009, President A.J. Belliveau operated passenger excursions on the line for the Hartford NMRA Convention.