Overview | |
---|---|
Parent company | Erie Lackawanna Railway, Lehigh Valley Railroad |
Headquarters | Buffalo, New York |
Reporting mark | BCK |
Dates of operation | January 25, 1869–April 1, 1976 |
Successor | Conrail |
The Buffalo Creek Railroad was a terminal and switching railroad that operated on the waterfront area of Buffalo, New York. The company was in existence from 1869 [1] to 1976, operating on 5.66 miles with a total trackage of 34.22 miles. [2] [3] It was formed by the Lehigh Valley Railroad and New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company (Erie Lackawanna Railway) which each owned 50% of the company. [1]
The railroad primarily served the grain elevators in present-day 'Silo City' [4] and adjacent area of Buffalo, including that of General Mills. The site was advantageous due to its location on the Buffalo River and the eastern coast of Lake Erie. [5] Before the re-dredging of the Welland Canal in the 1950s, access to Lake Ontario and points further east were limited to large ships coming from in the Midwestern United States. As a consequence Buffalo hosted at one time the world's largest cereal packaging plants, [2] and offloaded, milled, and shipped grain across the eastern United States.
The 'Crik', as it was nicknamed, [3] switched for the grain elevators. The railroad connected with seven major railroads. [2] In addition, the railroad owned a fleet of over 1,700 40-foot boxcars for transporting flour.
A grain elevator is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposits it in a silo or other storage facility.
The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midwest, along with the intermediate cities of Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Rochester and Syracuse. New York Central was headquartered in New York City's New York Central Building, adjacent to its largest station, Grand Central Terminal.
The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Northeastern United States, originally connecting Pavonia Terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey, with Lake Erie at Dunkirk, New York. The railroad expanded west to Chicago following its 1865 merger with the former Atlantic and Great Western Railroad, also known as the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad.
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, also known as the DL&W or Lackawanna Railroad, was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey, and by ferry with New York City, a distance of 395 miles (636 km). The railroad was incorporated in Pennsylvania in 1853, and created primarily to provide a means of transport of anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Northeast Pennsylvania to large coal markets in New York City. The railroad gradually expanded both east and west, and eventually linked Buffalo with New York City.
The Erie Lackawanna Railway, known as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad until 1968, was formed from the 1960 merger of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The official motto of the line was "The Friendly Service Route".
The Buffalo River drains a 447-square-mile (1,160 km2) watershed in Western New York state, emptying into the eastern end of Lake Erie at the City of Buffalo. The river has three tributaries: Cayuga Creek, Buffalo Creek, and Cazenovia Creek.
The Lake Erie and Western Railroad was a railroad that operated in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The Lake Erie and Western main line extended from Sandusky, Ohio, 412 miles (663 km) westward to Peoria, Illinois, passing through Fremont and Fostoria, Ohio, Muncie and Lafayette, Indiana, and Bloomington, Illinois. It also had main lines extending from Indianapolis to Michigan City, Indiana and from Fort Wayne to Connersville, Indiana. Principal branch lines extended from St. Marys' to Minster, Ohio and from New Castle to Rushville, Indiana.
Buffalo is the county seat of Erie County, and the second most populous city in the U.S. state of New York, after New York City. Originating around 1789 as a small trading community inhabited by the Neutral Nation near the mouth of Buffalo Creek, the city, then a town, grew quickly after the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, with the city at its western terminus. Its position at the eastern end of Lake Erie strengthened the economy, based on grain milling and steel production along the southern shores and in nearby Lackawanna.
The Indiana Northeastern Railroad is a Class III short line freight railroad operating on nearly 130 miles (210 km) in southern lower Michigan, northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio. The Indiana Northeastern Railroad Company began operations in December 1992 and is an independent privately owned company. As of 2017 the railroad hauled more than 7,000 carloads per year. Commodities moved by the railroad include corn, soybeans, wheat and flour. It also handles plastics, fiberboard, aluminum, copper, coal, perlite, stone, lumber, glass, rendering products, as well as agricultural fertilizers and chemicals.
The Camp Chase Railway is a short-line switching and terminal railroad in and near Columbus, Ohio, United States, running past the former Camp Chase. The company was formed as the Camp Chase Industrial Railroad in 1994 as a spin-off of Conrail. Through trackage rights, the railroad interchanges with Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX at Buckeye Yard. The Camp Chase bike trail follows alongside the railroad for 12 miles and is one the few trails in the United States that runs within an active railroad right-of-way.
The Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad is a short-line railroad that operates freight trains in Western New York and Northwest Pennsylvania. The company is controlled by the Livonia, Avon and Lakeville Railroad, with which it does not connect. It started operations in 2001 on the Southern Tier Extension, a former Erie Railroad line between Hornell, New York and Corry, Pennsylvania, owned by the public Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Allegany and Steuben Southern Tier Extension Railroad Authority (STERA).
The Flats Industrial Railroad is a Class III railroad that provides short-line commercial/industrial switching service in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, primarily with CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway.
The Port of Albany–Rensselaer, widely known as the Port of Albany, is a port of entry in the United States with facilities on both sides of the Hudson River in Albany and Rensselaer, New York. Private and public port facilities have existed in both cities since the 17th century, with an increase in shipping after the Albany Basin and Erie Canal were built with public funds in 1825.
The Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad is a short-line railroad subsidiary of Midwest & Bluegrass Rail that operates freight trains between Youngstown, Ohio and Darlington, Pennsylvania, United States. The line is owned by the Columbiana County Port Authority, leased to the Eastern States Railroad, which is owned by the line's primary shipper, and contracted out to the YSRR. Freight is interchanged with CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway at the Youngstown end.
The following is a brief history of the North American rail system, mainly through major changes to Class I railroads, the largest class by operating revenue.
The Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad was a railroad company that formerly operated in western and north central Pennsylvania and western New York. It was created in 1893 by the merger and consolidation of several smaller logging railroads. It operated independently until 1929, when a majority of its capital stock was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. At the same time, the B&O also purchased control of the neighboring Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh Railway. The Baltimore and Ohio officially took over operations of both roads in 1932.
The Cargill Pool Elevator is a grain storage facility in Buffalo harbor built in the 1920s and previously named the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator. The elevator is the only grain elevator in Buffalo that is located directly adjacent to Lake Erie.
The Fremont and Indiana Railroad existed in Northwest Ohio beginning in 1853.
The Silver Creek and Dunkirk Railway was a railway company in the United States. It was established in 1890 by the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway to relocate that company's main line between Dunkirk, New York, and Silver Creek, New York, a distance of approximately 8 miles (13 km). On the completion of the new line in 1892, the LS&MS's original route was leased to the Nickel Plate Road. The line remains part of CSX's Erie West Subdivision.