| Industry | rail transport |
|---|---|
| Founded | September 17, 1903 |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Northeastern New York |
The Lowville and Beaver River Railroad( reporting mark LBR) is a short-line railroad [1] that was owned by Genesee Valley Transportation (GVT) of Batavia, New York from 1993 [2] to Wednesday, January 24, 2007. [3] Map [4]
The Lowville & Beaver River runs from an interchange, with GVT subsidiary Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern Railroad (MHWA) at Lowville, NY to Croghan, New York. [5]
The Lowville & Beaver River Railroad interchanged at Lowville with the Utica & Black River Railroad (U&BR). The U&BR reached Lowville in 1868 and Carthage in 1871. The L&BR was an 11-mile shortline from Lowville through Beaver Falls to Croghan planned in 1880 but it was not built. [6]
In 1903 James P. Lewis backed the short line to serve his mills at Beaver Falls. [7] The Lowville & Beaver River Railroad was open on January 13, 1906. [8] [9] [10]
The L&BR was dieselized in 1947, while #1923, their remaining steam locomotive, was last used on standby service in case the diesel needed repairs. It last operated in January 1957. [11] The locomotives of the L&BR were numbered 10, 12, 51, 1912, 1923, 1947 (Diesel), 1950 (Diesel), 1951 (Diesel) and 8, a Shay owned by the Railway Historical Society of Northern New York. [12] [13] All of the diesels are GE 44-tonners.
From 2010 to 2012, Lewis County and GVT negotiated the sale of the LBR infrastructure to the county. Plans called for the LBR route, which was offered for $425,000, to be used for a museum train operated by the Railroad Society of Northern New York, which had been based in Croghan in the mid-1990s. The MHWA route from Lowville to Carthage was also to be sold to the county and converted to a rail trail. [14] On April 30, 2012, however, the county decided against purchasing the infrastructure. [15]
River Marine Inc. of Cape Vincent, NY recently purchased the former Carthage train depot [16] on Mechanic Street. River Marine also owns the railway yard in Lowville, NY. [17] Ronald J. Trottier the owner of River Marine Inc. plans to lease the railroad between Cartage and Lowville. His plan is to run tourist trains and rail bikes, human-pedal-powered open air vehicles that ride the rails. [18]
The #1923 steam locomotive, an Alco 2-8-0, has been preserved as part of the Steamtown, USA National Historic Site, Scranton, PA. [19]
The 16.8 km long route of the LBR runs from Lowville through the valley of the Beaver River via New Bremen and Beaver Falls to Croghan. In Lowville, there is a connection to the MHWA route to Carthage, which is part of a connection formerly running from Utica to Clayton on the St. Lawrence River, but whose section from Lowville south to Lyons Falls was closed in 1964. The LBR has a small depot in Lowville. [20]
The branch line crosses the Black River on a 1,100 foot long Warren swing through truss bridge. [21]
The MHWA Lowville-to-Carthage branch line has been virtually out-of-service since the mid-2000s and is currently, as of May, 2022 out-of-service. The L&BR was placed out of service after the paper mill in Beaver Falls closed on January 24, 2007. The future usage of the line is yet to be determined.
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Media related to Lowville and Beaver River Railroad at Wikimedia Commons
Croghan is a town in Lewis County, New York, United States. The population was 3,093 at the 2010 census. The town is in the northern part of the county and located northeast of the county seat, Lowville. The town contains a village also named Croghan, a small part of which is located in the adjacent town of New Bremen. Both the village and town are locally pronounced \Krō-gun\.
The Rutland Railroad was a railroad in the northeastern United States, located primarily in the state of Vermont but extending into the state of New York at both its northernmost and southernmost ends. After its closure in 1961, parts of the railroad were taken over by the State of Vermont in early 1963 and are now operated by the Vermont Railway.
The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway, also sometimes referred to as New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad, Susie-Q or the Susquehanna, is a Class II American freight railway operating over 400 miles (645 km) of track in three Northeastern states, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
LBR may refer to:
Steamtown National Historic Site (NHS) is a railroad museum and heritage railroad located on 62.48 acres (25.3 ha) in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, at the site of the former Scranton yards of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W). The museum is built around a working turntable and a roundhouse that are largely replications of the original DL&W facilities; the roundhouse, for example, was reconstructed from remnants of a 1932 structure. The site also features several original outbuildings dated between 1899 and 1902. All the buildings on the site are listed with the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Yard-Dickson Manufacturing Co. Site.
The Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad is a shortline railroad operating in Northeastern Pennsylvania, especially the Scranton area.
The Missouri & Northern Arkansas Railroad, LLC is a Class II Regional Railroad in the U.S. states of Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas. The company is headquartered in Carthage, Missouri. It is not to be confused with the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad which connected Joplin, Missouri, with Helena, Arkansas, from 1906 to 1946.
The Genesee Valley Transportation Company, based in Batavia, New York, is a holding company for several short-line railroads located in New York and Pennsylvania. Founded by Jeffrey Baxter, Charles Riedmiller, John Herbrand, Michael Thomas and David Monte Verde, GVT Rail has grown from a five-mile switching operation in Buffalo, New York, to a system network of greater than 300 miles.
The Green Mountain Railroad is a class III railroad operating in Vermont. GMRC operates on tracks that had been owned by the Rutland Railroad and Boston and Maine Railroad. The railroad operates on a rail line between North Walpole, New Hampshire, and Rutland, Vermont. GMRC's corporate colors are green and yellow.
New York State Route 812 (NY 812) is a state highway in the North Country of New York in the United States. The southern terminus of the route is at an intersection with NY 12 and NY 26 in the Lewis County village of Lowville. Its northern terminus is at the Canada–United States border in Ogdensburg, where it crosses the Ogdensburg–Prescott International Bridge and connects to Highway 16 in Ontario. While most of NY 812 passes through rural areas of the North Country, the route also serves several villages and small communities. The GPS services company Geotab has named it the quietest highway in New York due to its low traffic counts.
New York State Route 126 (NY 126) is a 28.56-mile-long (45.96 km) state highway in the North Country of New York in the United States. It proceeds in a roughly northwest to southeast direction between NY 12 at the eastern city line of Watertown in central Jefferson County and NY 812 in the village of Croghan in northern Lewis County. In between, NY 126 serves the adjacent villages of West Carthage and Carthage, where the route has overlaps with NY 3 and NY 26. Most of the route passes through rural areas, and the portion southeast of Carthage parallels either the Black River or a tributary of it.
The Depew, Lancaster and Western Railroad is a class III railroad operating in New York. It is a subsidiary of Genesee Valley Transportation (GVT). The DLWR is composed of two operations, one located between Depew, New York and Lancaster, New York and the other in Batavia, New York. Like other GVT subsidiaries, the railroad exclusively uses Alcos.
The GE 45-ton switcher is a 4-axle diesel locomotive built by General Electric between 1940 and 1956.
New York State Route 410 (NY 410) is a 4-mile (6.4 km) east–west state highway in Lewis County, New York, in the United States. It serves as a connector between NY 26, NY 126, and the village of Castorland midway between the two highways. The route begins at an intersection with NY 26 in the town of Denmark and heads northeast through Castorland and across the Black River to a junction with NY 126 in the town of Croghan. Most of the route passes through open, rural areas, save for the section within Castorland. NY 410 was assigned as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York even though the road had yet to be improved to state highway standards. Work on rebuilding the road was delayed by the state for years, leading the Kiwanis Club of Lowville to pressure the state to reconstruct the highway. The route was finally brought up to state highway standards in the latter part of the 1930s.
The Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad Museum (RGVRRM) is an operating railroad museum located in Industry, New York, a hamlet within the town of Rush. The museum started in 1971 with the purchase of a former Erie Railroad Depot from the Erie Lackawanna Railroad. Since then the museum has grown to include a one-mile demonstration railroad, connecting it with the New York Museum of Transportation in Rush, making it one of the few operating railroad museums in New York State.
Steamtown, U.S.A., was a steam locomotive museum that ran steam excursions out of North Walpole, New Hampshire, and Bellows Falls, Vermont, from the 1960s to 1983. The museum was founded by millionaire seafood industrialist F. Nelson Blount. The non-profit Steamtown Foundation took over operations following his death in 1967. Because of Vermont's air quality regulations restricting steam excursions, declining visitor attendance, and disputes over the use of track, some pieces of the collection were relocated to Scranton, Pennsylvania in the mid-1980s and the rest were auctioned off. After the move, Steamtown continued to operate in Scranton but failed to attract the expected 200,000–400,000 visitors. Within two years the tourist attraction was facing bankruptcy, and more pieces of the collection were sold to pay off debt.
Carnforth MPD (Motive Power Depot) is a former London Midland and Scottish Railway railway depot located in the town of Carnforth, Lancashire, England.
Canadian Pacific 1293 is a class "G5d" 4-6-2 "Pacific" type steam locomotive built in June 1948 by the Canadian Locomotive Company for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Built for passenger service, No. 1293 served an eight-year career until being replaced by diesel locomotives where it was then retired in 1959. Purchased in 1964 by F. Nelson Blount for use at his Steamtown site in Bellows Falls, Vermont, No. 1293 was easily restored to operation for hauling fan trips for the general public. 1293 was later sold to the Ohio Central Railroad in 1996 for tourist train service. Today, the locomotive is out on display at the Age of Steam Roundhouse in Sugarcreek, Ohio.
The Concord and Claremont Railroad was an American railroad company during the mid-nineteenth century in New Hampshire spanning from Concord to Claremont.
For the past several months, county officials have discussed buying the 10-mile Lowville and Beaver River Railroad line from Lowville to Croghan from the Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern Railroad Corp. for $425,000; the county then was to acquire the 17-mile Lowville Industrial Track from Lowville to West Carthage for $1. Under the proposal, the corporation, a subsidiary of Genesee Valley Transportation, Batavia, was to remove tracks from the donated spur so it could be developed as a recreational trail, with the Lowville-to-Croghan spur remaining intact to allow the Railway Historical Society of Northern New York possibly to operate a scenic railroad from its depot in Croghan.
Today the depot is the home of the museum maintained by The Railway Historical Society of Northern New York. The museum is well worth a visit but be sure to contact staff before your arrival. Outside of the museum you can view their Shay locomotive, a snowplow and a diesel speeder.
