The Railroad Museum of the Niagara Frontier is located in the 1922-built Erie Railroad freight depot in North Tonawanda, New York. Operated by the Niagara Frontier Chapter of the National Railroad Historical Society, its mission is to preserve the railroad history of the Buffalo, New York area, once the railroad hub of America. [1] The Museum is owned by the Niagara Frontier Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.
The museum was opened after members restored the depot on June 1, 2003. The ribbon cutting ceremonies included a speech from George Maziarz. [2]
The Railroad Museum of the Niagara Frontier owns several small artifacts and four pieces of railway equipment. They include two bay-window cabooses, one of Erie ancestry and the other from the New York Central. The Museum's locomotives include a gasoline-powered Plymouth 20-Tonner and a Whitcomb 50-Ton Diesel-Hydraulic centercab switcher built by the Canadian Locomotive Company in Kingston, Ontario. [3] This locomotive was formerly owned by the Tonawanda Island Railroad (TILR). Across the street from the station is an old New York Central interlocking tower called EL-2. Future plans are to restore the tower and integrate it into the museum. [4]
The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing the costs of transporting people and goods across the Appalachians. In effect, the canal accelerated the settlement of the Great Lakes region, the westward expansion of the United States, and the economic ascendancy of New York State. It has been called "The Nation's First Superhighway."
The Niagara River is a river that flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. There are differing theories as to the origin of the river's name. According to Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger, Niagara is derived from the name given to a branch of the locally residing native Neutral Confederacy, who are described as being called the Niagagarega people on several late-17th-century French maps of the area. According to George R. Stewart, it comes from the name of an Iroquois town called Ongniaahra, meaning "point of land cut in two".
North Tonawanda is a city in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 31,568 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city is named after Tonawanda Creek, its south border.
Fort Erie is a town on the Niagara River in Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada. It is directly across the river from Buffalo, New York, and is the site of Old Fort Erie which played a prominent role in the War of 1812.
Tonawanda is a city in Erie County, New York, United States. The population was 15,129 at the 2020 census. It is at the northern edge of Erie County, south across the Erie Canal from North Tonawanda, east of Grand Island, and north of Buffalo. It is part of the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area.
Tonawanda is a town in Erie County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town had a population of 72,636. The town is at the north border of the county and is the northern inner ring suburb of Buffalo. It is sometimes referred to, along with its constituent village of Kenmore, as "Ken-Ton". The town was established in 1836, and up to 1903 it included what is now the city of Tonawanda.
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.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-8-4 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles and four trailing wheels on two axles. The type was first used by the Northern Pacific Railway, and initially named the Northern Pacific, but railfans and railroad employees have shortened the name since its introduction. It is most-commonly known as a Northern.
The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The NFTA, as an authority, oversees a number of subsidiaries, including the NFTA Metro bus and rail system, the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport, the Niagara Falls International Airport and NFTA Small Boat Harbor. The NFTA Metro bus and rail system is a multi-modal agency, utilizing various vehicle modes, using the brand names: NFTA Metro Bus, NFTA Metro Rail, NFTA Metrolink and NFTA PAL. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 14,061,700 or about 53,200 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2023. In addition, the NFTA also owns and manages a number of properties, including the Buffalo Metropolitan Transportation Center in Downtown Buffalo ; the Niagara Falls Transportation Center on Factory Outlet Boulevard; the Portage Road Transit Center in Niagara Falls; and a number of strategically located bus loops and transit centers in the Buffalo Niagara region. Of note, many of the bus loops have been in continuous operation since the days of the International Railway Company, a predecessor to the NFTA. Agency-wide, the NFTA employs 1,500 full-time and part-time employees. There are three business centers that operate as the NFTA organization: Surface Transportation, which handles ground transportation throughout Erie and Niagara counties, Aviation, which handles air related business at the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport and Niagara Falls International Airport and Property Risk/Management, which operates the NFTA-Boat Harbor and handles other properties that are owned and/or operated by the NFTA.
The Arcade and Attica Railroad is a shortline railroad that hauls freight between Arcade and North Java, New York. The railroad originally connected Arcade with Attica, however the right of way from North Java north to Attica was abandoned in 1957 due to flooding on the Tonawanda Creek.
The Michigan Central Railroad was originally chartered in 1832 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan, and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the United States and the province of Ontario in Canada. After about 1867 the railroad was controlled by the New York Central Railroad, which later became part of Penn Central and then Conrail. After the 1998 Conrail breakup, Norfolk Southern Railway now owns much of the former Michigan Central trackage.
Black Rock, once an independent municipality, is now a neighborhood of the northwest section of the city of Buffalo, New York. In the 1820s, Black Rock was the rival of Buffalo for the terminus of the Erie Canal, but Buffalo, with its larger harbor capacity and greater distance from the shores of Canada, a recent antagonist during the War of 1812, won the competition. Black Rock took its name from a large outcropping of black limestone along the Niagara River, which was blasted away in the early 1820s to make way for the canal.
The Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad was a part of the New York Central Railroad system, connecting Buffalo, New York to Niagara Falls. It is still used by CSX for freight and Amtrak for passenger service.
The GE 44-ton switcher is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Electric between 1940 and 1956. It was designed for industrial and light switching duties, often replacing steam locomotives that had previously been assigned these chores.
New York State Route 265 (NY 265) is a 19.75-mile (31.78 km) long state highway located in the western part of New York in the United States. NY 265 is a north–south route that roughly parallels the western parts of the Niagara River in Erie County and Niagara County. For much of its southern course, it is more frequently referred to by its longtime name, Military Road, which dates back to 1801 as a road to connect the city of Black Rock and Fort Niagara near Lake Ontario.
The Tonawanda Railroad was a railroad company established in Rochester, New York in 1832. It was eventually absorbed by the New York Central.
The International Railway Company (IRC) was a transportation company formed in a 1902 merger between several Buffalo-area interurban and street railways. The city railways that merged were the West Side Street Railway, the Crosstown Street Railway and the Buffalo Traction Company. The suburban railroads that merged included the Buffalo & Niagara Electric Street Railway, and its subsidiary the Buffalo, Lockport & Olcott Beach Railway; the Buffalo, Depew & Lancaster Railway; and the Niagara Falls Park & River Railway. Later the IRC acquired the Niagara Gorge Railroad (NGRR) as a subsidiary, which was sold in 1924 to the Niagara Falls Power Company. The NGRR also leased the Lewiston & Youngstown Frontier Railroad.
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 only operating railroad museums in New York State. The museum was formerly an operation of the Rochester Chapter National Railway Historical Society until 2011. The organization rosters more than 40 pieces of historic railroad equipment, including diesel and steam locomotives, electric trolley and multiple-unit cars, freight cars, cabooses, passenger cars, and work equipment. The museum campus includes a number of preserved railroad structures, including the 1909 Industry Depot built by the Erie Railroad, a waiting shelter from the Rochester, Lockport & Buffalo Railroad, and a crossing watchman's shanty from the New York Central. Train rides are operated and the museum is open to the public on select weekends from June through October, and is staffed entirely by volunteers.
Transportation in Buffalo, New York is dominated by automobile use, but other modes of transportation exist in the city.
The GE 25-ton switcher is a model of diesel-electric switcher locomotive that was produced by GE Transportation at their Erie, Pennsylvania, facility between 1941 and 1974. Most examples were produced for industrial customers or the United States Armed Forces, although a number of examples were purchased by freight railroads as well. The majority of production was for customers in the United States and Canada, but export models were produced for buyers on five continents. Production totaled approximately 550 units over 33 years, making it one of the most widely produced switchers in American history.