The Charlotte Running Track, locally known as the Charlotte Runner or the Charlotte Branch, is a
CSX Transportation
CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...
-controlled branch line located in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...
. The track is roughly in length, beginning at
control point 373 on CSX's
Rochester Subdivision The Rochester Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of New York. The line runs from Solvay, New York, west to Churchville, New York, along the former New York Central Railroad water level route. At its east ...
and snaking north through the residential and industrial sections of Rochester's west side before turning to the west in
Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...
onto what was the
Hojack Line
The Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad was a railroad that grew, in stages, from Rome, New York to Watertown and then to Ogdensburg, New York and Massena, New York. The original Rome and Watertown Railroad terminated in Cape Vincent, NY on ...
, terminating just to the west of
Rochester Gas and Electric
Avangrid, Inc. (formerly Energy East and Iberdrola USA), is an energy services and delivery company. AVANGRID serves about 3.1 million customers throughout New England, Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York in the United States.
History
In ...
's Russell Power Plant in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
.
History
The Charlotte Branch was built in the 1880s by the
Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad
The Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad was a railroad that grew, in stages, from Rome, New York to Watertown and then to Ogdensburg, New York and Massena, New York. The original Rome and Watertown Railroad terminated in Cape Vincent, NY on ...
, and passed through ownership by the New York Central Railroad,
Penn Central
The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...
and Conrail before CSX acquired the line as part of the Conrail breakup in 1999.
Trackage
The Charlotte Runner branches off of the CSX main at CP-373 via a wye that allows access from either the west or the east. Heading north, the line passes under
Interstate 490 before reaching a switch that leads to the
Falls Road Industrial Track, the lone remaining remnant of the
Conrail
Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...
Falls Road Secondary in Rochester. Just past this switch, another split on the line heads east to the former
New York Central
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 Midw ...
mainline trackage, which is no longer used due to the lack of customers following the closure of the Kleen Brite chemical company in 2004. Meanwhile, the Charlotte Branch continues to the north toward
Kodak Park.
North of Driving Park Avenue, the Charlotte Runner parallels the
Rochester and Southern Railroad
The Rochester and Southern Railroad , a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming Inc., is a class III shortline that runs from the city of Rochester in Monroe County to Silver Springs, NY. The RSR started in 1986, when the B&O sold off its Buffalo a ...
. The two lines follow one another into Kodak Park, the gigantic industrial complex run by
Eastman Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
and maintained via an
intra-plant railroad. Just north of
West Ridge Road, the KPRR interchanges with both tracks. The RSR and the Charlotte Runner then turn to the northeast for a stretch before the RSR turns to the north while the Charlotte Runner continues northeast, following the path of the
Genesee River
The Genesee River is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York in the United States.
The river provided the original power for the Rochester area's 19th century mills and still provides h ...
.
Just before the Genesee empties into
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...
in Charlotte, the line turns west onto the former Hojack Line. The track continues to the west for just under two miles before coming to an end at Dewey Avenue after crossing the
Lake Ontario State Parkway
The Lake Ontario State Parkway is a parkway along the southern shore of Lake Ontario in Western New York in the United States. The western end of the highway is at a partial interchange within Lakeside Beach State Park in Carlton, Orleans County ...
, roughly a 1/2 mile after the switch to the power plant.
Statistics
Though much more important in previous years ''(see
Usage
The usage of a language is the ways in which its written and spoken variations are routinely employed by its speakers; that is, it refers to "the collective habits of a language's native speakers", as opposed to idealized models of how a language ...
for more info)'', the Charlotte Runner is still a vital piece of CSX's trackage in
Monroe County Monroe County may refer to seventeen counties in the United States, all named for James Monroe:
* Monroe County, Alabama
*Monroe County, Arkansas
* Monroe County, Florida
* Monroe County, Georgia
*Monroe County, Illinois
*Monroe County, Indian ...
. There are four online customers on the line, one of which is the largest CSX customer in the Rochester area.
Customers
Current
*Marshall Boxes, Rochester
*Comac Builders Supply, Rochester
*
Eastman Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
, Rochester
*
International Paper
The International Paper Company is an American pulp and paper company, the largest such company in the world. It has approximately 56,000 employees, and is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.
History
The company was incorporated January 31 ...
, Rochester (aka "the box shop" to CSX crews)
Former
*Plywood Plastics, Rochester
*
RG&E Russell Station, Greece (plant decommissioned in 2009 - currently in demolition)
Interchanges
*
CSX
CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...
, Rochester
Rochester Switching Services Rochester (formerly the Kodak Park Railroad which has been outsourced to a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming Industries)
Mass Transit
*None (However, the line is in proximity to the Port of Rochester, where the terminal for the ferry that traveled between
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
and Rochester from 2003 to 2005 is located)
Usage
Despite being a branch line, the Charlotte Runner has seen its share of mainline traffic over the years. Until 2009, long coal trains made their way to the Russell Station every month, the line also carried coal trains that went to RG&E's BeeBee plant located near
High Falls in downtown Rochester. These trains would travel the length of the runner and, after crossing onto the Hojack portion of the line, would travel east on the Hojack (as, at this time, the Hojack was intact for a short distance to the east of the Charlotte Runner), crossing over the Genesee River on a swing bridge that dates back to the days of the RW&O, and returning to the city on the
Rochester Running Track. The plant and the line were closed within two years of each other and, by 1998, the Rochester Runner and the Hojack east of the Charlotte Runner were abandoned and removed. The swing bridge, the final remnant of this portion was decomminished in 2012 by order of the US Coast Guard.
Following the closure of the BeeBee plant, volume along the Runner significantly decreased due to the lack of coal trains for the BeeBee. This amount was reduced even further after RG&E shut down Russell Station in 2009, leaving Kodak as the only major customer on the line.
CSX continues to make use of the former Hojack trackage up to Russell Station for car storage, bringing up Kodak trains to the West Yard between Lake Avenue and Greenleaf Road to run-around power or perform further switching duties, rather than tying up traffic on Ridge Road and Ridgeway Avenues near Eastman Business Park.
References
{{Reflist
CSX Transportation lines
Rail infrastructure in New York (state)
New York Central Railroad lines