The Owasco River Railway was a switching railroad that provided rail service to several industries on the

Owasco River Owasco River (also known as Owasco Creek, Owasco Lake Outlet, and Owasco Outlet) is a river in Cayuga County, New York, Cayuga County in the state of New York (state), New York. The river drains Owasco Lake at Auburn, New York, Auburn and flows in ...

Auburn, New York Auburn is a city in Cayuga County, New York, United States. Located at the north end of Owasco Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in Central New York, the city had a population of 26,866 at the 2020 census. It is the largest city of Cayuga County, the ...

, interchanging with the

New York Central Railroad 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 ...

and the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, w ...

via

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may con ...

on the New York Central. Incorporated on June 2, 1881, completed construction in 1882, and opened by 1886, it was initially owned by the

International Harvester Company The International Harvester Company (often abbreviated by IHC, IH, or simply International ( colloq.)) was an American manufacturer of agricultural and construction equipment, automobiles, commercial trucks, lawn and garden products, household e ...

. In 1919, the

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

found, in a decision for the Owasco River Railroad, that short line and industrial railroads were

common carrier A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in some civil law systems,Encyclopædia Britannica CD 2000 "Civil-law public carrier" from "carriage of goods" usually called simply a ''carrier'') is a person or compan ...

s and were entitled to appropriate haulage rates from trunk lines. The New York Central gained control of the company by lease in 1929 and sold half of the stock to the

in 1931. The company was eventually acquired by the

Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

, successor to the New York Central, and was abandoned in 1976 when

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 ...

was formed. Penn Central later used the company to own

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

from abandoned rail lines, and it remains as a subsidiary of

American Premier Underwriters American Premier Underwriters is a property and casualty insurance company that was established as the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1846. It was formerly known as the Penn Central Transportation Company and it currently owns non-rail assets. The compa ...

, successor to Penn Central.

References

External links

The Owasco River Railroad (Abandoned Rails)
Defunct New York (state) railroads Predecessors of the New York Central Railroad Predecessors of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Railway companies established in 1881 Railway companies disestablished in 1976 Switching and terminal railroads 1881 establishments in New York (state) {{US-rail-transport-stub