The Terminal Railway of Buffalo was a part of 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 Mid ...

system southeast of

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. It built the Gardenville Branch or Gardenville Cutoff, allowing through trains to bypass Buffalo. The cutoff has since been abandoned in favor of other parallel lines.

History

The Terminal Railway was chartered on June 12, 1895 to connect the

main line at Depew () southwest through Gardenville to the NYC's

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833 and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, primarily along the ...

at Lackawanna (). The line, intended to ease congestion in Buffalo, opened on September 20, 1898. When originally built, the southwest end only provided direct access towards Buffalo, merging with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern at the West Seneca Yard. A connection was soon built allowing for through

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

traffic without turning at the yard. A connection was also built, in or soon after 1923, from the northeast end at Depew north to the New York Central's

West Shore Railroad The West Shore Railroad was the final name of a railroad that ran from Weehawken, New Jersey, on the west bank of the Hudson River opposite New York City, north to Albany, New York, and then west to Buffalo. It was organized as a competitor ...

(). This allowed trains on the West Shore, which paralleled the NYC main line, to also use the cutoff. The Terminal Railway was merged into the

on December 22, 1914. The line passed into the hands of

Penn Central 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 ...

in 1968 and Conrail in 1976. By 1995 the line was gone south of the Pennsylvania Railroad ( Western New York and Pennsylvania Railway) crossing at Ebenezer (), abandoned in favor of the PRR's West Seneca Branch 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, ...

's Lehigh and Lake Erie Railroad. North of Ebenezer the branch continued to serve local traffic from a connection with the old PRR line to the NYC lines at Depew, but that has been cut back to a short section near Ebenezer. The 1998 breakup of Conrail assigned the remaining section to Pennsylvania Lines LLC, a subsidiary of

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31, ...

. The connection to the West Shore at Depew is now owned by New York Central Lines LLC, a CSX subsidiary, and is used to move trains between the old NYC main and West Shore lines.

References

Railroad History Database
*Greg Jandura

{{DEFAULTSORT:Terminal Railway Buffalo Defunct New York (state) railroads Predecessors of the New York Central Railroad History of Buffalo, New York Railway companies established in 1895 Railway companies disestablished in 1914 1895 establishments in New York (state) 1914 disestablishments in New York (state)

History

See also

References