- Terminal Railway of Buffalo
Infobox SG rail
railroad_name=Terminal Railway of Buffalo
logo_filename=
logo_size=
marks=
locale=southeast ofBuffalo, New York
start_year=1898
end_year=1914
old_gauge=
hq_city=The Terminal Railway of Buffalo was a part of theNew York Central Railroad system southeast ofBuffalo, New York . 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 theNew York Central Railroad main line at Depew (coord|42.9087|N|78.7146|W|) southwest through Gardenville to the NYC'sLake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway at Lackawanna (coord|42.8043|N|78.8344|W|). The line, intended to ease congestion in Buffalo, opened onSeptember 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 throughNew York City -Chicago 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'sWest Shore Railroad (coord|42.9325|N|78.7191|W|). 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
New York Central Railroad onDecember 22 ,1914 .The line passed into the hands of
Penn Central in 1968 andConrail in 1976. By 1995 the line was gone south of thePennsylvania Railroad (Western New York and Pennsylvania Railway ) crossing at Ebenezer (coord|42.8492|N|78.7706|W|), abandoned in favor of the PRR'sWest Seneca Branch and theLehigh Valley Railroad 'sLehigh 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 toPennsylvania Lines LLC, a subsidiary ofNorfolk Southern .The connection to the West Shore at Depew is now owned by
New York Central Lines LLC, aCSX subsidiary, and is used to move trains between the old NYC main and West Shore lines.ee also
*Junction Railroad, which built the NYC's Buffalo Belt Line northeast of downtown
*Lehigh and Lake Erie Railroad , a parallel cutoff built by theLehigh Valley Railroad
*West Seneca Branch , a parallel cutoff built by thePennsylvania Railroad References
* [http://www.earlpleasants.com/search_1.asp Railroad History Database]
*Greg Jandura, [http://www.trainweb.org/wnyrhs/bayviewFrame1Source1.htm Coming by the Bay]
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