The Rochester and State Line Railroad was a 19th-century railroad company in New York state.
Background In the middle of the 19th century, Rochester, New York's need for transportationMonroe and Livingston Counties were, at the time, the nation's biggest wheat-producing area. Rochester milled as much as 5,000 barrels of flour a day, and the Rochester wheat trade moved an average of 1,200,000 bushels a year between 1845 and 1855. had not adequately been met by either the Genesee Valley Canal or the small local railroads that had been combined into the two major companies: the New York Central, with the Tonawanda, the Attica and Buffalo, and the Auburn and Rochester, and the Erie, with the Cohocton Valley and the Rochester and Genesee Valley lines.
The purpose of the new railroad sought by the Rochester industrial and commercial interests was plain - the provision of cheap and reliable transport of Pennsylvania coal to the city of Rochester. During the mid-1860s, the price of coal in Rochester had tripled. However, since the financial support of the outlying farm and commercial interests was vital to the project, in one of the lesser deceptions of the railroad building era, it was intimated to the public in the towns and villages of the Genesee Valley that the road would be built through western New York to carry agricultural products to city markets. While Rochester came up with $600,000 utilizing municipal bonds, rural communities raised nearly as much on their own.
The organization of the new rail line, the Rochester and State Line Railroad, occurred on 8 April 1869.
Purpose Energy for the industry in Western New York at this time came from Pennsylvania coal, and the existing railroads were the sole means of getting it to the Rochester area. The railroads knew this, and their pricing reflected it. In 1863, a ton of coal cost approximately six dollars. Two years later, it was 17 dollars. Talk of conspiracies between the coal and the railroad companies and calls for a new railroad generated ample enthusiasm. For some ten years, coal customers, and others, from Rochester and villages as far south as the Pennsylvania line sought to raise interest in a new railroad to the level at which something could be accomplished.
Genesis
Numerous meetings in Rochester and the outlying southern areas led to many proposals, at least one of which came to fruition. Oliver Allen IIOne source erroneously gives his name as Owen Allen. and Donald McNaughton, both of Mumford, as well as Rochester attorney, D D S Brown, led a group of both business and government officials in promoting the project. In 1869, the Rochester and State Line Railroad was incorporated and chartered on 6 October to construct a railroad from Rochester to the Pennsylvania state line.The route specification included: Rochester, Scottsville, Mumford, Caledonia, Perry, Castile, Portageville, Belfast, Belmont, Wellsville, and thence along the Genesee River to the Pennsylvania line. Allen was elected vice president of the new company. In the same year, the first surveys were done by William Wallace, who had done the same for the Scottsville and LeRoy Railroad 35 years earlier.
George Slocum writes in 1906: "The Rochester and State Line Railroad in its inception was a Wheatland institution. At one period in its early history, its officers, the President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and four of the nine directors, were residents of Wheatland.
D. D. S. Brown, Oliver Allen, and Donald McNaughton were active and energetic in pushing this enterprise.
This road was opened for business from Rochester to Le Roy in 1874, to Salamanca in 1878, and completed to Pittsburg at a later date. In 1872 the town of Wheatland issued its bonds to the amount of $70,000.00 to aid in its construction, $53,000.00 of which has been paid. In 1860 the control of this road passed from the hands of those who had managed it, and its name was changed to the Rochester and Pittsburg R. R. Company. Later on, it was again changed to the Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburg R. R. Co. which name it now bears."
Although the initial state charter set the southern terminus at Wellsville, new coalfield discoveries in Pennsylvania spurred the organizers to move the route west, running through Warsaw and Ellicottville to Salamanca. This would facilitate an easier connection in Carrollton to the Buffalo, Bradford and Pittsburgh Railroad, and thus the coalfields of northern Pennsylvania.
The anxiety with which small communities (in the days before a reliable highway network) sought rail connections may be inferred from the actions of Perry. Upon learning of the R&SL plans not to connect with their village, local interests on 1 October 1868 set up their own railroad companyThis was the Silver Lake Railroad, not to be confused with the more real Silver Lake Railroad in New Hampshire. for a line from Perry to East Gainesville,Today, Silver Springs. where the Erie Railroad had a station. When the R&SL was set up, Perry was on the route. However, when the route was shifted westward, Perry was off the route. Since interests along the original eastern route were now irate, yet another line, the Rochester and Pine Creek Railroad, was proposed to run from Caledonia to Castile through Perry. Perry was unimpressed and decided to maintain their original intention. Barely a few years later, the Silver Lake Railroad merged into the Rochester and Pine Creek and, on 1 February 1872, opened a short line between East Gainesville and Perry. Five years later, this company renamed itself the Silver Lake Railway.
A lamb between the wolves In the middle of the 19th century, two interests essentially divided up the rail industry in New York State. Vanderbilt and the New York Central and Hudson River contended, often in dramatic terms, against Fisk, Gould, and Drew's Erie Railroad. The tie between the New York Central and the R&SL can be inferred from the presence of George J Whitney on the boards of both companies. Vanderbilt had reason to want railroad access to the rich coal resources of Pennsylvania and to acquire the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad, which had a terminus at Salamanca. In 1872, Whitney started a two-year term as president of the RS&L, strengthening the unwritten alliance with Vanderbilt.
Construction Schmidt says of the line (referring to Scottsville): "Soon after the war, promoters proposed a railroad to extend south of Rochester to the coal fields in Pennsylvania. In 1872 the town of Wheatland issued bonds for $70,000.00 to aid in its construction. D. D. S. Brown, Oliver Allen, and Donald McNaughton were again active in promoting the railroad. Mr. Allen was vice-president from 1869 to 1876, when he was elected president, and served in that capacity until the reorganization in 1880.
Work on the railroad was begun in 1873 and progressed rapidly since there were no great engineering difficulties to overcome until the foothills of the Alleghany Mountains near Warsaw were reached. Despite the financial panic of 1873 the Rochester and State Line Railroad was opened from Rochester to LeRoy in 1874. Little work was done for the next two years because railroad bonds and stocks were unsalable at any price. But as industry revived and railroads were showing increased earnings, work was resumed in 1876 and the railroad was completed to Salamanca in 1878. On May 15th there was a big excursion to Salamanca and large crowds attended the festivities. Ten years of work saw the completion of the railroad. The board of directors had labored faithfully and given their time and money, and this was to be their only reward.
The first locomotiveLocomotive number 1 was a 4-4-0 "American" type boasting an ornately decorated headlight. It bore on each side a picture of Oliver Allen and is today on display at the Rochester Historical Society. was built by Brooks of Dunkirk, N. Y., it was named "Oliver Allen" after the man who had worked zealously in the interest of the railroad.
In 1874 the rolling stock consisted of one engine and a boxcar to operate. When necessary, chairs were placed in the boxcar for passengers. Cars were often borrowed from other railroads. At one time when the railroad was being sued, all the real property the sheriff could obtain was the engine, which he locked up with chains.
Many miles of the State Line Railroad bed was built with gravel from the old John C. McVean farm. The farm at that time extended west of the railroad between North Road and Scottsville-Chili Road. After the cars began operating from Rochester to LeRoy, the mail, which had previously been taken to the Erie Railroad station in Rush, was carried by the Rochester and State Line Railroad. A new street, Maple Street, was opened up from Browns Avenue to the station to make the station more accessible to the village. The old station was located about three hundred feet north of the present one."
In the fine tradition of economizing on capital investment, the R&SL chose to use existing railbeds wherever practicable, such as the never-built Cattaraugus Railroad between Machias and Salamanca. In any event, the route layout was done by mid-1872.
The official start occurred on 21 August 1872. As Allen was the driving force,It's never that simple. Some of the directors of the corporation were affiliated with other railroads, including the New York Central and Hudson River, and their interests served both railroads, not just the one. In fact, at the end of the company's short life, five board members also occupied seats on the board of the New York Central, including W H Vanderbilt, W K Vanderbilt, and Cornelius Vanderbilt himself. he did the first-shovel thing in Mumford. Actual construction work began in 1873 (some sources say 1874). A year later, most of the route grading had been done.
Up to the summer of 1873, work progressed rapidly, with the bed ready for rail-laying by mid-May, but the Panic of 1873Nationally, recovery from the panic did not occur until spring of 1879, when manufacturing industries revived and farm prices rose. brought the suspension of work on the line until the corporation's directors were able to arrange with Waterman & Beaver of Philadelphia for enough iron rails to complete the line from Rochester to LeRoy. Rails at that time, were selling for $88.00 a ton. 7 October 1873 saw the first rail spiked to the cross-ties in a ceremony at Lincoln Park, the line reaching Scottsville by November, Garbuttsville shortly thereafter, and Le Roy by year's end. The Rochester to Le Roy segment of the road was opened in May 1874.
On 15 September 1874, the first regular train on the Rochester and State Line Railroad reached Le Roy. Unfortunately, little or no work was done in the following two years, as the company's financial resources had been exhausted. By the end of 1876, the railroad line had been taken as far as Pearl Creek.A hamlet near the north town line on Route 19 in Wyoming County. In June 1877, the line reached Warsaw.Regrettably, no one at the time saw fit to compose a concerto to mark the occasion.
In an early example of the appropriately named fast-track construction technique, a second crew built the southern part of the road, south out of Machias to Salamanca and north to the line built by the first crew. The south-bound work from Machias reached Salamanca on 28 January 1878; on 9 January, the line north from Machias and south from Rochester met in the town of Eagle. Now a respectable 108 miles long, the Rochester and State Line Railroad began revenue service along its full length on 16 May 1878.