The Buffalo and Rochester Railroad was a railroad company formed on December 7, 1850 by the merger of the Tonawanda Railroad and the Attica and Buffalo Railroad. The company remained in business for three years before it was merged with other companies into the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected New York metropolitan area, gr ...

History

Initially, the idea for this line came from the perceived need for a rail line to serve

Steuben Steuben or Von Steuben most commonly refers to Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730–1794), Prussian-American military officer, or to a number of things named for him in the United States. It may also refer to: Places *Steuben Township, Marshall C ...

and Livingston Counties in New York. Farmers and merchants in the area proposed a route along the Cohocton and

Genesee river The Genesee River ( ) is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York in the United States. The river contains several waterfalls in New York at Letchworth State Park and Roch ...

valleys up to Avon. The route would thence go west to the Tonawanda Railroad at Batavia. This would have been an alternative to the

Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Northeastern United States, originally connecting Pavonia Terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey, with Lake Erie at Dunkirk, New York. The railroad expanded west to Chicago following its 1865 ...

's plan to end its line at Dunkirk. The Erie declined, and the projected line became the Buffalo and Cohocton Valley Railroad. The side line from Avon to Batavia, however, became part of the Buffalo and Rochester Railroad. The primary accomplishment of the railroad was the construction of a new route between Buffalo and Batavia. The original route went from Rochester to Batavia to

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

and then to Buffalo. In April 1852, the railroad opened a new line from Buffalo to Batavia. This shortened the distance between the two cities and became part of the

's famed "Water Level Route". The Buffalo and Rochester sold its line between Attica and Depew (east of Buffalo) to the Buffalo and New York City Railroad, part of the

New York and Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Northeastern United States, originally connecting Pavonia Terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey, with Lake Erie at Dunkirk, New York. The railroad expanded west to Chicago following its 1865 ...

system. The new owners converted the line to their six-foot gauge. The railroad was one of ten that merged on May 17, 1853 to form the

References

External links

Western New York Railroad Archive - Buffalo and Rochester RailroadAll Railroads of New York as of 1850
Defunct New York (state) railroads Transportation in Buffalo, New York Predecessors of the New York Central Railroad Railway companies established in 1850 Railway companies disestablished in 1853 {{US-rail-transport-stub