The Rochester and Eastern Rapid Railway (R&ER) was an electric

interurban The interurban (or radial railway in Canada) is a type of electric railway, with tram-like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms u ...

railway in

New York State New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

, USA, connecting Rochester,

Canandaigua Canandaigua () is a city in Ontario County, New York, United States. Its population was 10,576 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Ontario County; some administrative offices are at the county complex in the adjacent town of Hopewell. ...

, and

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

History

The company was chartered in 1901, the investors being mostly from Rochester. Service between that city and Canandaigua began in 1903, the power house and car barn being erected in the latter place. Completion to Geneva was in 1904. A spur line to Fairport was begun, but abandoned unfinished. In 1905 the line came under control of 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 ...

(NYC) through its ''Mohawk Valley Company'' subsidiary. In this period, Canandaigua was provided with a limited local streetcar service using one car. The R&E was consolidated with the

Rochester Railway Company The Rochester Railway Company operated a streetcar transit system throughout the city of Rochester, New York, Rochester from 1890 until its acquisition by Rochester Transit Corp. in 1938. Formed by a group of Pittsburgh investors, the Rochester Ra ...

and the Rochester and Sodus Bay Railway in 1909 to form

New York State Railways New York State Railways was a subsidiary of the New York Central Railroad that controlled several large city streetcar and electric interurban systems in upstate New York. It included the city transit lines in Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Oneida ...

which was wholly owned by New York Central. One change was that the power house was shut down, and electricity purchased from the local public utility company owing to economies of scale. In its early years, the line attracted a heavy leisure traffic of people wishing to visit the

Finger Lakes The Finger Lakes are a group of eleven long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes located directly south of Lake Ontario in an area called the ''Finger Lakes region'' in New York (state), New York, in the United States. This region straddles th ...

, but this was especially vulnerable to automobile competition. Ridership declined sharply through the 1920s, but nevertheless the interurban was re-routed to link up to the Rochester Subway at Rowlands in 1928, providing a faster and more direct route to serve downtown Rochester. The effort was wasted, as New York State Railways petitioned to abandon the R&E in 1929. Months later, legal permission was granted to end all service on July 31, 1930. The line was dismantled soon after, and there was no successor.

Route

Before 1928, the R&ER used the

streetcar tracks, and left the city on Monroe Avenue. In that year, it briefly connected with the Rochester Subway at Rowlands, at the south-east end of Monroe, before shutting down for good. The terminus in this short period was the City Hall subway stop. The first major stop after Rochester city limits was Pittsford, whence the R&ER closely paralleled the NYC line to Canandaigua on the latter's north side. Stops were at Bushnell's Basin, Fishers, Victor,

Mertensia ''Mertensia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family Boraginaceae. They are perennial herbaceous plants with blue or sometimes white flowers that open from pink-tinged buds. Such a change in flower color is common in Boraginaceae an ...

(actually at Hathaway Corners) and Paddleford. In Canandaigua the line ran down Main Street, and the car barn was at the end of a stub line left when the main line turned east to Geneva. The location of the car barn at the end of this stub line at the south end of Canandagua's Main Street meant that the city's local trolley service could shuttle from there to the city limits at the north end of Main Street and back again, without getting in the way of the interurban cars. The main line then ran due east, with main stops at Hopewell,

Seneca Castle Kanadaseaga (aka Kanadesaga or Kanatasaka or Kanadasaga or Canasadego or Ganûndase?'ge? or Seneca Castle or Canadasaga), was a major village, perhaps a capital, of the Seneca nation of the Iroquois Confederacy in west-central New York State, Unit ...

, Gates and Pre-emption. It terminated in Geneva next to the City Hall on the north side of the Castle Street, halfway between Geneva and Exchange Streets. At Geneva, the line connected with the Geneva, Seneca Falls and Auburn Railroad which took folk to Seneca Falls and to a terminus on the

Cayuga Lake Cayuga Lake (, or ) is the longest of central New York's glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area (marginally smaller than Seneca Lake) and second largest in volume. It is just under long. Its average width is , and i ...

shore where there was an amusement park (it never got to Auburn). This little company also ran the Geneva streetcars. In 1905, the R&ER was proposing a loop line from Mertensia through Shortsville, Clifton Springs and Phelps to Geneva, but this was abortive -although it appeared on its publicity maps. The line had interchanges with the NYC, and also with the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

at Canandagua and the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad in the Northeastern United States built predominantly to haul anthracite, anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Northeastern Pennsylvania to major consumer markets in Philadelphia, New York City, and ...

at Geneva. However it was never able to develop any substantial carload freight traffic although, like most interurbans, it handled LCL (''less-than-carload'') freight in the baggage compartments of its cars.Hilton & Due: Electric Interurban Railways in America Stamford University Press 2000 p. 312

References

* {{Authority control Streetcars in New York (state) Transportation in Rochester, New York Defunct New York (state) railroads Railway companies established in 1901 Railway companies disestablished in 1930