Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway
Encyclopedia
The Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway was one of the more than ten thousand railroad companies
founded in North America, most of which came and went. It lasted much longer than most, serving communities from the shore of Lake Ontario
to the center of western Pennsylvania
.
One of the minor ironies of its existence is its having never actually reached Pittsburgh. Walston
was as far south as it got.
By the middle of the 19th century, American industry had found the means of both utilizing the bituminous coal
of western Pennsylvania and transporting it economically from the mines to those who needed it. Initially, this meant steam power
, in both the railroad locomotives
and the factories. The immediate consequence was the need for a railroad line to haul coal from the hills of Pennsylvania to the cities of Rochester
and Buffalo
as well as the smaller towns and villages. The needs of the latter motivated them to invest, both individually and municipally, in the new rail companies that arose almost as profusely as spring flowers.
In the simplest terms, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway was required to pick up precisely what the Rochester and State Line Railroad
and the Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad had dropped, the coal-hauling market between the coalfield
s of western Pennsylvania
and the cities of Buffalo
and Rochester
. The mines produced steam coal, and the factories and the railroads of the Northeast needed it, in vast amounts. The reality, however, was far less simple. The great need of the coal-transportation market attracted aggressive competitors, and the laissez-faire
environment of the day encouraged tactics that included paper railroads, buying and selling of corporations as though they were used cars, and financial manipulation by syndicates of investors.
For Buffalo, existing coal transportation was limited to lake boats; for Rochester, the canals and the east-west railroads. These bottlenecks caused fuel shortages which, in turn, led to the development of such paper railroad
s as the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad as well as the Attica and Allegheny Valley, in the same year. The Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad was another scheme, although this one was actually built, to a degree.
In Rochester, both the seasonality of the Erie Canal
and the near monopoly of the Erie Railroad
intensified the pressure for a new railroad running through to the coalfield
s. Another failed attempt to resolve this saw the also-never-built Rochester and Pittsburgh in 1853. Another line which was partially built but never reached Pennsylvania was the three-foot-gauge Rochester, Nunda, and Pennsylvania.
By 1869, much money had been spent, most of it to no good purpose, and many words had been uttered and printed, but there was still no efficient, reliable, all-weather route for the coal.
Although probably mythical, there's a story that the Mumford
merchant, Oliver Allen, arose from a dinner with some fellow businessmen at which the need for a new railroad had been the topic of a spirited discussion and exclaimed, "Let's build a railroad." Allen did not build the road himself, but his was the drive that led to the Rochester and State Line Railroad
.
The Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Company was born on 29 January 1881 from the remains of the R&SL. The latter had been sold on 20 January for $600,000 to a New York syndicate of investors led by Walston H Brown. Brown, of Brown, Howard, and Company, had experience in railroad building; his company typified the many financial speculators and investment organizations which dealt in railroad companies and their securities. Another investment company to figure prominently in the BR&P history was that of Adrian Iselin. Ab initio, these investors planned expansion into the lucrative coal-haulage market. The source of the coal had by this time expanded south through western Pennsylvania
into the Beech Tree area between Brockwayville
and DuBois
.
In a practice typical in the industry, so-called "construction companies" were formed. They were paper railroads intended for the actual building of new lines and branches but not permanent existence operating them. Thus, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Company, the Great Valley and Bradford Railroad, the Bradford and State Line Railroad, and the Pittsburgh and New York Railroad built their respective lines, and then the latter three companies were folded back into the Rochester and Pittsburgh in November 1881.
The R&P purchased the Pitkin Building on Main Street West and Oak Street in Rochester
and added a two-story Gothic structure to it. The board then hired a highly qualified manager in George E Merchant, who had excelled as a division superintendent for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul, and Pacific
. Among the issues he faced upon beginning work in the head office in Rochester
were several pending lawsuits against the R&SL and disputes arising from the shady land acquisition practices of the company's forebear. Resolving these, he proceeded to improve the capital plant, including refurbishing the older locomotives and buying new ones. He bought more 4-4-0
Brooks
engines, as well as a number of 2-8-0
Consolidations. Line construction absorbed considerable resources as well.
In 1882, through its subsidiary, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad, it extended its trackage south from Salamanca to reach the coal fields of Pennsylvania. To accomplish this required bridging the Kinzua Creek Gorge. The R&P used what was, for the time, the world's highest railroad bridge
. Built by the New York, Lake Erie, and Western Railroad and Coal Company, the structure was more than 300 feet (91.4 m) above the creek and more than 2000 feet (609.6 m) long. Construction took only ninety-four days. The single track over the bridge was shared by the Erie and the R&P; this proved to be a bottleneck, and the company which succeeded the Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Company, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway, built a forty mile detour, opening it in 1893.
While the R&P was expanding on its south side, it also built on the north end. Using the Rochester and Charlotte, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh, and the Perry Railroad as construction companies, it brought much greater capability to the old RS&L yard at Lincoln Park and extended its line to the coal pier on the Genesee River
at Lake Ontario
(Charlotte
).
Succumbing to over-expansion, the R&P went bankrupt in May 1885 after existing less than four years.
The vigorous expansion of the railroad, including land acquisition, the employment of literally thousands of labourers, and the purchase of locomotives and freight and passenger cars, placed upon the Rochester and Pittsburgh a burden that its revenue and capitalization could not sustain. On 30 May 1885, the Supreme Court
appointed a referee to whom it gave the authority to sell off the company's assets. The foreclosure had been forced by the Union Trust Company of New York City. On 16 October 1885, Adrian Iselin bought the remains of the R&P.
That October, it emerged in the form of a new company called the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway, a name which accurately reflected the physical reality of its route structure. One of the forces at work in the reorganization which engendered the BR&P was a Rochester coal merchant named Arthur Yates. Not coincidentally, Yates was the line's biggest coal shipper.
of the steam era. From a tiny two-foot-gauge
0-4-0
switcher
used in their cross-tie factory and the eleven Brooks
-built "American" style 4-4-0
engines inherited from the Rochester and State Line Railroad
to the massive Alco
2-6-6-2
and 2-8-8-2
Mallets
used as pushers
at the notorious Clarion Hill, the BR&P ran engines
that were well maintained and in which crews took justifiable pride. By the time the Rochester and Pittsburgh had inherited the R&SL motive power, the original eleven had aged quickly, the RS&L having spent little on maintenance. The R&P had to send the locomotives back to Brooks for rebuilding in 1881. By the end of 1881, the company had a total of sixteen locomotives, all of them Brooks 4-4-0s.
With the advent of the R&P came expansion into the hills of Pennsylvania, and that meant heavier and more powerful engines. In 1881, five Consolidation 2-8-0
s were added to the roster, with another fifteen early in 1882. In 1883, another fifteen were acquired, along with four more 4-4-0s. The next type procured was the 0-6-0
switcher, as well as more Consolidations. By 1884, the R&P was operating 60 engines, and this represented the extent of the R&P's locomotive inventory.
From the inception of the BR&P, the company purchased locomotives as the need for them arose and then maintained them well. Some of these engines were used for both passenger and freight service, but many fell into one category or the other. Since the BR&P came to an end in 1932, it remained a steam-only railroad, with some of its locomotives serving the B&O through the 1950s.
.
Hauling coal
was the company's trade, and coal cars are heavy. Some of the consist
s at the time ranged from 2,175 tons to 3,700 tons. The semi-mountainous terrain of western Pennsylvania
demanded enormous pulling (and pushing) capability, and even the 250-ton 2-6-6-2s were often doubled up.
The first passenger service was hauled by special Brooks
4-6-0
engines acquired in 1898 and dedicated to passenger trains. Larger than the then-standard 4-4-0
Brooks, these engines were the pride of the company. In 1901, they were supplanted by the more-capable 4-4-2
Atlantics. The last of these came on board in 1909. The Atlantic class was fast and capable when coupled to a three-car train.
As train length was increased and heavier steel cars replaced the wood cars, the Atlantics were, in turn, replaced by the heavier 4-6-2
Pacifics, which lasted until the B&O ended passenger service in 1955. The BR&P owned a total of 22 Pacifics, acquisition ranging from 1912 to 1923. Used widely by railroads throughout the country, it proved popular and reliable. The Pacific was built in several weights, with the lighter numbers 675 to 679 Brooks engines known by the crews as the "sport model".
The original Scottsville
station of the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh sat at the west end of Maple Street, well to the north of the end of the road. Its 1911 replacement was on the curve where Maple turns south to Wyvil and Hanford. The railroad built a new station in Scottsville, formally dedicating it in 1911. Sitting approximately one hundred meters south of the original building, it was introduced to the public in a modest ceremony featuring Surrogate
Judge Selden S Brown and businessman David Salyerds.
In the summer of 1911, the line started a new station on the west side of Main Street in Mumford
, completing it in October 1912. Over seven hundred people attended the opening, including Judge Brown again. This station, on the very south side of Wheatland, accommodated both Mumford and Caledonia
.
The Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh stations in Springville, New York
and Orchard Park, New York
were listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 1991 and 2007, respectively.
The Rochester station at 320 Main Street West survives today...as Nick Tahou's
. That part of Oak Street which ended at the station on Main Street disappeared when the I-490 expressway
and Frontier Field
were built. The track behind the station, however, survives as part of the Rochester and Southern
, whose parent company, the Genesee and Wyoming, purchased the Rochester to Ashford Junction portion of the former BR&P in 1986.
The Bradford station saw enormous activity at the end of the 19th century. The BR&P had a maintenance facility in this oil town, along with their cross-tie and timber factory, which operated its own two-foot-gauge micro-railroad for moving the timbers about. Other railroads active in Bradford at the time included the Bradford, Bordell, and Kinzua, the Olean, Bradford, and Warren, the Kindell and Eldred, and the bizarre little Bradford and Foster Brook Monorail
. At the time, the BR&P averaged some fifty freight crews operating out of Bradford, with the Erie, Pennsylvania, and short lines contributing their share.
The Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway was a company built on and around taking coal north out of Pennsylvania. The financial backer of the newly founded Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad, the banking house of Adrian Iselin, owned not only an interest in the rail line but coal mines and coke processing facilities. The Iselin presence at the southern end of the BR&P was such that today's maps of the coal mining region show such place names as Adrian, Adrian Furnace, Adrian Mines, and Iselin Heights; moreover, the railroad named one entire branch after him. Iselin's intention was to ship 2000 tons of coal daily, to which end Iselin and the railroad established the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company, entirely owned by the R&P. Walston H Brown was president of both corporations. The company town at the southern end of the railroad, in the 11500 acres (47 km²) acquired by the coal company in the Punxsutawney area, was given the name Walston, Pennsylvania. The initial coal production facilities yielded approximately six hundred tons daily, at a total mine-to-carload cost of seventy-three cents per ton.
The first coal to be shipped on the R&P went to the Rochester coal merchant, Arthur G Yates. Such was the demand for coal that the coal shipments began well before track construction had been completed, leading to constant conflict in scheduling. By 1886, the railroad had some 4,182 freight cars, and 3,028 of them were coal cars. Of those, perhaps 500 belonged to the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company. By the mid-1880s, the railroad was running forty or more coal trains a day. Since coke was a valuable commodity, the coal company built a mile and a quarter long string of 475 coke furnaces, the largest in the world at the time, producing 22,000 tons a month, some of which was shipped out by train. Much of the coke, however, was consumed on-site in refining the iron ore brought in by lakes freighter and trans-shipped to the iron mills by the coal trains on their way back south.
Two coal companies accounted for the coal trade carried by the railroad. At first competitors, the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company and the Bell, Lewis, and Yates Coal Mining Company became very good friends when Frederick Bell, George Lewis, and Arthur Yates took seats on the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway board of directors. In fact, with Iselin's resignation as president of the railway company, Yates took his place. The two coal companies then negotiated an agreement which eased competitive pressures and allocated access to the railroad's coal-transporting capacity. While Yates concentrated on coal, Merchant ran the railroad.
Part of Yates' contribution to the BR&P's ability to haul coal was the extension of the line north from Lincoln Park through Rochester up to the coal dock it built at the mouth of the Genesee River in 1896. With an initial capacity of 4,000 tons a day, it was expanded in 1909 and 1913. To get coal to Canada, the BR&P arranged a cross-lake ferry service with the Grand Trunk Railway
. This service was highly successful, carrying passengers and coal cars to Cobourg
and other lake destinations. By 1913, over a million tons of coal a year passed through the Rochester coal dock.
As the national economy grew, more and more coal mines were developed along the BR&P routes. In fact, the new Indiana Branch soon yielded the greatest traffic volume as mines opened in the area south of Punxsutawney. By the 1920s, coal trains averaged 3,750 tons, requiring considerably better motive power than the archaic Consolidations of the earlier era. However, long coal drags with one or two Mallets at the head did not last forever. In the first quarter of the new century, the market share held by the comparatively costly union-made coal of Pennsylvania was driven down by the cheaper coal from the non-union mines of Kentucky and West Virginia. The companies of the Pittsburgh Coal District
sought federal regulation of coal industry wages but lost. In a series of moves to protect themselves, the coal companies transferred to the BR&P not only the short-line railroads they'd built themselves but also the Genesee Coal Dock facility. This had the effect of improving the coal companies' fiscal performance, but it effectively hung an anchor on the railroad's neck as it swam in deeper and deeper waters.
The headquarters of both the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway and the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company were in the elegant building on Main Street West in Rochester, and the bitter arguments between William Noonan, the head of the railway, and L W Robinson, the head of the coal company, became the stuff of local legend. In the end, both companies lost. The railroad disappeared into the B&O, and the coal company, which survived at least until 1981 in dramatically reduced size, is today no longer to be found in Rochester.
The Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway thrived on the haulage of heavy freight, primarily Pennsylvania coal, but its passenger service was characterized as "second to none". The first passenger run took place on the Rochester and State Line Railroad
on its 15 September 1874 run from Rochester
to Le Roy
. The last was on 15 October 1955, when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
ended its Buffalo - Pittsburgh service.
At the turn of the century, the BR&P inaugurated a through service connecting Rochester and Pittsburgh. The first run of the Pittsburgh Mail and Express left Rochester at precisely 0900 on 10 October 1899, bound for Pittsburgh, 330 miles (531.1 km) to the south. The night departure was called the Pittsburgh Night Express. The return trips were the Buffalo Rochester Mail and Express and the Buffalo Rochester Night Express. These later became the Great Lakes Express and the Pittsburgh Flyer.
The company took pride in doing its job properly. In its report for the year ending 30 June 1915, the New York State Public Service Commission observed that the BR&P had operated 13,877 passenger runs. Of these, 12,628 were on time. The average delay was two minutes.
Commuter rail service on the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania connected outlying towns and villages to Rochester. In some areas, Darwinian competition resulted in the failure of other rail lines, e.g. the Springville and Sardinia Railroad
.
One practice not encouraged by management was disconnecting helper locomotives on the fly. The engineer of the helper would back off on the throttle to unload the coupler, and the fireman would pull the pin to separate the two engines. The helper would then sprint ahead to the siding, throw the switch, pull off the line, and reset the switch, preferably all before the train arrived at the turnout
.
The BR&P had four divisions, and helpers/pushers were used on all of them. The real difference arose because of the preponderance of heavy loads running northbound. For instance, coal trains were loaded northbound and empty southbound, as were the oil tankers. However, prior to World War I, the BR&P ran ore trains from Buffalo south to the iron mills in DuBois
. The steepest grades were in the Buffalo Division, but they were uphill southbound and thus not a problem for the coal trains northbound. The ore trains had to negotiate these grades uphill, and, in the days before the Mallets, the ore trains out of Buffalo Creek had two Consolidations at the front and three at the rear. The Clarion Hill grade of the Middle Division, while not the steepest, did pose the greatest challenges. The worst grades on the BR&P were in the 84 to 89 feet (27.1 m) per mile range.
In later years, when wood freight cars had long been forgotten, helpers and pushers remained, although in the form of much larger, heavier, more powerful locomotives assisting far heavier trains. The BR&P operated two 700 series of Mallet
s: the comparatively light 700 through 741 and the heavier 742 through 754. Since they differed in frame design, this meant that the weaker 8th century were never doubled together. Instead, a light 700 would be coupled ahead of the heavier one for a double. When two 700 series Mallets were pushing, the same constraint was applied. If the run utilized two light Mallets, then the second one was placed at the rear, ahead of the caboose, and pushed. One more issue with doubled Mallets was whether or not all the bridges on the run were strong enough for two of the 9th century or the heavy 8th century running together.
With the mass and power of locomotives like the Mallets, care had to be exercised in their operation. A light Mallet used as a pusher naturally connected to the train with its front coupler, and the strength of this drawhead was not infinite. While the engine could not push hard enough to break the drawhead, the engineer needed to avoid slack. On the downhill part of one run one day on the Buffalo Division from Beaver to Hoyts, the pusher engineer did not keep up with the train ahead and saw it pull away from him with his drawhead hanging from the last car.
Sometimes, the problems with pushers and helpers arose not from the hardware but the politics and the economics. In the 1880s, the BR&P and the Erie shared locomotive facilities at Clarion Junction. They had an agreement that each company would provide helper service to each other on the basis of whose engine was first up at the enginehouse
when a train came along needing a push. After some years of this, the BR&P management realized that their engines were doing most of the work. The Erie crews had acquired the knack of finding something wrong with their engines, keeping them conveniently immobilized when it was time for work. The agreement ended.
Both roads faced the same problems at Clarion Junction: how best to get heavy trains over Clarion Hill. By the end of the century, the Erie kept two engines there, while the BR&P had up to five. Initially, they used 2-8-0
Consolidations, but the limitations of these antiquated locomotives forced adoption of specialized engines, such as the 4-8-0
Mastodon in 1896. This did not suffice, leading to the heavier Y Class 2-10-0
Decapod in 1907. The increased traffic of WW I led to the solution, the XX Class 2-8-8-2
Mallets. The BR&P bought these engines in 1918 essentially for one purpose, to "push Clarion Hill off the map". These locomotives were well suited to the task, as they were slow and capable of massive drawbar traction. The cooperation between the BR&P and the Erie ended in 1928, when the Erie made sweeping improvements, including introduction of 2-8-4
Berkshires and 2-8-2
Mikados, making the BR&P helpers/pushers superfluous to requirements. On some runs, the Erie put two engines at the head of the train and a third at the rear. This saved as much as ten to twelve minutes on the hill and enabled longer consists. Since the third engine, the pusher, was lighter than the BR&P Mallet, it could push against the caboose rather than needing to be placed ahead of it, making it much easier and faster to detach from the train.
In the days before radio, dispatching locomotives involved using whatever means of communication were available. The BR&P maintained a helper station at a siding between Dellwood and Lanes Mills, south of Brockwayville. The 700 series Mallets stationed here were required to assist coal trains up to McMinn Summit. When this was necessary, the dispatcher would call the crew to work by ringing a phone booth located next to the siding. A loud bell generally sufficed to wake up the engine crew. On those occasions when it did not, the dispatcher would call the McMinn farm nearby, and one of the McMinn children would run over to the siding to awaken the engineer and fireman.
imposed enormous maintenance burdens on the railroads. Primitive in design, they contained numerous self-destructive moving parts which were manufactured using, by contemporary standards, exceptionally primitive techniques. In fact, a number of railroads were capable of making their own locomotives
and cars
, and did so.
When the Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad took over the facilities of the Rochester and State Line Railroad
, it acquired little in the way of usable maintenance assets. To remedy this deficiency, the R&P bought land in the Lincoln Park section of Rochester and, in 1881, built a machine shop for repair work. In 1882, they erected a roundhouse, today at the corner of West Avenue and Buffalo Road. (The turntable has been preserved by the Rochester chapter of the National Railway Historical Society
, while the building itself has been converted for use by a scrap company.) This facility, with its fourteen-stall enginehouse, was the central shop for the entire line. The other end of the line (at the time) was in Salamanca, where the company built a smaller facility, including a two-stall enginehouse, a turntable, and the Ramsey Transfer mechanism
needed for interchange with the Erie. Additional facilities were installed at Perry
and Gainesville in the 1880s, along with more at Ashford
Junction and Clarion Junction.
Since railroad shops meant employment, small towns vied aggressively to convince the railroads to build facilities in their taxing jurisdictions. Bradford
, for instance, gave the R&P 8 acres (32,374.9 m²) of land and an eight thousand dollar grant for construction. The investment by the town paid off: the R&P set up a roundhouse
and turntable, a machine shop
, a car repair shop, as well as coaling and watering facilities.
In the 1880s, the line to Buffalo was built, terminating at Buffalo Creek. A more modest shop was established here, including a seventy-foot turntable that had to be enlarged to one hundred five feet to accommodate the Mallets. There were only two ways to turn a locomotive around, and the wye alternative was very costly in terms of land area. Thus, Buffalo Creek had one of only two BR&P turntables capable of swinging a Mallet engine. On the rare occasion of a Mallet reaching Rochester, it had to be turned on a wye. The Mallet would fit into only a single stall of the Lincoln Park roundhouse; even then, it stuck out considerably in the back, so the railroad built an extension to the stall to enable the doors to be closed. The Buffalo Creek roundhouse lacked this refinement. When two Mallets were parked in it, their tenders not only stuck out but very nearly touched. To deal with this, the BR&P built the "Malley House" near the roundhouse; it accommodated two of the ninety-two-foot wheelbase engines.
The BR&P, having grown considerably, needed still more. The mine branches in the Punxsutawney area imposed their own burden on the BR&P repair capabilities, and shops were built at Elk Run, just to the north. However, the company needed a major facility at which the biggest repairs could be done; at the time (1880s), the most serious work on locomotives required sending the engines back to their builders
in Dunkirk and Rome
. To resolve this, the BR&P selected DuBois
as the location of their primary maintenance plant.
The archetypal railroad town, DuBois had its first BR&P facility in 1886, with the car repair shop. The locomotive repair shop grew from a six-stall roundhouse at Valley and Jared Streets. When DuBois granted the railroad land and money, the expansion hit high gear. By the early 20th century, the railroad had sufficient capability at DuBois to handle everything, including building a locomotive from scratch. The BR&P could now cycle engines through the shop on a regular basis, thus keeping their motive power available and reliable.
This expansion did not occur at the expense of other sites. East Salamanca was chosen in 1906 for a new roundhouse, enginehouse, and classification yard, thanks to a location convenient to the Buffalo, Middle, and Rochester Divisions. The introduction of the huge Class XX 2-8-8-2
Mallets in 1918 necessitated construction of appropriate shop facilities at East Salamanca. This included electric jacks that could lift the Mallet off the ground.
Among the other annoyances that management had to face, one peculiar to steam locomotive operation plagued the BR&P. In addition to the accidents resulting from employee carelessness, in which doors and walls were destroyed by the impacts of engines that weren't stopped in time, the engines themselves were prone to go walkabout if left idling with a head of steam. A worn valve might pass sufficient steam to enable the locomotive to go through a roundhouse wall or door, drive into a turntable pit, or amble down the rail line, all on its own.
In April 1930, sparks from a crane ignited the roof of the older roundhouse at DuBois; the fire put the building out of operation 'til autumn, and the eleven locomotives inside suffered considerable damage.
, but the historical record shows that they occasionally do. Most accidents are deadly serious, with mere destruction of property if those involved are fortunate and death and injury if they are not. The R&P operated in the days of looser and more tolerant labour practices. In the winter of 1881, the engineer of a southbound oil train approaching the bridge
north of Ellicottville
stopped upon observing the "settled and bent condition" of the bridge ahead of him. A mail train
from Rochester slowed to a stop behind him as he awaited instructions. The conductor
of the second train ordered the first engineer to take his engine across to "test" the bridge. The engineer and his locomotive survived the transit, but the bridge settled several inches. While the conductor tried to talk the mail train engineer into shoving the oil cars across the bridge, the ice in the current carried away one of the bridge supports. Time for Plan B. The conductor walked across the bridge and rode the first engine into Ellicottville
, where he picked up a boxcar
and returned for the mail and passengers. They walked across the bridge and arrived in Salamanca
in time to make their connections.
It was less amusing one Sunday morning in July 1883 when an R&P coal train broke in two on a grade of 57 feet (17.4 m) per mile at Rasselas, twenty-five miles south of Bradford. A not altogether atypical occurrence in the days before reliable couplers
, this resulted in seven loaded coal cars and a single passenger car with fifteen to twenty people aboard accelerating back down the grade out of control. The investigation that followed alleged that the conductor and brakeman were both asleep. Neither survived. The runaway string of cars smashed into a train proceeding in the same direction. The engineer of this train saw the cars coming and, with his fireman, leapt off the locomotive after reversing it, surviving with serious bruising. Since the passenger car was the last on the first train, it hit the locomotive at full speed and was split in half. The destroyed passenger car was immediately struck by the coal cars; seven people died, and eight were injured.
Even well-run railroads have accidents
, and the BR&P had its share. In the final analysis, all accidents result from someone's failure, whether in design, manufacture, construction, operation, or maintenance. The company set its standards higher than most did, but the risks of railroading
still took a painful toll.
Some wrecks damaged locomotives and cars, tracks and buildings, and careers, but without the loss of life or the injuries that were common in the period. In late May 1893, two freight trains near Brockwayville, in Jefferson County
, Pennsylvania, tried to occupy one space, with predictable results: both locomotives and both trains were totally destroyed. Others had graver consequences. One night in February of that same year, a coal train and a freight train came together because of excessive speed and the inadequate brakes of the day. The newspaper accounts, more graphic than is customary today, gave a blood-chilling picture of what happens to a man crushed in the wreckage and exposed to a continuous blast of live steam
. In these harrowing stories, two themes emerge. The trains ran at speeds low enough to allow the crews to leap off when disaster was imminent; and more than one engineer or brakeman remained at his position on the doomed train to the very end, often with fatal consequences.
In other incidents, less noble working behaviour led to accidents. In April 1908, an engineer disregarded signals at Rock Glen, leading to a high-speed head-on collision on a curve with another locomotive one mile (1.6 km) north of the station. While no passengers died, the fireman succumbed to steam scalding, dying half an hour after the crash. Criminal charges brought the engineer's arrest for manslaughter
. In a more poignant incident in June 1900, engineer William Kation died in a head-on collision between two passenger trains that occurred right in front of his own home, on what was to have been his very last run before retiring. The crash resulted from a simple clerical error in the train orders for that day.
Train crews are forever at the mercy of what others do. In February, 1927, a Bradford yard employee left a switch in the wrong position, derailing a passenger train. The fireman was injured but survived; the engineer, who had worked for the line for forty-five years, was close to retirement, and had a reputation as a meticulous and careful worker, was crushed, scalded, and dismembered when the locomotive overturned. (See photo above.)
Some disasters are the fruit of errors made years before, as in bridges not built or maintained properly. In the BR&P East Salamanca yard on 28 August 1911, a slow freight train toppled off a bridge the south abutment
of which failed. The engineer saw the rails tipping slowly and yelled to the fireman to jump. He and the brakeman survived the plunge into the water, but the fireman did not. In the news reports, railroad officials expressed gratitude that the next train on the line, a passenger run, had not been the one to encounter the collapsing bridge. They also claimed that the bridge had been in good working order all along and that the high water in Great Valley Creek
had done the damage. Fifteen minutes prior to the collapse, two freight trains had passed on the bridge with no hint of trouble. (See photo above.)
In many instances, bad judgment and bad luck blur together to cause matters to go pear-shaped. When the line acquired its Mallets
in 1917, they naturally gave thought to how the weight of these machines would affect the existing trackage. Some work was done strengthening bridges and railworks, but it proved not wholly adequate. On 19 April 1918, the BR&P ran a very heavy Mallet over a light track north of Clarion Junction near Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania
. The result of the rails spreading apart under the weight of the 280 ton engine was an upside-down locomotive (see photo above). This was not a rare occurrence, as these 800-series Mallets were not only the heaviest that the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway operated, they were the heaviest ever used in normal service in the entire area. Less than two weeks earlier, number 806 had suffered the same ignominy when the railbed beneath her gave way on Clarion Hill. The crew sent to retrieve the engine simply tied a set of rails onto the locomotive's 57 inches (1,447.8 mm) drivers
and then rolled it upright onto a temporary roadbed, using three cranes
. This temporary rail was then tied into the main line
, enabling the number 806 to slink back home for repairs.
, giving the B&O increased access to New York State (they already had a toe-hold with their acquisition of the Staten Island Rapid Transit at the other end of the state).
The acquisition exemplified the endless machinations of the railroad era. For a while, the Van Sweringen brothers
wanted the BR&P, and Iselin was pleased to make the divestiture in 1928. The sale value of the company had been inflated by the contention between the Delaware and Hudson and the Baltimore and Ohio for the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway, making its sale a compelling decision for Iselin. The Pennsylvania coalfields were waning, thanks to non-union
mines in Kentucky and West Virginia, and the revenues from the railroad had fallen correspondingly.
The D&H wanted westward routes, and the BR&P figured in their plans. The B&O had routes that the Van Sweringens wanted
, making a swap attractive to both companies. The ICC
now regulated the railroads with a tight grip, and its view was that the B&O proposal to buy the BR&P would serve shippers better than would the D&H plan to lease the company's lines.
The B&O agreed in March 1929 to the purchase of the BR&P from the Alleghany Corporation, getting ICC approval in February of the following year. The deal yielded the B&O the BR&P, the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad, and the Mt Jewett, Kinzua, and Riterville. It gave the Van Sweringens the Wheeling and Lake Erie
. The formal hand-over occurred on 1 January 1932, forever ending the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway.
Railway company
A railway company or railroad company is an entity that operates a railroad track and/or trains. Such a company can either be private or public...
founded in North America, most of which came and went. It lasted much longer than most, serving communities from the shore of Lake Ontario
Charlotte, Rochester, New York
Charlotte is a neighborhood in Rochester, New York located at the mouth of the Genesee River along Lake Ontario. It is the home of the Port of Rochester and Charlotte High School.-Early Settlers:...
to the center of western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its...
.
One of the minor ironies of its existence is its having never actually reached Pittsburgh. Walston
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania
Punxsutawney is a borough in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, United States, northeast of Pittsburgh. In 1907, Punxsutawney and Claysville boroughs were consolidated and incorporated as Greater Punxsutawney. A high-grade soft coal was mined in the surrounding region...
was as far south as it got.
Purpose
Bituminous coal
Bituminous coal or black coal is a relatively soft coal containing a tarlike substance called bitumen. It is of higher quality than lignite coal but of poorer quality than Anthracite...
of western Pennsylvania and transporting it economically from the mines to those who needed it. Initially, this meant steam power
Steam power during the Industrial Revolution
During the Industrial Revolution, steam power began to replace water power and muscle power as the primary source of power in use in industry. Its first use was to pump water from mines...
, in both the railroad locomotives
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
and the factories. The immediate consequence was the need for a railroad line to haul coal from the hills of Pennsylvania to the cities of Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
and Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
as well as the smaller towns and villages. The needs of the latter motivated them to invest, both individually and municipally, in the new rail companies that arose almost as profusely as spring flowers.
In the simplest terms, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway was required to pick up precisely what the Rochester and State Line Railroad
Rochester and State Line Railroad
The Rochester and State Line Railroad typifies those transportation companies of the 19th century which arose from more than the customary desire to amass great amounts of money...
and the Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad had dropped, the coal-hauling market between the coalfield
Coalfield
A coalfield is an area of certain uniform characteristics where coal is mined. The criteria for determining the approximate boundary of a coalfield are geographical and cultural, in addition to geological...
s of western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its...
and the cities of Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
and Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
. The mines produced steam coal, and the factories and the railroads of the Northeast needed it, in vast amounts. The reality, however, was far less simple. The great need of the coal-transportation market attracted aggressive competitors, and the laissez-faire
Laissez-faire
In economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies....
environment of the day encouraged tactics that included paper railroads, buying and selling of corporations as though they were used cars, and financial manipulation by syndicates of investors.
For Buffalo, existing coal transportation was limited to lake boats; for Rochester, the canals and the east-west railroads. These bottlenecks caused fuel shortages which, in turn, led to the development of such paper railroad
Paper railroad
In the United States, a paper railroad is a company in the railroad business which exists "on paper only": as a legal entity which does not own any track, locomotives, or rolling stock. Frequently, paper railroads were set up as subsidiaries by larger parent railroads, or formerly existed and...
s as the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad as well as the Attica and Allegheny Valley, in the same year. The Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad was another scheme, although this one was actually built, to a degree.
In Rochester, both the seasonality of the Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
and the near monopoly of the Erie Railroad
Erie Railroad
The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, originally connecting New York City with Lake Erie...
intensified the pressure for a new railroad running through to the coalfield
Coalfield
A coalfield is an area of certain uniform characteristics where coal is mined. The criteria for determining the approximate boundary of a coalfield are geographical and cultural, in addition to geological...
s. Another failed attempt to resolve this saw the also-never-built Rochester and Pittsburgh in 1853. Another line which was partially built but never reached Pennsylvania was the three-foot-gauge Rochester, Nunda, and Pennsylvania.
By 1869, much money had been spent, most of it to no good purpose, and many words had been uttered and printed, but there was still no efficient, reliable, all-weather route for the coal.
Genesis
Mumford, New York
The hamlet of Mumford lies on the west side of the Town of Wheatland, south of Oatka Creek on NY 36 and south of the terminus of NY 383.-History:The story of Mumford has been written by several local historians...
merchant, Oliver Allen, arose from a dinner with some fellow businessmen at which the need for a new railroad had been the topic of a spirited discussion and exclaimed, "Let's build a railroad." Allen did not build the road himself, but his was the drive that led to the Rochester and State Line Railroad
Rochester and State Line Railroad
The Rochester and State Line Railroad typifies those transportation companies of the 19th century which arose from more than the customary desire to amass great amounts of money...
.
The Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Company was born on 29 January 1881 from the remains of the R&SL. The latter had been sold on 20 January for $600,000 to a New York syndicate of investors led by Walston H Brown. Brown, of Brown, Howard, and Company, had experience in railroad building; his company typified the many financial speculators and investment organizations which dealt in railroad companies and their securities. Another investment company to figure prominently in the BR&P history was that of Adrian Iselin. Ab initio, these investors planned expansion into the lucrative coal-haulage market. The source of the coal had by this time expanded south through western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its...
into the Beech Tree area between Brockwayville
Brockway, Pennsylvania
Brockway is a borough in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,182 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Brockway is located at ....
and DuBois
DuBois, Pennsylvania
DuBois is a city in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh. It is the principal city in the DuBois, Pa Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
.
In a practice typical in the industry, so-called "construction companies" were formed. They were paper railroads intended for the actual building of new lines and branches but not permanent existence operating them. Thus, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Company, the Great Valley and Bradford Railroad, the Bradford and State Line Railroad, and the Pittsburgh and New York Railroad built their respective lines, and then the latter three companies were folded back into the Rochester and Pittsburgh in November 1881.
The R&P purchased the Pitkin Building on Main Street West and Oak Street in Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
and added a two-story Gothic structure to it. The board then hired a highly qualified manager in George E Merchant, who had excelled as a division superintendent for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul, and Pacific
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad
The Milwaukee Road, officially the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until its merger into the Soo Line Railroad on January 1, 1986. The company went through several official names...
. Among the issues he faced upon beginning work in the head office in Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
were several pending lawsuits against the R&SL and disputes arising from the shady land acquisition practices of the company's forebear. Resolving these, he proceeded to improve the capital plant, including refurbishing the older locomotives and buying new ones. He bought more 4-4-0
4-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-4-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles , four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and no trailing wheels...
Brooks
Brooks Locomotive Works
The Brooks Locomotive Works manufactured steam railroad locomotives and freight cars from 1869 through its merger into the American Locomotive Company until 1934.-History:...
engines, as well as a number of 2-8-0
2-8-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-8-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle , eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels...
Consolidations. Line construction absorbed considerable resources as well.
In 1882, through its subsidiary, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad, it extended its trackage south from Salamanca to reach the coal fields of Pennsylvania. To accomplish this required bridging the Kinzua Creek Gorge. The R&P used what was, for the time, the world's highest railroad bridge
Kinzua Bridge
The Kinzua Bridge or the Kinzua Viaduct was a railroad trestle that spanned Kinzua Creek in McKean County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania...
. Built by the New York, Lake Erie, and Western Railroad and Coal Company, the structure was more than 300 feet (91.4 m) above the creek and more than 2000 feet (609.6 m) long. Construction took only ninety-four days. The single track over the bridge was shared by the Erie and the R&P; this proved to be a bottleneck, and the company which succeeded the Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Company, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway, built a forty mile detour, opening it in 1893.
While the R&P was expanding on its south side, it also built on the north end. Using the Rochester and Charlotte, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh, and the Perry Railroad as construction companies, it brought much greater capability to the old RS&L yard at Lincoln Park and extended its line to the coal pier on the Genesee River
Genesee River
The Genesee River is a North American river flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York. The river provided the original power for the Rochester area's 19th century mills and still provides hydroelectric power for downtown Rochester....
at Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...
(Charlotte
Charlotte, Rochester, New York
Charlotte is a neighborhood in Rochester, New York located at the mouth of the Genesee River along Lake Ontario. It is the home of the Port of Rochester and Charlotte High School.-Early Settlers:...
).
Succumbing to over-expansion, the R&P went bankrupt in May 1885 after existing less than four years.
The vigorous expansion of the railroad, including land acquisition, the employment of literally thousands of labourers, and the purchase of locomotives and freight and passenger cars, placed upon the Rochester and Pittsburgh a burden that its revenue and capitalization could not sustain. On 30 May 1885, the Supreme Court
United States bankruptcy court
United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. They function as units of the district courts and have subject-matter jurisdiction over bankruptcy cases. The federal district courts have original and exclusive jurisdiction over all cases arising...
appointed a referee to whom it gave the authority to sell off the company's assets. The foreclosure had been forced by the Union Trust Company of New York City. On 16 October 1885, Adrian Iselin bought the remains of the R&P.
That October, it emerged in the form of a new company called the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway, a name which accurately reflected the physical reality of its route structure. One of the forces at work in the reorganization which engendered the BR&P was a Rochester coal merchant named Arthur Yates. Not coincidentally, Yates was the line's biggest coal shipper.
Locomotives
The power used by the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway had a broader range than that of most Eastern roadsRail transport in the United States
Presently, most rail transport in the United States is based on freight train shipments. The U.S. rail industry has experienced repeated convulsions due to changing U.S. economic needs and the rise of automobile, bus, and air transport....
of the steam era. From a tiny two-foot-gauge
Narrow gauge railroads in the United States
Standard gauge was favored for railway construction in the United States, although a fairly large narrow gauge system developed in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Isolated narrow gauge lines were built in many areas to minimize construction costs for industrial transport or resort access, and...
0-4-0
0-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-4-0 represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven...
switcher
Switcher
A switcher or shunter is a small railroad locomotive intended not for moving trains over long distances but rather for assembling trains ready for a road locomotive to take over, disassembling a train that has been...
used in their cross-tie factory and the eleven Brooks
Brooks Locomotive Works
The Brooks Locomotive Works manufactured steam railroad locomotives and freight cars from 1869 through its merger into the American Locomotive Company until 1934.-History:...
-built "American" style 4-4-0
4-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-4-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles , four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and no trailing wheels...
engines inherited from the Rochester and State Line Railroad
Rochester and State Line Railroad
The Rochester and State Line Railroad typifies those transportation companies of the 19th century which arose from more than the customary desire to amass great amounts of money...
to the massive Alco
American Locomotive Company
The American Locomotive Company, often shortened to ALCO or Alco , was a builder of railroad locomotives in the United States.-Early history:...
2-6-6-2
2-6-6-2
In Whyte notation, 2-6-6-2 refers to a railroad steam locomotive that has two leading wheels followed by six coupled driving wheels, a second set of six coupled driving wheels, and two trailing wheels...
and 2-8-8-2
2-8-8-2
.A 2-8-8-2, in the Whyte notation for describing steam locomotive wheel arrangements, is an articulated locomotive with a two-wheel leading truck, two sets of eight driving wheels, and a two-wheel trailing truck. The equivalent UIC classification is, refined to Mallet locomotives, D1...
Mallets
Mallet locomotive
The Mallet Locomotive is a type of articulated locomotive, invented by a Swiss engineer named Anatole Mallet ....
used as pushers
Bank engine
A bank engine or helper engine or pusher engine is a railway locomotive that temporarily assists a train that requires additional power or traction to climb a grade...
at the notorious Clarion Hill, the BR&P ran engines
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
that were well maintained and in which crews took justifiable pride. By the time the Rochester and Pittsburgh had inherited the R&SL motive power, the original eleven had aged quickly, the RS&L having spent little on maintenance. The R&P had to send the locomotives back to Brooks for rebuilding in 1881. By the end of 1881, the company had a total of sixteen locomotives, all of them Brooks 4-4-0s.
With the advent of the R&P came expansion into the hills of Pennsylvania, and that meant heavier and more powerful engines. In 1881, five Consolidation 2-8-0
2-8-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-8-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle , eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels...
s were added to the roster, with another fifteen early in 1882. In 1883, another fifteen were acquired, along with four more 4-4-0s. The next type procured was the 0-6-0
0-6-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-6-0 represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and no trailing wheels...
switcher, as well as more Consolidations. By 1884, the R&P was operating 60 engines, and this represented the extent of the R&P's locomotive inventory.
From the inception of the BR&P, the company purchased locomotives as the need for them arose and then maintained them well. Some of these engines were used for both passenger and freight service, but many fell into one category or the other. Since the BR&P came to an end in 1932, it remained a steam-only railroad, with some of its locomotives serving the B&O through the 1950s.
Freight engines
While the BR&P simply purchased the great majority of its locomotives, several were acquired by means of leases when the company faced a serious but temporary shortfall, while others came to the BR&P through subsidiary companies, such as the Allegheny and Western Railroad, the Silver Lake Railway,the Rural Valley Railroad, and the Clearfield and Mahoning. Although the first engines were all Brooks, that shop's inability to keep up with demand led to the first BR&P purchase being made at Baldwin Locomotive WorksBaldwin Locomotive Works
The Baldwin Locomotive Works was an American builder of railroad locomotives. It was located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, originally, and later in nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania. Although the company was very successful as a producer of steam locomotives, its transition to the production of...
.
Hauling coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
was the company's trade, and coal cars are heavy. Some of the consist
Consist
A consist , in North American railway terminology, is used as a noun to describe the group of rail vehicles that make up a train. A near-equivalent UK term is rake but this excludes the locomotive....
s at the time ranged from 2,175 tons to 3,700 tons. The semi-mountainous terrain of western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its...
demanded enormous pulling (and pushing) capability, and even the 250-ton 2-6-6-2s were often doubled up.
Passenger engines
Although the BR&P was not a passenger line, it put a first-class effort into the passenger service that it provided the public. The locomotives used represented the best available, as did the care given these engines, leading to an enviable record for on-time completion of trips.The first passenger service was hauled by special Brooks
Brooks Locomotive Works
The Brooks Locomotive Works manufactured steam railroad locomotives and freight cars from 1869 through its merger into the American Locomotive Company until 1934.-History:...
4-6-0
4-6-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-6-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles in a leading truck, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and no trailing wheels. This wheel arrangement became the second-most popular...
engines acquired in 1898 and dedicated to passenger trains. Larger than the then-standard 4-4-0
4-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-4-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles , four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and no trailing wheels...
Brooks, these engines were the pride of the company. In 1901, they were supplanted by the more-capable 4-4-2
4-4-2 (locomotive)
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-4-2 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles , four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and two trailing wheels on one axle...
Atlantics. The last of these came on board in 1909. The Atlantic class was fast and capable when coupled to a three-car train.
As train length was increased and heavier steel cars replaced the wood cars, the Atlantics were, in turn, replaced by the heavier 4-6-2
4-6-2
4-6-2, in the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles , six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and two trailing wheels on one axle .These locomotives are also known as Pacifics...
Pacifics, which lasted until the B&O ended passenger service in 1955. The BR&P owned a total of 22 Pacifics, acquisition ranging from 1912 to 1923. Used widely by railroads throughout the country, it proved popular and reliable. The Pacific was built in several weights, with the lighter numbers 675 to 679 Brooks engines known by the crews as the "sport model".
Stations
The public face of a railroad is its stations, and the BR&P demonstrated its respect for its customers with well-designed, well-built, and well-maintained railway stations, most of which outlasted the company. Some were erected anew, while others, like the terminus in Rochester, were improvements of existing buildings.The original Scottsville
Scottsville, New York
Scottsville is a village in southwestern Monroe County, New York, United States, and is in the northeastern part of the Town of Wheatland. The population was 2,128 at the 2000 census. The village is named after an early settler, Isaac Scott...
station of the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh sat at the west end of Maple Street, well to the north of the end of the road. Its 1911 replacement was on the curve where Maple turns south to Wyvil and Hanford. The railroad built a new station in Scottsville, formally dedicating it in 1911. Sitting approximately one hundred meters south of the original building, it was introduced to the public in a modest ceremony featuring Surrogate
Surrogate Court
A probate court is a specialized court that deals with matters of probate and the administration of estates....
Judge Selden S Brown and businessman David Salyerds.
In the summer of 1911, the line started a new station on the west side of Main Street in Mumford
Mumford, New York
The hamlet of Mumford lies on the west side of the Town of Wheatland, south of Oatka Creek on NY 36 and south of the terminus of NY 383.-History:The story of Mumford has been written by several local historians...
, completing it in October 1912. Over seven hundred people attended the opening, including Judge Brown again. This station, on the very south side of Wheatland, accommodated both Mumford and Caledonia
Caledonia (village), New York
Caledonia is a village in Livingston County, New York, USA. The population was 2,327 at the 2000 census. The name refers to Scotland.The Village of Caledonia is located inside the Town of Caledonia and is southwest of Rochester, Monroe County....
.
The Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh stations in Springville, New York
Springville, New York
Springville is a village in the southeast part of the town of Concord in Erie County, New York, United States. Springville is the principal community in the town and a major business location in south Erie County. The population was 4,252 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Buffalo–Niagara...
and Orchard Park, New York
Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway Station (Orchard Park, New York)
Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Station is a historic railway station located at Orchard Park in Erie County, New York. The property includes the passenger depot and brick freight house both constructed in 1911, tracks, a concrete bumper post, a semiphore signal, a portion of the...
were listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1991 and 2007, respectively.
The Rochester station at 320 Main Street West survives today...as Nick Tahou's
Nick Tahou Hots
Nick Tahou Hots, originally known as Hots and Potatoes, is a Rochester, New York, landmark restaurant featuring a dish called the Garbage Plate. The restaurant was founded in 1918 by Alex Tahou, the grandfather of the current owner , and named for Nick Tahou, the founder's son, who operated the...
. That part of Oak Street which ended at the station on Main Street disappeared when the I-490 expressway
Interstate 490 (New York)
Interstate 490 is an auxiliary Interstate Highway that serves the city of Rochester, New York, in the United States. It acts as a northerly alternate route to the New York State Thruway , leaving it at exit 47 in the town of Le Roy and rejoining the highway at exit 45 in the town of...
and Frontier Field
Frontier Field
Frontier Field is a baseball stadium located at One Morrie Silver Way in downtown Rochester, New York. The park opened in 1996, replacing Silver Stadium in northern Rochester, which had been home to professional baseball in Rochester since 1929...
were built. The track behind the station, however, survives as part of the Rochester and Southern
Rochester and Southern Railroad
The Rochester and Southern Railroad , a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming Inc., is a class III shortline that runs from the city of Rochester in Monroe County to Silver Springs, NY. The RSR started in 1986, when the B&O sold off its Buffalo and Rochester branches...
, whose parent company, the Genesee and Wyoming, purchased the Rochester to Ashford Junction portion of the former BR&P in 1986.
The Bradford station saw enormous activity at the end of the 19th century. The BR&P had a maintenance facility in this oil town, along with their cross-tie and timber factory, which operated its own two-foot-gauge micro-railroad for moving the timbers about. Other railroads active in Bradford at the time included the Bradford, Bordell, and Kinzua, the Olean, Bradford, and Warren, the Kindell and Eldred, and the bizarre little Bradford and Foster Brook Monorail
Bradford and Foster Brook Railway
The Bradford & Foster Brook Railway was one of, if not the first, monorails in America. Inspired by a working demonstration at the Philadelphia Centenntial Exposition of 1876, Col. Roy Stone thought it would solve transportation problems near Bradford. In 1876, Bradford was a booming oil town...
. At the time, the BR&P averaged some fifty freight crews operating out of Bradford, with the Erie, Pennsylvania, and short lines contributing their share.
Coal
The first coal to be shipped on the R&P went to the Rochester coal merchant, Arthur G Yates. Such was the demand for coal that the coal shipments began well before track construction had been completed, leading to constant conflict in scheduling. By 1886, the railroad had some 4,182 freight cars, and 3,028 of them were coal cars. Of those, perhaps 500 belonged to the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company. By the mid-1880s, the railroad was running forty or more coal trains a day. Since coke was a valuable commodity, the coal company built a mile and a quarter long string of 475 coke furnaces, the largest in the world at the time, producing 22,000 tons a month, some of which was shipped out by train. Much of the coke, however, was consumed on-site in refining the iron ore brought in by lakes freighter and trans-shipped to the iron mills by the coal trains on their way back south.
Two coal companies accounted for the coal trade carried by the railroad. At first competitors, the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company and the Bell, Lewis, and Yates Coal Mining Company became very good friends when Frederick Bell, George Lewis, and Arthur Yates took seats on the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway board of directors. In fact, with Iselin's resignation as president of the railway company, Yates took his place. The two coal companies then negotiated an agreement which eased competitive pressures and allocated access to the railroad's coal-transporting capacity. While Yates concentrated on coal, Merchant ran the railroad.
Part of Yates' contribution to the BR&P's ability to haul coal was the extension of the line north from Lincoln Park through Rochester up to the coal dock it built at the mouth of the Genesee River in 1896. With an initial capacity of 4,000 tons a day, it was expanded in 1909 and 1913. To get coal to Canada, the BR&P arranged a cross-lake ferry service with the Grand Trunk Railway
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system which operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, as well as the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec; however, corporate...
. This service was highly successful, carrying passengers and coal cars to Cobourg
Cobourg, Ontario
Cobourg is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in Southern Ontario 95 km east of Toronto. It is the largest town in Northumberland County. Its nearest neighbour is Port Hope, to the west. It is located along Highway 401 and the former Highway 2...
and other lake destinations. By 1913, over a million tons of coal a year passed through the Rochester coal dock.
As the national economy grew, more and more coal mines were developed along the BR&P routes. In fact, the new Indiana Branch soon yielded the greatest traffic volume as mines opened in the area south of Punxsutawney. By the 1920s, coal trains averaged 3,750 tons, requiring considerably better motive power than the archaic Consolidations of the earlier era. However, long coal drags with one or two Mallets at the head did not last forever. In the first quarter of the new century, the market share held by the comparatively costly union-made coal of Pennsylvania was driven down by the cheaper coal from the non-union mines of Kentucky and West Virginia. The companies of the Pittsburgh Coal District
Pittsburgh Coalfield
The Pittsburgh Coalfield is the largest of the Western Pennsylvania coalfields. It includes all or part of Allegheny, Fayette, Greene, Washington, and Westmoreland Counties in Pennsylvania. Coal has been mined in Pittsburgh since the 18th century. U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel owned Karen, Maple...
sought federal regulation of coal industry wages but lost. In a series of moves to protect themselves, the coal companies transferred to the BR&P not only the short-line railroads they'd built themselves but also the Genesee Coal Dock facility. This had the effect of improving the coal companies' fiscal performance, but it effectively hung an anchor on the railroad's neck as it swam in deeper and deeper waters.
The headquarters of both the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway and the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company were in the elegant building on Main Street West in Rochester, and the bitter arguments between William Noonan, the head of the railway, and L W Robinson, the head of the coal company, became the stuff of local legend. In the end, both companies lost. The railroad disappeared into the B&O, and the coal company, which survived at least until 1981 in dramatically reduced size, is today no longer to be found in Rochester.
Passenger service
Rochester and State Line Railroad
The Rochester and State Line Railroad typifies those transportation companies of the 19th century which arose from more than the customary desire to amass great amounts of money...
on its 15 September 1874 run from Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
to Le Roy
Le Roy (village), New York
Le Roy is a village in Genesee County, New York, United States. The population was 4,462 at the 2000 census.The Village of Le Roy lies in the center of the Town of Le Roy at the intersection of Routes 5 and 19.- History :...
. The last was on 15 October 1955, when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. It came into being mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, which...
ended its Buffalo - Pittsburgh service.
At the turn of the century, the BR&P inaugurated a through service connecting Rochester and Pittsburgh. The first run of the Pittsburgh Mail and Express left Rochester at precisely 0900 on 10 October 1899, bound for Pittsburgh, 330 miles (531.1 km) to the south. The night departure was called the Pittsburgh Night Express. The return trips were the Buffalo Rochester Mail and Express and the Buffalo Rochester Night Express. These later became the Great Lakes Express and the Pittsburgh Flyer.
The company took pride in doing its job properly. In its report for the year ending 30 June 1915, the New York State Public Service Commission observed that the BR&P had operated 13,877 passenger runs. Of these, 12,628 were on time. The average delay was two minutes.
Commuter rail service on the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania connected outlying towns and villages to Rochester. In some areas, Darwinian competition resulted in the failure of other rail lines, e.g. the Springville and Sardinia Railroad
Springville and Sardinia Railroad
The Springville and Sardinia Railroad, a 11.57 mile narrow-gauge railroad organized by Springville, New York interests May 6, 1878 from Sardinia Junction with the Pennsylvania Railroad through Sardinia to Springville. It proved to be unprofitable once the Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh...
.
Pushers and helpers
Early freight operations consisted of trains of fewer than twenty cars, for the cars were weak and the locomotives small. The hilly terrain over which the BR&P routes ran posed problems, especially in the days before steel rolling stock. To negotiate these grades, the railroad needed to use helpers and pushers. If the second (or third) engine were put at the head of the train, then too much weight aft might result in a broken coupler and the lethal problem of a runaway. If the additional power were at the back end, then the soft wood cars tended to buckle under the compression. Occasionally, a compromise would put the helper locomotive at or near the center of the train. Using helpers brought an additional problem. Since these engines were needed only on steeper grades and since the railroad would never countenance the expense of a second engine and crew on the entire run, the helpers had to return to the bottom of the grade for the next heavy train needing a push. At first, this meant running backward after uncoupling from the rear of the train. The BR&P discouraged backward running as bad practice, a problem that eventually was solved with the construction of wyes for turning around. Additionally, care had to be exercised to avoid placing a caboose between a pusher and a train, as this crushed the soft cabooses.One practice not encouraged by management was disconnecting helper locomotives on the fly. The engineer of the helper would back off on the throttle to unload the coupler, and the fireman would pull the pin to separate the two engines. The helper would then sprint ahead to the siding, throw the switch, pull off the line, and reset the switch, preferably all before the train arrived at the turnout
Railroad switch
A railroad switch, turnout or [set of] points is a mechanical installation enabling railway trains to be guided from one track to another at a railway junction....
.
The BR&P had four divisions, and helpers/pushers were used on all of them. The real difference arose because of the preponderance of heavy loads running northbound. For instance, coal trains were loaded northbound and empty southbound, as were the oil tankers. However, prior to World War I, the BR&P ran ore trains from Buffalo south to the iron mills in DuBois
DuBois, Pennsylvania
DuBois is a city in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh. It is the principal city in the DuBois, Pa Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
. The steepest grades were in the Buffalo Division, but they were uphill southbound and thus not a problem for the coal trains northbound. The ore trains had to negotiate these grades uphill, and, in the days before the Mallets, the ore trains out of Buffalo Creek had two Consolidations at the front and three at the rear. The Clarion Hill grade of the Middle Division, while not the steepest, did pose the greatest challenges. The worst grades on the BR&P were in the 84 to 89 feet (27.1 m) per mile range.
In later years, when wood freight cars had long been forgotten, helpers and pushers remained, although in the form of much larger, heavier, more powerful locomotives assisting far heavier trains. The BR&P operated two 700 series of Mallet
Mallet
A mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of rubber,or sometimes wood smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head.-Tools:Tool mallets come in different types, the most common of which are:...
s: the comparatively light 700 through 741 and the heavier 742 through 754. Since they differed in frame design, this meant that the weaker 8th century were never doubled together. Instead, a light 700 would be coupled ahead of the heavier one for a double. When two 700 series Mallets were pushing, the same constraint was applied. If the run utilized two light Mallets, then the second one was placed at the rear, ahead of the caboose, and pushed. One more issue with doubled Mallets was whether or not all the bridges on the run were strong enough for two of the 9th century or the heavy 8th century running together.
With the mass and power of locomotives like the Mallets, care had to be exercised in their operation. A light Mallet used as a pusher naturally connected to the train with its front coupler, and the strength of this drawhead was not infinite. While the engine could not push hard enough to break the drawhead, the engineer needed to avoid slack. On the downhill part of one run one day on the Buffalo Division from Beaver to Hoyts, the pusher engineer did not keep up with the train ahead and saw it pull away from him with his drawhead hanging from the last car.
Sometimes, the problems with pushers and helpers arose not from the hardware but the politics and the economics. In the 1880s, the BR&P and the Erie shared locomotive facilities at Clarion Junction. They had an agreement that each company would provide helper service to each other on the basis of whose engine was first up at the enginehouse
Motive power depot
Motive power depot, usually abbreviated to MPD, is a name given to places where locomotives are stored when not being used, and also repaired and maintained. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine sheds", or, for short, just sheds. Facilities are provided for refuelling and...
when a train came along needing a push. After some years of this, the BR&P management realized that their engines were doing most of the work. The Erie crews had acquired the knack of finding something wrong with their engines, keeping them conveniently immobilized when it was time for work. The agreement ended.
2-8-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-8-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle , eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels...
Consolidations, but the limitations of these antiquated locomotives forced adoption of specialized engines, such as the 4-8-0
4-8-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-8-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles , eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels. The type was nicknamed the Mastodon or Twelve-wheeler in North America....
Mastodon in 1896. This did not suffice, leading to the heavier Y Class 2-10-0
2-10-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-10-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, ten powered and coupled driving wheels on five axles, and no trailing wheels...
Decapod in 1907. The increased traffic of WW I led to the solution, the XX Class 2-8-8-2
2-8-8-2
.A 2-8-8-2, in the Whyte notation for describing steam locomotive wheel arrangements, is an articulated locomotive with a two-wheel leading truck, two sets of eight driving wheels, and a two-wheel trailing truck. The equivalent UIC classification is, refined to Mallet locomotives, D1...
Mallets. The BR&P bought these engines in 1918 essentially for one purpose, to "push Clarion Hill off the map". These locomotives were well suited to the task, as they were slow and capable of massive drawbar traction. The cooperation between the BR&P and the Erie ended in 1928, when the Erie made sweeping improvements, including introduction of 2-8-4
2-8-4
In the Whyte notation, a 2-8-4 is a railroad steam locomotive that has one unpowered leading axle followed by four powered driving axles and two unpowered trailing axles. This locomotive type is most often referred to as a Berkshire, though the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway used the name Kanawha for...
Berkshires and 2-8-2
2-8-2
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-8-2 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle , eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and two trailing wheels on one axle...
Mikados, making the BR&P helpers/pushers superfluous to requirements. On some runs, the Erie put two engines at the head of the train and a third at the rear. This saved as much as ten to twelve minutes on the hill and enabled longer consists. Since the third engine, the pusher, was lighter than the BR&P Mallet, it could push against the caboose rather than needing to be placed ahead of it, making it much easier and faster to detach from the train.
In the days before radio, dispatching locomotives involved using whatever means of communication were available. The BR&P maintained a helper station at a siding between Dellwood and Lanes Mills, south of Brockwayville. The 700 series Mallets stationed here were required to assist coal trains up to McMinn Summit. When this was necessary, the dispatcher would call the crew to work by ringing a phone booth located next to the siding. A loud bell generally sufficed to wake up the engine crew. On those occasions when it did not, the dispatcher would call the McMinn farm nearby, and one of the McMinn children would run over to the siding to awaken the engineer and fireman.
Maintenance facilities
Steam locomotivesSteam locomotive components
A listing of the components found on typical steam locomotives.center|720px|Schematic steam locomotiveGuide to steam locomotive components .A listing of the components found on typical steam...
imposed enormous maintenance burdens on the railroads. Primitive in design, they contained numerous self-destructive moving parts which were manufactured using, by contemporary standards, exceptionally primitive techniques. In fact, a number of railroads were capable of making their own locomotives
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
and cars
Railroad car
A railroad car or railway vehicle , also known as a bogie in Indian English, is a vehicle on a rail transport system that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotives...
, and did so.
When the Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad took over the facilities of the Rochester and State Line Railroad
Rochester and State Line Railroad
The Rochester and State Line Railroad typifies those transportation companies of the 19th century which arose from more than the customary desire to amass great amounts of money...
, it acquired little in the way of usable maintenance assets. To remedy this deficiency, the R&P bought land in the Lincoln Park section of Rochester and, in 1881, built a machine shop for repair work. In 1882, they erected a roundhouse, today at the corner of West Avenue and Buffalo Road. (The turntable has been preserved by the Rochester chapter of the National Railway Historical Society
National Railway Historical Society
The National Railway Historical Society is a non-profit organization established in 1935 in the United States to promote interest in, and appreciation for, the historical development of railroads. It is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and organized into 16 regions and...
, while the building itself has been converted for use by a scrap company.) This facility, with its fourteen-stall enginehouse, was the central shop for the entire line. The other end of the line (at the time) was in Salamanca, where the company built a smaller facility, including a two-stall enginehouse, a turntable, and the Ramsey Transfer mechanism
Ramsey Car Transfer Apparatus
In railroad industry, the Ramsey Car Transfer Apparatus was a proposed device to replace bogies on railroad cars to permit transfer of a train between railroad lines with different gauge....
needed for interchange with the Erie. Additional facilities were installed at Perry
Perry (village), New York
Perry is a village located mostly inside the Town of Perry in Wyoming County, New York, USA. The population was 3,945 at the 2000 census.The Village of Perry is at the junction of New York State Route 39 and New York State Route 246. A small south section of the village is within the Town of...
and Gainesville in the 1880s, along with more at Ashford
Ashford, New York
Ashford is a town in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States. The population was 2,223 at the 2000 census.The Town of Ashford is on the county's northern border.- History :...
Junction and Clarion Junction.
Since railroad shops meant employment, small towns vied aggressively to convince the railroads to build facilities in their taxing jurisdictions. Bradford
Bradford, Pennsylvania
Bradford is a small city located in rural McKean County, Pennsylvania, in the United States 78 miles south of Buffalo, New York. Settled in 1823, Bradford was chartered as a city in 1879 and emerged as a wild oil boomtown in the Pennsylvanian oil rush in the late 19th century...
, for instance, gave the R&P 8 acres (32,374.9 m²) of land and an eight thousand dollar grant for construction. The investment by the town paid off: the R&P set up a roundhouse
Roundhouse
A roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables...
and turntable, a machine shop
Machining
Conventional machining is a form of subtractive manufacturing, in which a collection of material-working processes utilizing power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, are used with a sharp cutting tool to physical remove material to achieve a desired...
, a car repair shop, as well as coaling and watering facilities.
In the 1880s, the line to Buffalo was built, terminating at Buffalo Creek. A more modest shop was established here, including a seventy-foot turntable that had to be enlarged to one hundred five feet to accommodate the Mallets. There were only two ways to turn a locomotive around, and the wye alternative was very costly in terms of land area. Thus, Buffalo Creek had one of only two BR&P turntables capable of swinging a Mallet engine. On the rare occasion of a Mallet reaching Rochester, it had to be turned on a wye. The Mallet would fit into only a single stall of the Lincoln Park roundhouse; even then, it stuck out considerably in the back, so the railroad built an extension to the stall to enable the doors to be closed. The Buffalo Creek roundhouse lacked this refinement. When two Mallets were parked in it, their tenders not only stuck out but very nearly touched. To deal with this, the BR&P built the "Malley House" near the roundhouse; it accommodated two of the ninety-two-foot wheelbase engines.
The BR&P, having grown considerably, needed still more. The mine branches in the Punxsutawney area imposed their own burden on the BR&P repair capabilities, and shops were built at Elk Run, just to the north. However, the company needed a major facility at which the biggest repairs could be done; at the time (1880s), the most serious work on locomotives required sending the engines back to their builders
Brooks Locomotive Works
The Brooks Locomotive Works manufactured steam railroad locomotives and freight cars from 1869 through its merger into the American Locomotive Company until 1934.-History:...
in Dunkirk and Rome
Rome, New York
Rome is a city in Oneida County, New York, United States. It is located in north-central or "upstate" New York. The population was 44,797 at the 2010 census. It is in New York's 24th congressional district. In 1758, British forces began construction of Fort Stanwix at this strategic location, but...
. To resolve this, the BR&P selected DuBois
DuBois, Pennsylvania
DuBois is a city in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh. It is the principal city in the DuBois, Pa Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
as the location of their primary maintenance plant.
The archetypal railroad town, DuBois had its first BR&P facility in 1886, with the car repair shop. The locomotive repair shop grew from a six-stall roundhouse at Valley and Jared Streets. When DuBois granted the railroad land and money, the expansion hit high gear. By the early 20th century, the railroad had sufficient capability at DuBois to handle everything, including building a locomotive from scratch. The BR&P could now cycle engines through the shop on a regular basis, thus keeping their motive power available and reliable.
This expansion did not occur at the expense of other sites. East Salamanca was chosen in 1906 for a new roundhouse, enginehouse, and classification yard, thanks to a location convenient to the Buffalo, Middle, and Rochester Divisions. The introduction of the huge Class XX 2-8-8-2
2-8-8-2
.A 2-8-8-2, in the Whyte notation for describing steam locomotive wheel arrangements, is an articulated locomotive with a two-wheel leading truck, two sets of eight driving wheels, and a two-wheel trailing truck. The equivalent UIC classification is, refined to Mallet locomotives, D1...
Mallets in 1918 necessitated construction of appropriate shop facilities at East Salamanca. This included electric jacks that could lift the Mallet off the ground.
Among the other annoyances that management had to face, one peculiar to steam locomotive operation plagued the BR&P. In addition to the accidents resulting from employee carelessness, in which doors and walls were destroyed by the impacts of engines that weren't stopped in time, the engines themselves were prone to go walkabout if left idling with a head of steam. A worn valve might pass sufficient steam to enable the locomotive to go through a roundhouse wall or door, drive into a turntable pit, or amble down the rail line, all on its own.
In April 1930, sparks from a crane ignited the roof of the older roundhouse at DuBois; the fire put the building out of operation 'til autumn, and the eleven locomotives inside suffered considerable damage.
Accidents
Railroads are required not to have accidentsTrain wreck
A train wreck or train crash is a type of disaster involving one or more trains. Train wrecks often occur as a result of miscommunication, as when a moving train meets another train on the same track; or an accident, such as when a train wheel jumps off a track in a derailment; or when a boiler...
, but the historical record shows that they occasionally do. Most accidents are deadly serious, with mere destruction of property if those involved are fortunate and death and injury if they are not. The R&P operated in the days of looser and more tolerant labour practices. In the winter of 1881, the engineer of a southbound oil train approaching the bridge
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...
north of Ellicottville
Ellicottville (village), New York
Ellicottville is a village in Cattaraugus County, New York, USA. The population was 472 at the 2000 census. The village is named after Joseph Ellicott, principal land agent of the Holland Land Company...
stopped upon observing the "settled and bent condition" of the bridge ahead of him. A mail train
Travelling Post Office
A Travelling Post Office was a type of mail train in the UK where the post was sorted en-route. The last Travelling Post Office services were ended on 9 January 2004, with the carriages used now sold for scrap or to preservation societies....
from Rochester slowed to a stop behind him as he awaited instructions. The conductor
Conductor (transportation)
A conductor is a member of a railway train's crew that is responsible for operational and safety duties that do not involve the actual operation of the train. The title of conductor is most associated with railway operations in North America, but the role of conductor is common to railways...
of the second train ordered the first engineer to take his engine across to "test" the bridge. The engineer and his locomotive survived the transit, but the bridge settled several inches. While the conductor tried to talk the mail train engineer into shoving the oil cars across the bridge, the ice in the current carried away one of the bridge supports. Time for Plan B. The conductor walked across the bridge and rode the first engine into Ellicottville
Ellicottville (village), New York
Ellicottville is a village in Cattaraugus County, New York, USA. The population was 472 at the 2000 census. The village is named after Joseph Ellicott, principal land agent of the Holland Land Company...
, where he picked up a boxcar
Boxcar
A boxcar is a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry general freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is probably the most versatile, since it can carry most loads...
and returned for the mail and passengers. They walked across the bridge and arrived in Salamanca
Salamanca (city), New York
Salamanca is a city in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States, located inside the Allegany Indian Reservation. The population was 6,097 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
in time to make their connections.
It was less amusing one Sunday morning in July 1883 when an R&P coal train broke in two on a grade of 57 feet (17.4 m) per mile at Rasselas, twenty-five miles south of Bradford. A not altogether atypical occurrence in the days before reliable couplers
Coupling (railway)
A coupling is a mechanism for connecting rolling stock in a train. The design of the coupler is standard, and is almost as important as the railway gauge, since flexibility and convenience are maximised if all rolling stock can be coupled together.The equipment that connects the couplings to the...
, this resulted in seven loaded coal cars and a single passenger car with fifteen to twenty people aboard accelerating back down the grade out of control. The investigation that followed alleged that the conductor and brakeman were both asleep. Neither survived. The runaway string of cars smashed into a train proceeding in the same direction. The engineer of this train saw the cars coming and, with his fireman, leapt off the locomotive after reversing it, surviving with serious bruising. Since the passenger car was the last on the first train, it hit the locomotive at full speed and was split in half. The destroyed passenger car was immediately struck by the coal cars; seven people died, and eight were injured.
Train wreck
A train wreck or train crash is a type of disaster involving one or more trains. Train wrecks often occur as a result of miscommunication, as when a moving train meets another train on the same track; or an accident, such as when a train wheel jumps off a track in a derailment; or when a boiler...
, and the BR&P had its share. In the final analysis, all accidents result from someone's failure, whether in design, manufacture, construction, operation, or maintenance. The company set its standards higher than most did, but the risks of railroading
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
still took a painful toll.
Some wrecks damaged locomotives and cars, tracks and buildings, and careers, but without the loss of life or the injuries that were common in the period. In late May 1893, two freight trains near Brockwayville, in Jefferson County
Jefferson County, Pennsylvania
Jefferson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. In 2010, its population was 45,200. It was established on March 26, 1804, from part of Lycoming County and named for then-President Thomas Jefferson. Its county seat is Brookville...
, Pennsylvania, tried to occupy one space, with predictable results: both locomotives and both trains were totally destroyed. Others had graver consequences. One night in February of that same year, a coal train and a freight train came together because of excessive speed and the inadequate brakes of the day. The newspaper accounts, more graphic than is customary today, gave a blood-chilling picture of what happens to a man crushed in the wreckage and exposed to a continuous blast of live steam
Live steam
Live steam is steam under pressure, obtained by heating water in a boiler. The steam is used to operate stationary or moving equipment.A live steam machine or device is one powered by steam, but the term is usually reserved for those that are replicas, scale models, toys, or otherwise used for...
. In these harrowing stories, two themes emerge. The trains ran at speeds low enough to allow the crews to leap off when disaster was imminent; and more than one engineer or brakeman remained at his position on the doomed train to the very end, often with fatal consequences.
In other incidents, less noble working behaviour led to accidents. In April 1908, an engineer disregarded signals at Rock Glen, leading to a high-speed head-on collision on a curve with another locomotive one mile (1.6 km) north of the station. While no passengers died, the fireman succumbed to steam scalding, dying half an hour after the crash. Criminal charges brought the engineer's arrest for manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
. In a more poignant incident in June 1900, engineer William Kation died in a head-on collision between two passenger trains that occurred right in front of his own home, on what was to have been his very last run before retiring. The crash resulted from a simple clerical error in the train orders for that day.
Train crews are forever at the mercy of what others do. In February, 1927, a Bradford yard employee left a switch in the wrong position, derailing a passenger train. The fireman was injured but survived; the engineer, who had worked for the line for forty-five years, was close to retirement, and had a reputation as a meticulous and careful worker, was crushed, scalded, and dismembered when the locomotive overturned. (See photo above.)
Some disasters are the fruit of errors made years before, as in bridges not built or maintained properly. In the BR&P East Salamanca yard on 28 August 1911, a slow freight train toppled off a bridge the south abutment
Abutment
An abutment is, generally, the point where two structures or objects meet. This word comes from the verb abut, which means adjoin or having common boundary. An abutment is an engineering term that describes a structure located at the ends of a bridge, where the bridge slab adjoins the approaching...
of which failed. The engineer saw the rails tipping slowly and yelled to the fireman to jump. He and the brakeman survived the plunge into the water, but the fireman did not. In the news reports, railroad officials expressed gratitude that the next train on the line, a passenger run, had not been the one to encounter the collapsing bridge. They also claimed that the bridge had been in good working order all along and that the high water in Great Valley Creek
Great Valley (Chester County, Pennsylvania)
Great Valley is a west-to-east valley through the center of Chester County, Pennsylvania, USA. It is also sometimes referred to as Chester Valley, and both names are in use throughout the region. The valley stretches from the Schuylkill River in Montgomery County in the east, southwesterly...
had done the damage. Fifteen minutes prior to the collapse, two freight trains had passed on the bridge with no hint of trouble. (See photo above.)
In many instances, bad judgment and bad luck blur together to cause matters to go pear-shaped. When the line acquired its Mallets
Mallet locomotive
The Mallet Locomotive is a type of articulated locomotive, invented by a Swiss engineer named Anatole Mallet ....
in 1917, they naturally gave thought to how the weight of these machines would affect the existing trackage. Some work was done strengthening bridges and railworks, but it proved not wholly adequate. On 19 April 1918, the BR&P ran a very heavy Mallet over a light track north of Clarion Junction near Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania
Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania
Johnsonburg is a borough in Elk County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh and south of Buffalo, New York, in a productive farming and lumbering region. Paper mills were once common here, and Domtar still maintains a paper mill there today. In 1910, 4,334 people lived here...
. The result of the rails spreading apart under the weight of the 280 ton engine was an upside-down locomotive (see photo above). This was not a rare occurrence, as these 800-series Mallets were not only the heaviest that the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway operated, they were the heaviest ever used in normal service in the entire area. Less than two weeks earlier, number 806 had suffered the same ignominy when the railbed beneath her gave way on Clarion Hill. The crew sent to retrieve the engine simply tied a set of rails onto the locomotive's 57 inches (1,447.8 mm) drivers
Driving wheel
On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotive's pistons...
and then rolled it upright onto a temporary roadbed, using three cranes
Crane (railroad)
A railroad crane, is a type of crane used on a railroad for one of three primary uses: freight handling in goods yards, permanent way maintenance, and accident recovery work...
. This temporary rail was then tied into the main line
Main line (railway)
The Mainline or Main line of a railway is a track that is used for through trains or is the principal artery of the system from which branch lines, yards, sidings and spurs are connected....
, enabling the number 806 to slink back home for repairs.
Terminal
Officially, the end came in 1932, when the line was absorbed into the Baltimore and Ohio RailroadBaltimore and Ohio Railroad
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. It came into being mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, which...
, giving the B&O increased access to New York State (they already had a toe-hold with their acquisition of the Staten Island Rapid Transit at the other end of the state).
The acquisition exemplified the endless machinations of the railroad era. For a while, the Van Sweringen brothers
Van Sweringen brothers
Oris Paxton Van Sweringen and Mantis James Van Sweringen were brothers who became railroad barons in order to develop Shaker Heights, Ohio. They are better known as O.P. Van Sweringen and M.J. Van Sweringen, or by their collective nickname, the Vans...
wanted the BR&P, and Iselin was pleased to make the divestiture in 1928. The sale value of the company had been inflated by the contention between the Delaware and Hudson and the Baltimore and Ohio for the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway, making its sale a compelling decision for Iselin. The Pennsylvania coalfields were waning, thanks to non-union
United Mine Workers
The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners and coal technicians. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada...
mines in Kentucky and West Virginia, and the revenues from the railroad had fallen correspondingly.
The D&H wanted westward routes, and the BR&P figured in their plans. The B&O had routes that the Van Sweringens wanted
Van Sweringen railroad holdings
In addition to streetcar lines, the Van Sweringen Brothers of Cleveland, Ohio owned a vast network of steam railroads.-History:The New York Central Railroad had owned the closely parallel New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad since 1882, soon after its opening...
, making a swap attractive to both companies. The ICC
Interstate Commerce Commission
The Interstate Commerce Commission was a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including...
now regulated the railroads with a tight grip, and its view was that the B&O proposal to buy the BR&P would serve shippers better than would the D&H plan to lease the company's lines.
The B&O agreed in March 1929 to the purchase of the BR&P from the Alleghany Corporation, getting ICC approval in February of the following year. The deal yielded the B&O the BR&P, the Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad, and the Mt Jewett, Kinzua, and Riterville. It gave the Van Sweringens the Wheeling and Lake Erie
Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway (1916-1988)
The Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway was a Class I railroad mostly within the U.S. state of Ohio. It was leased to the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad in 1949, and merged into the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1988...
. The formal hand-over occurred on 1 January 1932, forever ending the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway.
Other Resources
- http://www.silverlakeview.com/br&p/br&p.htm
- http://wnyrails.org/railroads/brp/brp_home.htm
- http://wnyrails.org/railroads/brp/brp_roster_caboose.htm
- http://orion.math.iastate.edu/jdhsmith/term/slusbrp.htm
- http://books.google.com/books?id=ZI4-xleAptoC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=br%26p+route&source=bl&ots=uRJpmWwF4a&sig=n2fJS3j-1HSI12bFTrhr00i8Hm8&hl=en&ei=bH-TSZbcEoOftweIhsnfCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result