excursion

Excursion in Victor. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

Finger Lakes Railway is running excursions on the old Ontario Central, which they now own.
The Ontario Central is just about all that remains of the fabulous Lehigh Valley Railroad Buffalo Extension, which was opened in 1892.
Another small segment remains, between the Seneca and Cayuga Finger Lakes, serving an old army-base site.
The Buffalo Extension was built to deliver coal to Buffalo on Lehigh Valley rails, but became more a bridge-line, since Lehigh Valley’s traffic-base, anthracite coal, was evaporating.
Nickel Plate stopped at Buffalo, so could turn over bridge-traffic to the Valley or Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, another anthracite-carrier that became a bridge-line.
So Lehigh Valley became a bridge-line east of Buffalo.
The LV Buffalo Extension was a fabulous railroad; wide open, 60 mph running, and double-track. (See bottom picture.)
It only had one major grade, the hill between the lakes from Geneva south to Ithaca.
Although the railroad probably called it east; since New York City was east of Buffalo.
Regrettably the Buffalo Extension tanked.
Conrail abandoned it and pulled up the rails.
But the tiny segment to Victor was still viable.
The Buffalo Extension crossed the old NYC Auburn at grade east of Victor; an idea that may seem stupid, but the Auburn saw little traffic.
So the Auburn could be connected to the Valley easily.
Using that connection, the entirety of the Buffalo Extension could be abandoned east of there, and service maintained to Victor.
It was at first operated by Ontario Central shortline, and only had a single switcher locomotive.
I saw it operating once; the single switcher pulling one car, a flatcar loaded with telephone-poles. —Trundling at 10 mph; all the track was good for.
No longer the Buffalo Extension; no more double-track at 60 mph, and freight-trains blasting through tiny towns frightening those a road-crossings. (“That thing’s gonna jump the track, Harold!”)
U-boat #2201. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

Victor was once a major railroad town; not like Altoona or East Rochester, but it had three railroads.
—One was the first railroad built into Rochester, which later became known as the “Auburn Road.”
That line was circumvented by a more straight-line railroad from Rochester to Syracuse. That became New York Central’s “Water-Level.” It’s more direct than the Auburn, and is now the CSX main.
—The second railroad through Victor was the Lehigh Valley Buffalo Extension.
It was a serious railroad, and highway flyovers and underpasses were built to avoid grade-crossings.
One underpass was recently filled in and removed. What tracks remained (the OC) weren’t the busy Buffalo Extension.
—The third railroad through Victor was the Rochester & Eastern, actually an interurban. More a glorified trolley-line, except the cars were larger and could operate at faster speeds. R&E was single-track through Victor, and tanked with the coming of the automobile.
So now Victor is devoid of all the railroads that once passed through it; R&E is long-gone, the Auburn was partly abandoned — although the Victor station still exists, plus a small segment of track still in use; and the LV Buffalo Extension is gone except for that tiny segment that become Ontario Central.
A short connector was built from the Lehigh Valley line up to what little remained of the Auburn, so OC could serve the old Auburn businesses in Victor.
Quite a bit of the old Auburn remains, but now operated by Finger Lakes Railway. Finger Lakes also bought some old Canadian National coaches to use in passenger excursion service.
Finger Lakes Scenic Railway, the affiliated operator of the passenger excursions, has become a smashing success — we’ve ridden a few. The old Auburn is rather scenic; particularly around the Finger Lakes.
And of course Finger Lakes Railway ain’t the boom-and-zoom operation full-scale railroading has become. 20-30 mph max; and tread gingerly through small rural towns.
So now Finger Lakes has come to owning the old Ontario Central; a last vestige of the LV Buffalo Extension.
Still the same open curvature, and wide right-of-way, and grade-separated highway-crossings. But wobbly track with turnouts, etc. that could never sustain 60 mph.
But at least it’s still there, and still a railroad. West of Victor the old Buffalo Extension is now a bicycle trail. —Still the same heavy railroad-bridges too.
I wanted to ride the excursion, but it was sold out.
And as you can see, Finger Lakes has painted its locomotives in old railroad schemes. Most are painted in the old New York Central Lightning-Stripe scheme, but as you can see, U-boat #2201 is painted in the old Lehigh Valley Cornell-red scheme.

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines. (Before the D100 was a Honeywell “Spotmatic.”)

I ain’t sure of the “1892.” I always heard 1905.

“Nickel Plate” is the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, called the “Nickel Plate” long ago by a New York Central executive because it was so competitive. The railroad renamed itself the “Nickel Plate.” Norfolk & Western Railroad bought the Nickel Plate years ago, and N&W has since merged with Southern Railway, to become Norfolk Southern. Nickel Plate never actually attained New York city; it stopped at Buffalo.

“Conrail” is a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central, a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central. Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful. Conrail has since been broken up, sold to CSX Transportation Industries (railroad) and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes.

The “Auburn”-Road was the first railroad across the state into Rochester. It took a rather circuitous route, and is now partly abandoned. A more direct railroad was built east from Rochester to Syracuse, so the Auburn (via Auburn) became a detour bypass. The direct route became the mainline of the New York Central Railroad, but NYC also owned the Auburn. (The direct route is now CSX.) The Auburn served many small farming communities, but became moribund. What remains is now operated by independent shortline Finger Lakes Railway, but the line into Rochester is gone.

“The Water-Level” is the old mainline of the New York Central Railroad across New York State, now operated by CSX Transportation. Called “Water-Level” because it followed river-courses, and thereby avoided mountain grades. (The topography of New York State, north of the Allegheny Mountains, made west-east transportation easier.)

The U-Boat was General Electric’s first attempt to market a general diesel-electric freight locomotive after splitting with Alco (American Locomotive Company in Schenectady, long out of business). At that time (1960), most diesel-electric railroad locomotives were from General-Motors’ ElectroMotive Division (EMD). —Now GE dominates the railroad locomotive market, and EMD is playing catch-up. Railfans nicknamed them U-Boats following GE’s “U” nomenclature. “U” stood for Utility.

“Altoona,” Pa. was the central shop-town for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and built (and tested) locomotives. East Rochester (east of Rochester, N.Y.) had the New York Central railroad’s car-shops; where railroad cars (mostly freight-cars) were built.

An “interurban” is a small railroad, usually powered by overhead trolley-wire, that served small communities from a larger central area. Unlike city trolley-cars, the cars were usually bigger, and could operate at faster speeds.

STAND BACK! (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded Spotmatic. [Probably 1968 or ‘69.])