Livonia, Avon & Lakeville

Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Alco #s 420 and 425, bound for Rochester. Both are Alco Centurys, #420 an ex-Long Island C420, and #425 an ex-New Haven C425. #420 is high-nose, because it once had a steam-generator (as LI #200).

At long last, I know why I’ve seen Livonia, Avon (“AH-von;” not “AYE-von,” the cosmetic) & Lakeville (Livonia, Avon & Lakeville) power in Norfolk Southern’s Gang Mills yard.
Gang Mills is between the south ends of the Cohocton and Canisteo river valleys west of Corning, NY, in the Southern Tier.
The old Erie mainline, now Norfolk Southern, goes up the Canisteo river valley.
Delaware, Lackawanna & Western’s fabulous Buffalo Extension went up the Cohocton river valley, and then over the divide to Dansville.
Erie’s Rochester branch also went up the Cohocton valley, but that is long-gone.
The old Delaware, Lackawanna & Western’s Buffalo Extension remains, though abandoned past Wayland to Dansville. (It used to end at Cohocton, but to Wayland was reactivated.)
It was once operated by Erie-Lackawanna, the merger of Erie and DL&W in 1960.
That line was subsequently operated by Bath & Hammondsport, originally a tiny spur between Bath and Hammondsport.
We rode that DL&W line long ago (1995) as a B&H excursion.

Bath & Hammondsport Alco S1 #5 at Cohocton’s old Erie station in 1995. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

It was depressing.
Here we were ambling that fabulous DL&W grade at walking-speed; a grade good for 70+ mph.
Arrow straight, flat as a pancake, and wide open.
We had to stop for every road-crossing and flag it.
Even more depressing is what happened at Cohocton.
The railroad zagged from the DL&W grade to the parallel Erie grade, and ended (at that time) at Erie’s Cohocton station, which was still standing. —The railroad has since been extended north to Wayland.
The original Bath & Hammondsport is little used, but the old DL&W main into Gang Mills is being operated by Livonia, Avon & Lakeville.
So says a locomotive rag from Trains Magazine.

Livonia, Avon & Lakeville has come a long way since it was founded in 1964.
At that time it was all that remained of the Erie Rochester branch, a small 13-mile shortline linking the three named towns.
The Erie Rochester branch went directly north from Livonia to Avon; Lakeville was just a spur.
But LA&L convinced a corn-syrup transloader to locate along the Lakeville branch, and it became a mainstay of the LA&L.
LA&L brings tankcars of corn-syrup to the transloader, which unloads into tanker-trailers pulled by trucks.
Corn-syrup (a sweetener) is the main ingredient in soft-drinks.
LA&L subsequently abandoned the line to Livonia east of the Bronson Hill Road bridge, which the state wanted upgraded, so the cut could be filled in and the bridge removed.
Even the tracks are still there; buried of course.
But west of Bronson Hill Road the Livonia line was resurrected, and it looks like LA&L convinced a grain transloader to locate by it at Bronson Hill Road.
Local farmers ship grain to the transloader, who transloads into covered railroad hopper-cars.
LA&L then railroads the loaded covered-hoppers to interchange. —And so trains still negotiate the old Erie Rochester branch through Triphammer valley, and around Triphammer Pond.
At first LA&L was also operating steam-powered passenger excursions. At first they used a small Mikado (2-8-2), #17, but that developed problems and was scrapped at Lakeville.

#17 gets cut up. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

A mural of that engine still adorns an outside wall in Livonia.
They got another steam-engine, #38, a small Consolidation (2-8-0) with a Pennsy tender.

#38 in Livonia about 1969-70. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

They also had a small 44-ton switcher at that time.
We rode excursions behind both. The 44-tonner was good for two coaches; the Consol maybe six or eight.
The grade southeast from Avon up to Livonia was steep. Once the brakes failed on a car in Livonia, and it coasted all the way down to Avon.
It was a pleasant ride, and I took a slew of photographs. A guy named Eugene Blabey (“BLAH-bee”), who was a head-honcho of some sort, came out to our house in Rochester, and gave me an official photographer’s pass.
But I never sold anything to them; never tried.
My impression was that it was a full-scale Lionel layout; guys playing with trains.
But they were soliciting business. That corn-syrup facility turned into a gold-mine.
LA&L extended north of Avon, acquiring the remainder of the old Erie branch into Rochester from Conrail; although it was already abandoned north of Jefferson Road in Henrietta — i.e. didn’t go into the city proper.
They also got the remains of the old Lehigh Valley Rochester branch, although it too had abandoned north of Jefferson Road.
The old Lehigh Valley Rochester branch passed a large lumberyard south of Henrietta, so LA&L added to its customers.
A connection had to be built from the Erie line to the Valley.

Apparently LA&L has gone on to operate the Bath & Hammondsport’s ex-DL&W line, and also the Western New York & Pennsylvania.
The WNY&P was originally the old Erie mainline west out of Hornell, made moribund by —1) the line from Hornell to Buffalo (now Norfolk Southern), which was much more active, and —2) a torturous grade near Alfred Station.
WNY&P also got the old Pennsy Buffalo branch from Machias south to Driftwood, PA, including the monster Allegheny grade over Keating summit.
At 2.2% northbound and 1.7% southbound the grade demands big power; six-axle as opposed to four. LA&L had to get big six-axle power to operate it.

Now LA&L is notable for being all Alco.

Alco RS1 #20 at Lakeville.

Steam passenger excursions are long-gone; ended due to increased insurance costs.
I doubt my photographer’s pass would do anything anymore.
And the toy-train phase is also gone.
LA&L has become a smashing success.
Enough to expand to operating other shortlines.
And they’re doing it with all Alcos.
The LA&L engines I saw at Gang Mills were the first Alcos I’d seen in years.
Alco S2 #72, their oldest engine, built in 1941; at Lakeville.

“Alco” is American Locomotive Works in Schenectady, NY; a long-time manufacturer of railroad steam-locomotives. When railroads began switching over to diesel locomotives, American Locomotive Works switched over to diesels. Alco is now out of business. —The Alco “Century” series was a line of locomotives introduced in the late ‘60s, to compete with a high-horsepower line from EMD. (“EMD” is Electromotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of diesel railroad-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric diesel railroad-locomotives.) The Century line succeeded fairly well, but eventually Alco went out-of-business.

“Long Island” is Long Island Railroad, serving Long Island, NY. Most of it is now Metro-North (the New York City commuter-district). “New Haven” is the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad; merged into Penn-Central, which went bankrupt. A lot of the NYNH&H still exists — it’s mainline to Boston is now Amtrak.

Diesel or electric locomotives used in passenger-service had “steam-generators;” a small boiler that generated steam for steam-heating the passenger-cars. This was a holdover from when passenger-cars used locomotive-steam to heat the cars, when the railroads used steam-locomotion. —Amtrak now heats its cars with electricity. An electric-generator is onboard the locomotive to generate current for passenger-car heat. (On Amtrak it’s powered by the locomotive engine. Often a separate engine is used to generate electricity; primarily on commuter-districts.)

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the SpotMatic.......” —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). The “SpotMatic” is my old Pentax SpotMatic 35mm film camera I used about 40 years, since replaced by a Nikon D100 digital camera.

“Southern Tier” is the common nomenclature of the southernmost counties of Western New York.

“Interchange” is interchange with another railroad. E.g. LA&L railroads cars to interchange-points with other railroads.

The old Erie Rochester branch navigated the “Triphammer valley” south of Avon. “Triphammer Pond” was an accumulation of water dammed by the railroad embankment. At “Triphammer Pond” the railroad turns east toward Livonia.

The “Mikado” (2-8-2) and “Consolidation” (2-8-0 — “Consol”) are both steam-locomotives of that wheel-arrangement.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.

A “tender” is the combination coal-tender and water cistern attached to a steam-locomotive. Most steam-locomotives had a trailing tender, although some were built with saddle-tanks around the boiler to carry water, and a coal-bin behind the firebox. (That water was boiled into steam for propulsion.)

A “44-ton switcher” is a small locomotive built to meet the requirement of only 44 tons. Anything larger required a two-person crew, but a 44-tonner could get by with only one. But they were too small to lug much.

“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.

“Henrietta” is a suburb south of Rochester.

“Lehigh Valley” (“Valley”) and “Norfolk Southern” are both railroads; “Lehigh Valley” no longer in business (torn up and abandoned), and “Norfolk Southern” very much in business. (Norfolk Southern is a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway. It has merged other railroads, mainly the old Pennsy lines from Conrail. So that now it is a major player in east-coast railroading.)

A “2.2%” grade is 2.2 feet up for every 100 feet forward; fairly steep for a railroad. “1.7%” is 1.7 feet up per hundred; not that steep, but an impediment.