Unpleasant rail-trail

This is Lehigh Valley’s massive skewed truss-bridge across the old Auburn. Both railroads are now rail-trails. Thankfully this bridge, among many others, was not scrapped. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—Friday (May 5th) I tried a different rail-trail.
There are three developed rail-trails in my area, abandoned railroad rights-of-way converted into hiking trails.
-One is Ontario Pathways, part of the south-to-north Pennsylvania Railroad line across NY state, plus a branch into Canandaigua.
-Another is Lehigh Valley Rail-Trail on part of Lehigh Valley’s double-track extension from Geneva to Buffalo.
-A third is the Auburn-Road rail-trail, developed by Victor Hiking Trails in nearby Victor.
I only hike a small portion of Ontario Pathways, the segment from the trailhead in Canandaigua.
My hike is slightly over three miles, and my dog loves it. Snort-Snoffel! Lunge-yank!
Ontario Pathways is a lot of trail. Most is Himrod junction north of Watkins Glen all the way up to Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario.
Pennsy shipped coal on this route for transloading into a Lake Ontario coal-ship.
The line was previously Northern Central from Baltimore. Pennsy got control of NC in 1861. Their intent was to counter Baltimore & Ohio.
Northern Central may have only gone to Canandaigua at first — as originally built it only went to Sunbury PA. That Canandaigua branch may have been by merger.
The Sodus Point coal-line was merged later. I’m not clear on history.
Pennsy ran passenger-service south out of Canandaigua.
Ontario Pathways was suggested by my aquacise-instructor, a dog-person like me.
She and I walked our dogs a few times at a lakeside park in Canandaigua, but I’d try Ontario Pathways on-my-own.
“A peaceful walk through nature,” she called it.
What I imagine is a Pennsy K-4 Pacific (4-6-2) steaming 3-6 maroon P-70 coaches into Canandaigua.
Or earlier, a douty Northern Central Mogul (2-6-0) trundling maybe 20 loaded coal-hoppers into Canandaigua for transfer to the Canandaigua & Niagara Falls Railroad.
C&NF later became New York Central’s “Peanut Line,” and is long abandoned.
I’m a railfan; all-the-more reason to try Ontario Pathways.
That branch into Canandaigua was only one track, so the grade is 15-20 feet wide. A train might do 25 mph; it’s not a high-speed railroad.
Lehigh Valley Rail-Trail is a small part of Lehigh Valley Railroad’s fabulous Buffalo Extension built in the late 1800s. (It’s extremely well-engineered.)
But it was essentially a bridge-line — it had few lineside traffic generators. It was built in an attempt to keep LV afloat as its traffic-base, anthracite coal for heating, wained.
Lehigh Valley Railroad went out of existence with the formation of Conrail in 1976.
Lehigh Valley was one of many northeast bankrupt railroads, and its Buffalo Extension was one of too many railroads to Buffalo.
So the Extension was torn up and abandoned. Although many of its bridges remain (as pictured above).
Only a portion of the Extension was converted into a rail-trail, mostly in Monroe County.
The right-of-way is about 50-60 feet wide — it was double-track. 6-12 feet of cinders mark the path where one track was, and beside that is mud-and-grass where the second track was. (It’s mowed.)
I came to Rochester in late 1966, early enough to see Valley hotshots on the Buffalo Extension. (See picture below.) It's 60 mph railroad! You better stop if them crossing-gates are down.
The Auburn connected Auburn (NY) to Rochester, and I think was the first cross-state railroad into Rochester from eastern NY. Auburn to Rochester train-service began in 1841.
It’s circuitous, hitting many small towns, and it avoids the Irondequoit defile.
Railroad later crossed that defile on a lengthy fill. That “fast-line” became the mainline of New York Central Railroad, which is now CSX.
The Auburn thereafter became secondary: a bypass in case NYC’s mainline east of Rochester was blocked. (It had become part of NYC by then, or was earlier.) But it also served many rural communities.
As shipping moved to trucking over gumint highways, the Auburn became moribund.
Part remains in operation as Finger-Lakes Railway, a shortline not beholden to Class-One railroad union rules.
But everything north of Canandaigua to Rochester was abandoned. That right-of-way became Auburn-Road Rail-Trail.
I previously walked my dog at a town park about four miles from where I live. The Ontario Pathways trailhead, and that Canandaigua park, are both about 15 miles away.
But Ontario Pathways sounded interesting, so I tried it.
Later I decided to try Lehigh Valley Rail-Trail, about eight miles away.
Every dog-walk presents the bathroom-problem. My town park and that Canandaigua park both have Porta-Johns. That Canandaigua park also has a bathhouse, but it’s not open all year. That park fronts Canandaigua Lake.
I quickly discovered Ontario Pathways lacks facilities, but I since discovered I can hike into adjacent woods.
Lehigh Valley Rail-Trail also lacks facilities, except where I start there are youth baseball fields, which install Porta-Johns in season, and otherwise provide privacy between sheds.
My other problem is footing. Lehigh Valley Rail-Trail is best, a flat cinder path. Boots are only snow.
Ontario Pathways is also cinders, but often it’s only a foot or two wide. It’s like threading a two-inch deep trench — I hafta pay attention.
So “Auburn-Road Rail-Trail;” I always wanted to try it.
The Auburn is also 15 miles away, but not near my grocery-shopping, etc.
No idea if parking was available — it was. But it quickly became apparent the footing was unfriendly. That rail-trail was so overdeveloped it no longer was a “a peaceful walk through nature.”
The right-of-way is often 20 feet wide, all crusher-run. Trees and brush got ‘dozed aside.
So Lehigh Valley Rail-Trail wins, and Ontario Pathways is second. And come Summer when both dry out, my town park has ponds, and my dog needs water.
That may have been my first and last visit to Auburn-Road Rail-Trail. There might be better places to start, but it’s still too far away.

Eastbound Valley hotshot, on what later became Lehigh Valley Rail-Trail. (Long ago photo by BobbaLew; probably 1971.)

• The “Peanut Line” could also be a rail-trail, but only a tiny portion is developed: perhaps a quarter-mile through woods. Some was converted to roads and driveways, houses are built on the right-of-way, and the covered-bridge over Honeoye Creek is gone. Most of the “Peanut” was abandoned in the ‘30s.
• The “Peanut Line” is the independently-built Canandaigua & Niagara Falls Railroad, eventually merged into New York Central Railroad. It was called a “peanut” by a New York Central executive because it was so tiny compared to NYC’s mainline. It is now entirely abandoned, although a short stub out of Canandaigua to Holcomb remained in service into the ‘70s. NYC acquired “The Peanut” as part of a compromise to get NYC to stop financing the South Pennsylvania Railroad across PA — competition for Pennsy. The South Pennsylvania Railroad was never built. But Pennsy had already financed building the West Shore Railroad, which competed with NYC across NY state. West Shore also went toward New York City, but not to it (north Jersey). Much of South Pennsylvania’s right-of-way — including tunnels — became the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
• New York Central’s Corning Secondary, south from Lyons, crossed Pennsy’s Sodus Point line at Himrod junction.
• The “Irondequoit defile” used to be the outlet of the Genesee river. But our most recent ice-age made the river re-route. Or was it Satan?