History:Â
Rail Sites
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After a quick bite to eat, we continued on to rail spur where a couple of rail cars stood neglected. The caboose, while apparently in good repair, had clearly suffered some damage, and from what I've read, it is unlikely to be resume service any time soon.
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Blindly following the directions of my GPS, I found myself at a strange little intersection with a gas station. The GPS indicating that I should go straight onto a dirt road and so I complied. I could tell from the mounded earth on the sides of the road that it was periodically maintained by graders. I suspect some time had passed since the last grader, as my organs vibrated in time with the washboard ridges punching a staccato beat against the tires.
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The Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR) was created originally to transport coal from Pennsylvania in 1846, but it soon began carrying passengers as well. To help with its growing needs, a large freight yard in Manchester, NY was constructed and opened in 1892 where the company apparently the company loaded and unloaded more than 100 freight cars per day. The yard was, at the time, was considered the largest in the world, employing over 1000 workers.
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Nothing on the ground is ever as easy as it appears on Google Earth. This is a rule I keep close in mind, but sometimes my explorations like to make a point of it.
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Coxton Yard was built in 1870 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company to facilitate the vast train activity required to support Pennsylvania's coal mining industry. By the end of World War II, however, technology began catching up with the railroads. Trucks on the expanding highway systems, and the move from coal to diesel-electric trains were bringing about the beginning of the end for operations at Coxton Yard. It was finally abandoned in 1996, though the Reading and Northern Railroad Company still uses the southern-most portion of the yard to support natural gas extraction.
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There is little that I'm able to gather about this location except that the station appears to have been built sometime around 1913, while the switch house was constructed two years later. Major improvements were done to the track around the same time, including construction of the tunnel through which the road passes under the track. A cut-off line was constructed at approximately the same time that I believe followed what is now the "Endless Riding Trail" to Montrose, PA. Construction of the cut-off caused great upheaval for the little town, including having the windows constantly shattered by dynamite blasts.
History:Â
Serving a mere 50 years, the Buffalo Central Terminal was built in 1929 by the New York Central Railroad. A single unified rail station had been proposed on this site since 1889, but it wasn't for another 40 years that it would finally happen.
