MEADVILLE, Pa. — The Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad is discontinuing operation on about 70 miles of railroad between Saegertown, Pa., and Jamestown, N.Y., the Meadville (Pa) Tribune reports.
Company president Bob Babcock told the newspaper that the railroad generated just three carloads of traffic over that segment last year. A “handful” of employees based in Meadville will lose their jobs, Babcock said, but customers in Meadville and Saegertown will still have service; a segment of the railroad from Meadville to Oil City, Pa., continues to operate.
The route is a portion of the former Erie Railroad/Erie-Lackawanna New York-Chicago main line. For more on the WNY&P, see “Where Alcos tough it out,” Trains Magazine, June 2012.
There never was much local traffic on this stretch. The Erie, E-L, and Conrail didn’t cultivate it in the second half of the last century, focusing on moving perishables, TOFC, and auto parts from the Midwest to northern New Jersey. Ford Motors closed their Mahwah, NJ assembly plant in 1980, the perishables now travel in semi-trailers, and the UPS TOFC trains are now the hottest runs on parallel CSX and NS ex-NYC and PRR routes. The last significant use of the line was a handful of regular NS coal trains between Shire Oaks, south of Pittsburgh, and power plants in New York, all now closed.
Guess the WNY & P wants to follow the Penn Central model…
Does anyone know if the track from Hornell NY to Jamestown NY was part of Conrail’s Southern Tier Division through NY. I think it was, just wondering
Yes, it was the ex-Erie/EL mainline to Chicago west of Hornell.
This line was built away from the center of population, even in 1870, so it’s not really a surprise. What’s surprising is that it’s held on this long through multiple owners. If there’s no population, there’s no industry and thus no freight traffic.
All true, Michael. The Erie was able to survive as a bridge line stealing through traffic from PRR and NYC. Made for enjoyable reading in the pages of Trains Magazine, but wasn’t sustainable over the decades.
Interesting that the Southern Tier in New York State and Pennsylvania long outlasted the line across Ohio and Indiana, which disappeared decades ago. In your own word, Michael, “surprising”.
The Erie main was always a story of hard luck. Some things never change.
This is always sad, although it may be practical. I am always amazed that some short lines are very good at building business, while others struggle and fade away.