Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh Railway
System map as of 1903
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| Locale | New York and Pennsylvania |
|---|---|
| Dates of operation | 1885–1932 |
| Predecessor | Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad |
| Successor | Baltimore and Ohio Railroad |
The Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway (reporting mark BR&P) was one of the more than ten thousand railroad companies founded in North America. It lasted much longer than most, serving communities from the shore of Lake Ontario to the center of western Pennsylvania.
One of the minor ironies of its existence is its having never actually reached Pittsburgh. Walston was as far south as it got.
By the middle of the 19th century, American industry had found the means of both utilizing the bituminous coal of western Pennsylvania and transporting it economically from the mines to those who needed it. Initially, this meant steam power, in both the railroad locomotives and the factories. The immediate consequence was the need for a railroad line to haul coal from the hills of Pennsylvania to the cities of Rochester and Buffalo as well as the smaller towns and villages. The needs of the latter motivated them to invest, both individually and municipally, in the new rail companies that arose almost as profusely as spring flowers.
In the simplest terms, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway was required to pick up precisely what the Rochester and State Line Railroad and the Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad had dropped, the coal-hauling market between the coalfields of western Pennsylvania and the cities of Buffalo and Rochester. The mines produced steam coal, and the factories and the railroads of the Northeast needed it, in vast amounts. The reality, however, was far less simple. The great need of the coal-transportation market attracted aggressive competitors, and the laissez-faire environment of the day encouraged tactics that included paper railroads, buying and selling of corporations as though they were used cars, and financial manipulation by syndicates of investors.
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