Rochester and Southern Railroad

Rochester and Southern Railroad

2007 RSR Map showing the component railroads.
Reporting mark	RSR
Locale	New York
Dates of operation	1986–Present
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Headquarters	Rochester, New York

The Rochester and Southern Railroad (reporting mark RSR), a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming Inc., is a class III shortline that runs from the city of Rochester in Monroe County to Silver Springs, NY. The RSR started in 1986, when the B&O sold off its Buffalo and Rochester branches. The trackage was purchased by Genesee & Wyoming Inc., and split into two railroads, the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad and the Rochester and Southern Railroad. The Rochester branch was scrapped from Silver Springs south to Machias, New York.

The RSR interchanges with CSX twice in Rochester, at CP-373 on the Rochester Subdivision and at Genesee Junction on CSX's West Shore Subdivision, where the RSR also interchanges with the Livonia, Avon and Lakeville Railroad, another shortline. Until 2003, the RSR also interchanged with the Genesee and Wyoming Railroad, also owned by GWI, in Caledonia as well as with Norfolk Southern's Southern Tier Line in Silver Springs. Since 2003, the G&W railroad ceased to be, and was made part of the Rochester and Southern.

In Rochester, the RSR mainline splits into two lines just north of the Chili Avenue (NY-33A) grade crossing: the Belt Line, which runs north into the heart of the city; and the Lincoln Park line, which runs parallel to the CSX mainline until the Brown Street underpass, where it turns south and crosses King and Canal Streets. After crossing Canal St., the track leads to Morse Lumber, an online customer, as well as the former entrance to the Rochester Subway, which has since been fenced off. The RSR made deliveries of paper to Gannett Newspapers through the subway until 1996 when the printing operations were moved to Greece, a suburb of Rochester. The subway has not seen use since and likely never will again as the city of Rochester has plans in place to fill this section of the tunnel with dirt. Heading north up the belt line, the track snakes to the north, passing over the Falls Road Industrial Track, then to the east and back to the north, to parallel CSX's Charlotte Branch. Just after the Lexington Avenue underpass, a switch off the Belt Line leads down to another former connection with old subway trackage. However, unlike the connection off Canal St., this connection was built in 1976 after the city of Rochester filled in the old subway cut from Lexington Ave. to Brown St. to save on bridge maintenance. Further north, the RSR runs through the center of Kodak Park, crossing West Ridge Rd. (NY-104) before heading north to its terminus at Matthews and Fields Lumber, another online customer, on Stonewood Avenue.