Former Coal Dealer, King St, Rochester

[dj_paige]

Here is a photo of what appears to the remains of an elevated rail line in downtown Rochester. Can anyone supply information about this structure?

[Scott K]

That's what is left of a coal dealer's trestle. Not sure which line it was served by, but might have been B&O/R&S. Anyone know specifics?

Scott K.

[scottychaos]

yep, thats an old coal dealership..
the trestle wasnt actually part of a railroad line..whole trains didnt travel across it.
coal cars would be pushed up on top of it, then the coal dumped down into the structure,
then coal loaded into trucks for home and commercial sales..

the track on top of the trestle would have ended on the east end of the structure, and not continued.
the west end connected to a railroad.

Its right between the NYC main and the BR&P/B&O.. looking at the alignment of the trestle on bing maps, it looks like it was probably served right off the NYC main, not the BR&P..
although it could have been either..

Bing Maps: http://tinyurl.com/ydpjwh6


Scot

[nydepot]

Served by the BR&P. You can just see the curved alignment through the trees to the left of the trestle curving down to the bare spot next to the BR&P.

See the ad I've attached. It was 76 King.

Charles

Yates.jpg (54.26 KiB) Viewed 684 times

[dj_paige]

I'm having trouble finding this ROW connecting to the BRP. I can follow the ROW from King St west to about the existing spur just north of Silver St., but no further.

Also, as far as I knew, the BRP extended from where Nick Tahou's is now to the south, and didn't exist in this region of King St. Am I wrong?

So, could you clarify this further?

[apratt]

I'm having trouble finding this ROW connecting to the BRP. I can follow the ROW from King St west to about the existing spur just north of Silver St., but no further.

Also, as far as I knew, the BRP extended from where Nick Tahou's is now to the south, and didn't exist in this region of King St. Am I wrong?

So, could you clarify this further?

The BR&P ended at the station (Tahou's). It never went any further South from that point.
EDIT: The BR&P headed West (Railroad South) from the station.

The BR&P ROW still exists, as the lumberyard behind Tahou's is still(?) an active customer. When I look at the coal trestle on Bing maps the current ROW and the alignment to the trestle are quite apparent. The trestle siding connected to the now removed second track, as shown by the missing track on the double track bridge over Brown Street.

In the map photo linked to below, assuming it works, the coal trestle is between the CSX main on the right and the R&S on the left.
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=r5scfp ... vl=1&sty=b

[nydepot]

Sorry for my hand-drawn yellow line. The yellow line connects from the BRP and heads east to the trestle on the other side of King. As Scot said, the trestle end is its west side.

Charles

Map.jpg (136.7 KiB) Viewed 635 times

[dj_paige]

Well, that clears things up. Thanks!

Part of my confusion was that I thought the existing tracks just south of the coal trestle were CSX (former NYC), but I traced the tracks westward and I see now that these are indeed R&S

[RailKevin]

What stands today is the approach to the coal dumper. There were two tracks for the Yates Coal Co trestle.

Interestingly, according to an 1888 map (see link below), the Yates Coal Co had another dumper on the east side of the canal (Industrial St) and it was served by the NYC. That same map shows the King St business location, but without tracks. Seems that Yates switched suppliers at some point after 1888. The 1935 map (also at the same link) shows the BR&P-served trestle on King St with no trestle on Industrial St. By then the subway had been constructed, and it appears the lead to the Industrial St facility was cut off.

http://www.rochester.lib.ny.us:2080/cgi-bin/cw_cgi?resultsScreen+29515+1+3+0

[dj_paige]

Can't get that link to work

[RailKevin]

Ok. Try the library main page.

http://www3.libraryweb.org/home2.aspx

Mouse over Local History, then Rochester Images. Use the keywords "Yates Coal" and you should get the same stuff.

[RussNelson]

Yeah, for some reason libraries love to return the result of your search in terms of a link to an internal representation of search results. Try to get there directly by the link without doing the search and it fails. That's completely whack of course. A page should only be presented to somebody using a permanent link. I blame somebody's badly written software.

[Scott K]

Thanks, all. I knew somebody out there would know about it, or how to find out. I forgot about the library's image search.

Scott K.