Conrail Operation of Lehigh Valley in the last days upstate?

[gearhead]

Does anyone have timetables for this and know anything

[Noel Weaver]

Does anyone have timetables for this and know anything

The sections of the Lehigh Valley as well as Erie Lackawanna and in fact any railroad line or portion of a line that was not turned over to Conrail remained with the original railroad's estate. They were free then to lease it out to another operator, sell it to another operator, tear the track up and sell the property or in short to do whatever they saw fit to do with it. I don't think any operations took place over the sections that were not taken by Conrail as they did not own this trackage and had no rights to operate on it, not even for a day. They did operate over certain lines where outside money (mostly state in this case) came in to play and a contract was made with Conrail to operate said trackage. Many of these deals were of a relatively short term. In short, a lot of track got very rusty fast.
Noel Weaver

[gearhead]

I saw pids of LV engines with conrail or was it conrail with LV on it.

[charlie6017]

Conrail did make use of some of the LV power after 4/1/76, and some went to the Delaware and Hudson. It took awhile for Conrail even to begin to paint the power from the fallen flag roads.

I'm going to provide a link from this forum for you to look through, and they may give you a lot of information that you're looking for. The first one is: "The rush to rip up track, and why keep the track they did", and the second one is: "The Day After: April 1, 1976"

And there is so much info on the Lehigh Valley in the "Anthracite Railroads" Forum......take a look.....lots of info!

The rush to rip up track, and why keep the track they did

The Day After: April 1, 1976

I hope these links help!

Charlie

[scottychaos]

The LV had 143 units on the roster on 3/31/76..Conrail inherited all them except except for the Twelve Alco C420's and the Twelve EMD GP38-2's..those 24 locos went to the D&H on 4/1/76 and were never owned by Conrail..the remaining 119 units were absorbed into the Conrail fleet, and CR operated them the same as any other predecessor locos..Alcos retired early, U-boats operated into the 90's, all four of the GP38AC's made it up to the end of Conrail in 1999 and were transferred to NS..
Switchers had various careers..but basically Conrail treated the LV engines the same as any other engines from PC, Reading, etc..

The LV locos that went to Conrail, and Conrail's operations of ex-LV trackage are basically completely unrelated..
Conrail did not inherit, and never owned or operated, the LV mainline between VanEtten and Buffalo..they didnt want it, because it was totally redundant to their plans and needs..

Scot

[TB Diamond]

The last sentence in the above post is not entirely true.

The following segments of the Lehigh Valley main in New York State between Van Etten Jct. and Buffalo were transferred to ConRail:

MP 332.0-MP 342.1 (Geneva Jct.-Kendaia)

MP 342.1-MP 344.5 (Geneva Jct.-Geneva)

A short segment at Rochester Jct.

MP409.5-MP 411.0 (Batavia area)

ConRail operated the following line segments under the NYS LDL subsidy program:

Van Etten Jct.-Odessa Station Switch (abandoned Dec., 1977)

Geneva-Victor (MP371.0) (Abandoned summer, 1978)

Buffalo-Batavia (Last trip 29 June 1978)

Other segments operated:

P&L Jct.-Caledonia

Some branch lines were also either transferred to ConRail or operated under subsidy.

[lvrr325]

Conrail operated the 12 miles from Shortsville to Victor until the Ontario Central took over in 1979; Shortsville to Geneva was abandoned and a ramp built where the LV crossed the NYC there to allow continued access.

All of those short bits mentioned still exist, including roughly a mile at P&L Jct., but Conrail pulled out of this area entirely and what was left went to the Genesee & Wyoming.

But the last train on the LV main was a cleanout train hauling what frieght cars could be moved from storage at various points, back to Sayre, elsewhere on the board there is a thread with details about it; seems like it may have taken into April 1 to complete it's trip.

[lvrr325]

Additionally, Conrail operated parts of the L&NY branch from Owego to Moravia, which came up in segments back to the Tioga county line and eventually became a short line; a short bit in Cortland which went to the NYS&W, and perhaps half a mile in Canastota under contract for private owners - it was easier for them to pay Penn Central and then Conrail to run it than to buy a locomotive and form a common carrier. Again details can be found elsewhere in the forum. The Canastota track is abandoned, but the Cortland segment remains.

[SENIOR BUFF]

I have an original LV Employee Timetable #10, dated August 10, 1975, whidh was the last one issued prior to the move to Conrail. Let me know which line or branch you want information from. For the record, by that time, the only scheduled trains still published in that ETT were the Jersey Central trains to Newark Penn Station.

[TB Diamond]

There was no true "cleanout" train on the LVRR as mentioned erronously in the post above.

The final train to be made up at Manchester, NY and which pulled all remaining storage cars out of the yard operated on 21 March 1976.

The final train to pull remaining company material, a few gondolas of scrap and some non-revenue equipment out of Manchester operated on 30 March 1976.

RM-2 cleaned out all remaining cars in its territory on 31 March and tied up at Manchester at 17:54 on 31 March 1976.

COJ-32 made a pickup at P&L Jct. between 22:32 and 23:10 on 31 March 1976 and then went on to Sayre without doing any further work. This was the last eastbound LVRR train.

ME-1, the final westbound train, had no work between Sayre and Buffalo.

Both ME-1 and COJ-32 did operate after 00:01 hours on 01 April but they did no pickups after that hour.

ONCT took over the Shortsville-Victor ex-LVRR line segment on 01 November 1979. I correct myself by stating that the ex-LVRR MT Geneva to the new connection near Shortsville was abandoned after late June, 1978 and not the entire line Geneva-MP 371.0. This abandonment took place after a connection between the ex-NYC Auburn Branch and the former LVRR MT in Victor was constructed and put in service.

L&NY abandoned thus post-ConRail:

Locke-Mead (Moravia) 31 August 1976.

Dryden-Locke 28 February 1978.

Harford Mills-Dryden January 15, 1979.

ConRail operated the remaining segment until the D&H took over in 1980. Subsequently the Tioga Central operated the line followed by the Owego & Harford which is the present operator. The Tioga County Industrial Development Agency owns the line.

ConRail operated the segement of the Elmira & Cortland branch Cortland-South Cortland under the NYS LDL program until the NYS&W took it over along with the Syracuse-Binghamton ex-DL&W line. At present the NYS&W uses this line segment for car storage only.

Not all of the line segments I listed still exist as mentioned erronously in the post above:

Geneva Jct.-Geneva abandoned summer, 1978 and torn up.

The segment at Rochester Jct. abandoned in the early 1980s and torn up.

The Caledonia Industrial Track (ex-LVRR MT) Spring St.-Caledonia abandoned in 1983. The remainder P&L Jct-Spring St. remains for the most part but has been realigned at the west end.

[TB Diamond]

Not mentioned previously was the operation by ConRail of the L&LE, Niagara Falls, Rochester and Union Rd. branches.

ConRail operated the L&LE Branch for a time but abandoned it on 22 July 1982.

The Niagara Falls Branch was utilized between Niagara Jct. and Williamsville only and was abandoned 0n 22 July 1982.

The Union Rd. Branch (former LVRR MT) between Bufffalo and Niagara Jct. was abandoned on 16 November 1982.

The Rochester Branch North, Rochester Jct.-Henrietta, was abandondoned on 15 January 1983.

The Rochester Branch South, Rochester Jct.-Lima, was abandoned 22 March 1983.

[scharnhorst]

In Geneva 2 sections of the LV are still in place the siding for Suburban Propane which was serviced by LV the siding connected from the East end and went up an incline and connected to the main originality after Conrail took over the siding and the main line were ripped up and a new switch put in on the West end of the yard. The team track next to the Police Station was also a siding for the Lehigh Valley as well. I was told this by the owner at Lake City Hobby who is a long time resident of Geneva.

[lvrr325]

Not all of the line segments I listed still exist as mentioned erronously in the post above:

Geneva Jct.-Geneva abandoned summer, 1978 and torn up.

The segment at Rochester Jct. abandoned in the early 1980s and torn up.

The Caledonia Industrial Track (ex-LVRR MT) Spring St.-Caledonia abandoned in 1983. The remainder P&L Jct-Spring St. remains for the most part but has been realigned at the west end.

Not going to argue, but I will point out the paragraph right before the one you claim to be in error states the same damned thing, that the Geneva-Shortsville segment came out when the ramp was built at Shortsville in 1978-79. Almost everything else, with exception of overlooking the removal of the Lima branch, I can pull up posts to back up what I said right off this forum.

[TB Diamond]

Believe I forgot to mention that a short segment of the Auburn branch and a short segment of the Aurora Secondary Track remains in use by FGLK within the City of Auburn.

"Lima branch" officially known as Rochester South branch by ConRail. Rochester Jct.-Lima, 6.0 miles, abandoned 22 March 1983. You will find that in another post, as well.

Scrapping of the rails RJ-Lima commenced on 11 April 1984.

Should one look far enough back in the posts they will note that the LVRR main was abandoned Geneva to where the ramp was constructed off the ex-NYC Auburn branch up to the ex-LVRR main near Shortsville only after the connection in Victor was constructed between the ex-NYC Auburn branch and the formr LVRR main L/1977-M/1978.

[scharnhorst]

Believe I forgot to mention that a short segment of the Auburn branch and a short segment of the Aurora Secondary Track remains in use by FGLK within the City of Auburn.

"Lima branch" officially known as Rochester South branch by ConRail. Rochester Jct.-Lima, 6.0 miles, abandoned 22 March 1983. You will find that in another post, as well.

Scrapping of the rails RJ-Lima commenced on 11 April 1984.

Should one look far enough back in the posts they will note that the LVRR main was abandoned Geneva to where the ramp was constructed off the ex-NYC Auburn branch up to the ex-LVRR main near Shortsville only after the connection in Victor was constructed between the ex-NYC Auburn branch and the formr LVRR main L/1977-M/1978.

yup a short segment of LV Track is still in use in Auburn The lead that crosses rt 5 & 20 connects to the old Ash track where the steamers were cleaned out this track tied into the main track that now swings around and crosses over Columbus St into the old A&I Yard