Buffalo terminal in the 1940's

I raised this question in New York State Railfan: the Erie public timetables of the 1940's showed Lehigh Valley Terminal as the Buffalo station. The subject of that thread is the withdrawal of the Lehigh Valley from Hornell when it completed its own line to Buffalo -- the LV had used trackage rights over the Erie until then. After reaching Buffalo on its own line, did the Erie continue to use the LV terminal until the last days, when it changed to 15 Babcock St.? I know that sometime before the LV's last train came off their terminal was moved to a new station at Dingens and South Ogden Sts., I believe to make room for a highway project. Was that what forced the Erie to move out of the old terminal?

Erie passenger service into Buffalo ended about 1949 using the LV's Main & Scott Sts. terminal which was replaced in the mid-1950s by Dingens & South Ogden because the LV right-of-way was used for a branch of the New York Thruway. It was DL&W service that was relocated from the lakeside Lackawanna Terminal to 515 Babcock Street by the Erie-Lackawanna.

I think the last Nickel Plate service into Buffalo also used the Babcock Street station.

Thanks for that information. So, since the Erie apparently reached Buffalo before the LV, I'm wondering what they used for a terminal until the LV arrived in town, and what impelled them to use the new LV terminal when it opened?

Erie's passenger depot was located northeast of the NYC at Exchange & Michigan Sts., and the Erie passenger main crossed the NYC at grade between Hamburg and Louisiana to get to it. The location was a real rats nest of an interlocking and with all the traffic early on, there was probably over-saturation of the plant. The connection from the Erie passenger main to the LV passenger main at the end of Roseville St. would have allowed the Erie trains to get to LV's Washington St. terminal much easier without tangling with NYC traffic as the LV went over (OHBR) the NYC at Larkin. LV's new terminal was also much larger and newer than the Erie's, and a couple of blocks closer to the foot of Main St and the harbor.

Thanks very much for that information, particularly for the aerial and annotations. I knew that 1) there had to be a reason; 2) somebody somewhere knows what that reason is and with any luck they're reading this.