"As I haven't researched it yet, it begs the question: What did I see?"
Yes, that ROW (currently sans rails) was the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway: NYWS&BR (named after the western shore of the Hudson River and Buffalo).
From Transit road it went west towards the eastern edges of the Buffalo Airport. It met the LV (running North to South) at Tonawanda Junction (due East of the airport) then went south and crossed over Genesee St. where there is still a little "dip" in the road where it used to go under the West Shore Bridge which is now gone.
It ran basically parallel to and south of the airport (about a half mile or so) then crossed under the Thruway (just north of the current Galleria Mall). There are some hotels across the street from the airport, the abandoned ROW can be seen behind them in places.
There is an current exit ramp from the Thruway into the mall that uses the old Thruway bridge over the West Shore. When you exit the Thruway southbound you loop around to the east and go under the Thruway along the old ROW.
Then it headed to the intersection of Harlem and Walden where there was an underpass just about right under the intersection. This brought it out along the north side of Frontier Yard where it ran into the West Shore Roundhouse / Engine Terminal at the NW corner of what later became Frontier yard. In later years (the 1920's) it was connected to the "Belt Line" at Tower T (I believe) just north of BCT. Before the construction of BCT the West Shore ran along what became Lindbergh Drive (Now Memorial Dr.) in front of the future BCT to downtown where the WS had their own passenger station.
The New York Central Railroad bought the WS in 1885 as part of a deal between the PRR and the NYC to stop building competing parallel lines next to each others main line. That is a interesting railroad history story all by itself, there are a few good books about that. The PRR was backing the building of the WS to drain traffic away from the NYC. And, not to be outdone the NYC was backing the building of a line parallel to the the PRR mainline across Pennsylvania. Pierpont Morgan got the PRR and the NYC guys on his yacht out in the Hudson river and would not return to shore until they agreed to "quit it". The NYC bought the WS and the PRR bought the NYC's railroad. Both became secondary lines. The Pennsylvania Turnpike ended up reusing some of the tunnels from the NYC's "Pennsylvania Main Line" when it was built 50 years later.
Conrail had a infamous little runaway locomotive in Buffalo that they "took care of" by routing it out east on the West Shore where it went on it's merry way through Bowmansville, Akron (home of Perry's ice cream), Basom, etc. until it hit the end of track at Oakfield where there was (and may still be) a gypsum mine. The locals were not too happy about that, go figure....
Turns out there are very high quality deposits of gypsum (used for plaster and the drywall in your house) under that area of WNY, they used to ship a lot of it over the West Shore, back in the day.
Cheers, Kevin.
Yes, that ROW (currently sans rails) was the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway: NYWS&BR (named after the western shore of the Hudson River and Buffalo).
From Transit road it went west towards the eastern edges of the Buffalo Airport. It met the LV (running North to South) at Tonawanda Junction (due East of the airport) then went south and crossed over Genesee St. where there is still a little "dip" in the road where it used to go under the West Shore Bridge which is now gone.
It ran basically parallel to and south of the airport (about a half mile or so) then crossed under the Thruway (just north of the current Galleria Mall). There are some hotels across the street from the airport, the abandoned ROW can be seen behind them in places.
There is an current exit ramp from the Thruway into the mall that uses the old Thruway bridge over the West Shore. When you exit the Thruway southbound you loop around to the east and go under the Thruway along the old ROW.
Then it headed to the intersection of Harlem and Walden where there was an underpass just about right under the intersection. This brought it out along the north side of Frontier Yard where it ran into the West Shore Roundhouse / Engine Terminal at the NW corner of what later became Frontier yard. In later years (the 1920's) it was connected to the "Belt Line" at Tower T (I believe) just north of BCT. Before the construction of BCT the West Shore ran along what became Lindbergh Drive (Now Memorial Dr.) in front of the future BCT to downtown where the WS had their own passenger station.
The New York Central Railroad bought the WS in 1885 as part of a deal between the PRR and the NYC to stop building competing parallel lines next to each others main line. That is a interesting railroad history story all by itself, there are a few good books about that. The PRR was backing the building of the WS to drain traffic away from the NYC. And, not to be outdone the NYC was backing the building of a line parallel to the the PRR mainline across Pennsylvania. Pierpont Morgan got the PRR and the NYC guys on his yacht out in the Hudson river and would not return to shore until they agreed to "quit it". The NYC bought the WS and the PRR bought the NYC's railroad. Both became secondary lines. The Pennsylvania Turnpike ended up reusing some of the tunnels from the NYC's "Pennsylvania Main Line" when it was built 50 years later.
Conrail had a infamous little runaway locomotive in Buffalo that they "took care of" by routing it out east on the West Shore where it went on it's merry way through Bowmansville, Akron (home of Perry's ice cream), Basom, etc. until it hit the end of track at Oakfield where there was (and may still be) a gypsum mine. The locals were not too happy about that, go figure....
Turns out there are very high quality deposits of gypsum (used for plaster and the drywall in your house) under that area of WNY, they used to ship a lot of it over the West Shore, back in the day.
Cheers, Kevin.
