Interurban paralleling Erie RR South of Rochester?

This view is to the east and the Pennsy is at the bottom of the photo.

FWIW, this is all a trail today. Both the Erie and LV along the river are the Genesee Riverway Trail; from the UofR campus south it's the Lehigh Valley Trail, although it jogs over to the Erie ROW in a couple of spots. It then follows Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Rd following John St. along the eastern side of RIT which was never a railroad that I'm aware of.

lvrr325 wrote:LV timetable says 2 miles north of Crittenden Road. I would expect that puts it just below where the Erie bridge across the river is by the UofR campus.

The only problem is the EL connection to the LV is below Crittenden Road, it's just below West Jefferson Road. Crittenden Road is even north of the West Shore branch.

That's what I understood. That lead to another problem. I don't understand how that sharing track between Crittenden RD and U of R help to eliminate one grade crossing at Westshore line which is about 1 mile south of Crittenden rd.

And when they said "eliminating one grade crossing of the West Shore line at Mortimer." Are they talking about the road or the diamond? If road, then wouldn't that be eliminating TWO grade crossings? one on BHTL rd and another one on Jefferson Rd?

I recall that EL still had line going through Jefferson Rd until CR took over and eliminated this portion of line and had put in new connection to LV line and removed both EL and LV diamonds sometimes in 80's? (actually that would eliminated 3 grade crossing. EL on Jefferson Rd and Both EL and LV on BHTL rd. My memory is vague but I think CR abandoned these line north of WS at same time. Topo map in 1978 still shows the same as it is at WS/EL/LV crossings No topo between 1978 and 2013 in that website I just looked at. Ariel shot was 1971, which is same as 78' topo and next one was 1994.

Anyway I'm really confused with what this "Eliminating one grade crossing of the WS line..." means.

To all:

I goofed up totally by stating that the 1970 LVRR/E-L track consolidation between Crittenden Road, 9.2 miles west of Rochester Jct. and River Jct., 11.3 miles west of Rochester Jct. (direction is per LVRR ETT No. 10 in effect August 10, 1975) eliminated one grade crossing of the West Shore at Mortimer.

What did eliminate one grade crossing at Mortimer was the new connection between the former E-L Attica Branch and the former LVRR Rochester Branch just compass south of Ballentine Road which Conrail established at some point in time prior to January, 1980 per Conrail Office of Chief Engineer D&C track diagram dated January, 1980.

Apologies go out to all for the misinformation and confusion caused.

PJT

TB Diamond wrote:.....just compass south of Jefferson Road which Conrail established....

Fixed!

The Conrail track diagram mentioned above shows the connection just compass south of Ballentine Road. Noted via Google maps that it is presently just compass south of Jefferson Road to be sure and Ballentine Road has disappeared.

There obviously were some road changes since the Conrail diagram was drawn in January of 1980. Beats me as I have not been in that particular area in 40 years.

Thanks for picking that up, Don.

PJT

Ballantyne is west of the Genesee River, to the east of the bridge it's Jefferson.

It's the goofy highway nomenclature. If you start at Southtown Plaza and drive west without making any turns, you will drive on Jefferson, Ballantyne, Archer, and Beaver Roads. All essentially the same road. To make it more confusing, both Ballantyne and Archer go farther if you DO turn. In other words, as you are westbound on Ballantyne, you have the choice of a left turn. If you do turn left, you are STILL on Ballantyne, if you go straight ahead (you don't even have a stop sign or light) you now are on Archer. Crazy huh?

But at the location in question, where the LV and Erie crossed the road, that's Jefferson Road.

That's because the State has smoothed it all out to create NY-252. Where each of those changed names was a full on intersection.

BR&P wrote:Ballantyne is west of the Genesee River, to the east of the bridge it's Jefferson.

It's the goofy highway nomenclature. If you start at Southtown Plaza and drive west without making any turns, you will drive on Jefferson, Ballantyne, Archer, and Beaver Roads. All essentially the same road. To make it more confusing, both Ballantyne and Archer go farther if you DO turn. In other words, as you are westbound on Ballantyne, you have the choice of a left turn. If you do turn left, you are STILL on Ballantyne, if you go straight ahead (you don't even have a stop sign or light) you now are on Archer. Crazy huh?

But at the location in question, where the LV and Erie crossed the road, that's Jefferson Road.

CPSmith wrote:This view is to the east and the Pennsy is at the bottom of the photo.

Sorry, but the Pennsylvania never crossed the river. You can just barely see their tracks at the TOP of the photo, near where Plymouth Ave. intersects. At the bottom is the Erie and the Lehigh Valley. This view is looking WEST. The 2 overpasses are the same ones that still exist today crossing over Elmwood, between the U of R and Strong hospital.

D Alex wrote: Sorry, but the Pennsylvania never crossed the river. You can just barely see their tracks at the TOP of the photo, near where Plymouth Ave. intersects. At the bottom is the Erie and the Lehigh Valley. This view is looking WEST. The 2 overpasses are the same ones that still exist today crossing over Elmwood, between the U of R and Strong hospital.

There are two separate photos. One from the east, one from the west. In the second shot, the PRR track is near the bottom as he says.

Both photos below are looking (roughly) to the east. Today's Olympic sized pool in Genesee Valley Park is just about where the lodge was in the older photo. The Pennsy is at the bottom of the B&W photo between the lodge and the bottom of the photo. Across the river, the LV and Erie bridges over Elmwood Avenue next to the UofR are in the upper left hand corners of both photos. If you go back to Otto's historical map link and move the wiper over this area, it's pretty easy to see.

... and the map. The Pennsy ROW is the purple/pink bend in the bottom half.

OK, I didn't notice that he had a second photo from the other side. Just out of curiosity, was the older Elmwood ave. trestle bridge kept for any time after the newer bridge was opened? What year was this, and at that time, were any of the 3 railroads still running here?

D Alex wrote:OK, I didn't notice that he had a second photo from the other side. Just out of curiosity, was the older Elmwood ave. trestle bridge kept for any time after the newer bridge was opened? What year was this, and at that time, were any of the 3 railroads still running here?

https://bridgehunter.com/category/city/ ... -new-york/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Says the bridge replacement seen in the photos was done in 1934, so all 3 were still running at that time. I grew up a few blocks away from there, and I can safely say they all had at least some traffic up to late 1975, when we moved away. The Pennsy was our "who is brave enough to hop the train" line, since the freights moved through there so slowly. Most who claimed to have done it never seemed to have had any witnesses though. The Elmwood bidge was rebuilt again in the mid to late 80's if I remember correctly.

As for the changes at Mortimer, I always thought the devolpment of the parcel the Erie went through was a major factor in re-rerouting it over to the LV ROW on that oh-so-sharp S-curve. I guess eliminating the grade crossings of two roads and the West Shore would have been an added incentive/bonus. I also thought it was after rail service to the UR coal plant ended.

1934? Are you sure? I thought the old bridge was there at least until the early 60's. Also, the Elmwood bridge sure doesn't look like a 1930's type bridge, with it's full-welded structure and cor-ten steel. Unless they replaced that bridge with another one in the same location back circa 1970. If so, then there had bee 3 bridges in that location when I thought there had been only 2...