Forgive the topic drift, but the Auburn road was not the first rail line in Rochester. That honor goes to the Carthage line which ran along the Genesee from the Erie Canal aqueduct and was opened in 1832. This was a two mile horse drawn affair.
The Towanda was organized shortly thereafter to go from Rochester to Batavia and on to Attica. It took a while to build and opened in 1837 and hosted the very first steam train out of Rochester.
The first railroad from the east side was the Auburn road (but which I think is also commonly called the Old Road). It came from Canandaigua rather than directly from the east (the reason being that early railroads were built to supplement the Canal). Through traffic on the Syracuse and Auburn and the Auburn and Rochester started at the end of 1840.
Interestingly, the early morning passenger train from Rochester on this route down to Canandaigua was one of the oldest continuously operated trains in the country. Passenger service on the Auburn route lasted into the 1950s with a through sleeper carried on the Pennsy connection down to Washington DC (favored by Kodak execs). An article in Trains Magazine indicates local buffs sarcastically called it "The Brighton Bullet"
(Early Railroad info is from a lecture given by Edward Hungerford to the Rochester Historical Society on 12/15/1925 entitled "When the Railroad First Came to Western New York" and printed in the Historical Society Publication in 1926)
The Towanda was organized shortly thereafter to go from Rochester to Batavia and on to Attica. It took a while to build and opened in 1837 and hosted the very first steam train out of Rochester.
The first railroad from the east side was the Auburn road (but which I think is also commonly called the Old Road). It came from Canandaigua rather than directly from the east (the reason being that early railroads were built to supplement the Canal). Through traffic on the Syracuse and Auburn and the Auburn and Rochester started at the end of 1840.
Interestingly, the early morning passenger train from Rochester on this route down to Canandaigua was one of the oldest continuously operated trains in the country. Passenger service on the Auburn route lasted into the 1950s with a through sleeper carried on the Pennsy connection down to Washington DC (favored by Kodak execs). An article in Trains Magazine indicates local buffs sarcastically called it "The Brighton Bullet"
(Early Railroad info is from a lecture given by Edward Hungerford to the Rochester Historical Society on 12/15/1925 entitled "When the Railroad First Came to Western New York" and printed in the Historical Society Publication in 1926)
