sd80mac wrote:I was speaking of at that time when NYC/PC abandoned Gardenville Line, which I cant understand why they just close the yard, pull up yard tracks, except for 2-3 tracks for sidings or maybe few more for overflow traffic or backed up, such as these crude trains and autoracks.
At the time, as Matt said, their priorities changed... Gardenville was built around 1900, practically overnight, nearly abandoning Frontier's predecessor. As time wore on and traffic patterns changed through the years, obviously someone somewhere thought it was better to focus on Frontier as a class yard, vs Gardenville which, as I said earlier, I suspect was more of a crew/equipment change yard than anything. The long straight shot and layout of the yard tracks doesn't seem to lend itself to classification of trains, but more pull in, disconnect the locos, pull them to the shops, bring serviced locos from the shops, connect up, and head out. Sure, you could probably split some trains, but the long narrow layout and lack of much resembling drill tracks makes me think it wasn't a priority. As Matt points out, Buffalo was a major industrial base so there were tons of local jobs coming into Frontier needing to be compiled into trains and trains with cars destined for Buffalo that needed to be split into locals. In the 50's and 60's I'm guessing NYC and PC were looking to downsize so Gardenville was an ancillary yard that didn't meet the current needs. Why have two yards with two sets of shops when one yard is for dwindling thru-traffic? Don't forget, TOFC/containers were not nearly the power force for railroads that they are now, so thru traffic was less. Additionally, bottlenecks at the drawbridges were limited to more or less the individual railroads - trackage rights were not what they are today either. NYC had a perfectly fine double track over what is now the Compromise branch (ie, CP1) which suited them just fine when CTC came about and they downsized to 2 mains.* There were some grade diamons to deal with, sure, but NYC, NKP, and Buffalo Creek all had their own 2 track crossings over the river. It wasn't until Conrail that CP1 and the Compromise were downed to 1 track and CR took over the BC bridge, reconfiguring the mains to their liking in the area, thus reintroducing the bottleneck. It was then that NKP abandoned their bridge, struck a deal with CR, and eliminated the diamonds on the southwest side of CP Draw, creating a bigger bottleneck, but as we've said, NKP had little relatively traffic running to Buffalo Junction, so it worked out for the time being. Then the CR split happened, NS ended up with the Southern Tier & Buffalo Line and the associated yards, and things got that much more hectic.
*In the 4 main days this was a bottleneck because freight and passenger had to share those two tracks over CP1 drawbridge, creating confusion. When passenger was king at the turn of the century, Gardenville was a convenient answer to reduce freight traffic over CP1, which is why the trackage to access it came from the north side of the main in Sloan (3 and 4, the freight tracks) and why it was done as a non-intrusive underpass, so as not to interfere with the passenger traffic on 1 and 2, destined for initially the smaller stations, and later on the BCT. (3 and 4 went directly into Frontier, if my comprehension of early maps is correct, which meant 1 and 2 were more or less uninterrupted into the terminal without crossing freight traffic, otherwise you likely would've seen the Terminal built on the south side of the main.)
I understand what you're saying, that it would be a convenient bypass if it still existed. We're telling you that making it re-exist would be railroad suicide at this point, just from a cost standpoint. Add to that the arguably limited use, and limited speed.... Say you traverse the CPs at each end with a 1.5 mile long train at 15mph... By the time your ass-end clears the CP and you can get up to what would in all honesty probably be a 30-35 mph limit, you basically have to start slowing down to traverse the CP at the other end... This equation gets even worse if you even think about putting the speed up to 40 or 50, you'd never hit it with a long stack train, which is what you say would be primarily using this bypass. There's basically no way in the world it's even worth making a bypass, and the fact of the matter is, CR had no use for it and got rid of it. No turning back. Your choice was basically CR abandoning it, or CR was never formed and the railroading we know today would only be a remnant of your memory anyway, because PC was never going to come back from the grave.
Obviously it's too late to do this. it's just wishful thinking that CSX or even joint owned by CSX and NS (I wouldnt count NS as they're not that hurry to get to anywhere up here) to bring Gardenville line out of grave. There's a lot of intermodels that has to go thru quickly but often get stuck behind slower trains and/or had to wait until dispatchers clear out the jam. It wont be doubletracks. It would be single track with couple of tracks in old yard. Yes, big headaches at both end of lines as they would have improve the area a lot to eliminate the sharp curve and ramp. They can come up with something anyway. It wont cost a lot since track bed, majority of them, are still there. They just need get rid of anything that had grown since then.. reconstruction the old trackbed. It would cost a lot more if you're building brand new trackbed from original ground...
Still not even worth it. They'd be better off extending the 3 & 4 leads into Frontier down another couple miles if they are
that concerned about stacking trains into Frontier while keeping the mains clear, so more trains can sit on 3 & 4 while intermodals run unencumbered down 1 & 2 (except when Amtrak is on 2 at Depew). They could easily relay track to the Autos just west of Cemetery Rd without any reacquiring ROW, and the bridge the bridge over Central Ave is still there for 4 tracks and probably in better shape than any bridge in Gardenville. That'd get them at least space to stack two more trains if they so desired. But they probably don't.
yeah.. these damn NIMBY.... that's why i asked if NYC/PC had abandoned the track and property for good or still have right to reverse them back into live track?
Pretty sure it was CR who officially abandoned the ROW... pesky ICC rules during NYC/PC times, dontcha know? So it's probably gone for good.
For me, back in old days, I wold rather to downsize Froniter for local service and exchange with canadian RR (they can do that at Seneca yard) and keep Gardenville since its straightway and can run trains at 50-60 mph. They cant do that between Seneca yard and CP Fork. it took train forever to snake through maze of buffalo. At that time during CR years, CR would not had to deal with NS getting their train to ... UHH I forget the NS yard name right next to CP Draw..
Gardnerville line would had eliminated many complex stuffs.. CP Draw, wye/connection to SK yard, amtrak station, etc... That their hot trains can run through bypass these.
(You're thinking of Buffalo Junction - the one on the north side of DRAW.)
Shoulda woulda coulda. See the above comments on why Gardenville didn't fit for the NYC anymore, and then even moreseo for CR. Namely, traffic was different. Just because intermodal is king today and sure, they could fly them through at 60 if they wanted to, there wasn't a need for it when these railroads were hemorrhaging money out of their behinds, and the goal was downsize and focus on what they needed at that time. Honestly, CR could've kept the Compromise as 2 tracks, but they didn't see the need and, as with everywhere else, were told to do what they had to in order to reduce overhead, costs, and trackage.
Matt Langworthy wrote: I also expect to see NS increase the traffic to/from/through Buffalo after the Letchworth viaduct is replaced.
Gardenville served its purpose back in the day, but CTC rendered it unnecessary.
These two things... Quoted for Truth.