Buffalo Rail Line

[RocketSci]

You must have taken buses downtown in the mid 1960s or earlier then, since by the 1970s the Teck, Shea's, and Century were pretty run down. A lot of things change in 50 years. Even in the last 5 things have changed incredibly, in a good way. My mother took buses until recently, well into her 80s, with never an incident. I took buses regularly in the 1970s and 1980s with no issues, but only periodically since then. My new son in law (first visit to a northern city) took his first train ride, and had all these preconceptions of subways from watching movies like Warriors and Charles Bronson movies, and was freaked out about it the whole time! Yet there were groups of teenage girls from Amherst on the same car, chatting away. I think fears of riding trains and buses are all overblown, but I agree that waiting for transfers can be frustrating, especially in bad weather.

[BuffaloTransplant]

Originally Posted by Linda_d

I lived in Buffalo when they were discussing building the MetroRail. There were two alternatives: the subway under Main Street and a surface passenger rail line serving most of the city using the old Buffalo Belt Line ROW that the city already owned. Buffalo politicians, of course, had to have a subway because Toronto and NYC had subways.

For those who are unfamiliar with Buffalo's history, contrary to common myth, Buffalo didn't develop from a single, downtown core that grew steadily outward but grew from dispersed development. The pattern of development in the city was the central downtown business/residential area with clusters of residential/commercial/industrial development scattered within the city limits separated from downtown and other areas by suburban-like estates of the well-to-do (originally Johnson Park but eventually Lincoln Parkway) and rural undeveloped land probably used for agriculture. The site of the 1901 Pan American Exhibition, west and north of Delaware Park, for example, was said to have been one of the Rumsey family's cow pastures.

The Buffalo Belt Line RR was a local line built in the 19th century that connected these various businesses and their adjacent commercial/residential areas on the periphery of the city, the best known of which was Black Rock, which had been an independent village until 1854. The Belt Line largely encircled the most of the city with the exception of South Buffalo. In many areas of the city, especially in North Buffalo and on the East Side, it predated development in those areas. Until relatively recently, you could see remnants of it, especially in Black Rock and North Buffalo, with the numerous dark, sinister looking viaducts along abandoned rail lines like the one at Amherst and Tonawanda and the one that used to cover Elmwood Avenue south of Hinman Avenue.

By the 1960s, the Belt Line had been abandoned and the ROW owned by the city. The city could have had a truly usable rail system up and running in a much shorter time span for a fraction of the cost of the MetroRail, and could have easily then pitched to have surface rail extended out to Tonawanda and other suburbs. It was probably the city's biggest missed opportunity since WW II.

Old maps show that McKinley HS sits on the railway area for the Pan American. Buff State College was the farm for the "State Insane Asylum" ( Psych Center). The Albright Art Gallery was not finished for the Pan American ( wasn't Albright-Knox until way later), nor was the Hotel Lafayette and many other buildings. The area from McKinley HS north to Amherst, over to Amherst St to colse to Colvin, around the the zoo ring road and some of the adjacent area in the park was Pan Am Expo. There is a house on Delaware that was a Native American building that still stands from the Pan American and also the Historical Society.......... it was all rural and empty in 1900.

Our city put the first city line at North Street. (In the war of 1812, part of what is now Delaware Park Meadow was a battle cemetery). Later the city line was at the south end of Forest Lawn Cemetery. Black Rock did not join the city until 1853, I beleive, not 1854( a bit like of like cities of Brooklyn and Queens joining NYC late in the 1870s and 1980s)

The area of the Fruit Belt was strongly immigrant until the 2nd decade of the 20tyh century ( my husband had family there); later they moved to what is not the east side. This entire city area was served by trolleys. One "roundabout" was still visible at Main and Kenmore in the 1980s ( under the blacktop, the broken away areas showed the tracks) despite the rail.

***Count the city schools by #: the schools were numbered where they were built. Every HS had a # as well as a name : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffal...efunct_Schools
Plot them and then you can figure out where population was.

Rail lines to Central Terminal were put there as it was built and slowly phased out after WWII. Passenger trains still came in until the late 1970s ( I used to take them to NY)

Buffalo Politicians and the rail? It was done expecting to use those ROWs. Suburbs objected. End of the ROWs. That was no different than when politicians divided areas by the building of the 33 in the 1950s -- its route split political factions of the day ( my husband remembers standing on parts as it was built)...

What Buffalo has down backwards already will never be undone... but they can always move forward now. IF, and only IF, political powers don't muck it up

[BuffaloTransplant]

Originally Posted by RocketSci

If I understand the Belt Line correctly, it still exists in North Buffalo and Black Rock as the tracks which run parallel to Linden. There is an existing station at Starin and Linden converted to a house, and I remember steps up to the tracks at Colvin and at Elmwood. I also remember an abandoned station at what we called "hidden city" near where Kohls is today, probably the station used during the Pan Am Exposition. The tracks and viaducts you are referring to ran along Taunton, and were the old Erie-Lackawanna and DL&W lines that were removed in the 1960s and 1970s. There are still active trains along Linden, and the viaduct on Delaware still says "New York Central" on its side.

Part of the Belt ran north of Linden and south of St Lawrence ( a second line) and it is now new housing start at Starin, I believe - the viaduct was gone years ago).

The line to the Tonawandas was intended to start at LaSalle station; it never was done.