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RE: (erielack) Bison Yard
David
Great story. The yard at Hornell was named after Erie President Robert E. Woodruff. The story of the Erie/EL's yard strategy is worthy of an extended Diamond article balancing the story of how yards at Hammond, Marion, Meadville, Hornell, Buffalo (various), Taylor,Croxton, and East Binghamton (among others) served. I am convinced that had the Great Bend Bridge been built (with the consequent upgrading of East Binghamton) I think that Bisdon could have been built smaller and Hornell not upgtraded and closed sooner.
MJC
> From: dmvgvt_@_earthlink.net
> To: erielack_@_lists.railfan.net
> CC: newt711_@_gmail.com; monty5329@yahoo.com; railman@frontiernet.net
> Subject: (erielack) Bison Yard
> Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 09:28:28 -0500
>
> Have a look at this Bison diagram. I don't recall where I got the
> original, but George Elwood did a pretty good job of redrawing it on the
> computer. http://rr-fallenflags.org/el/loco/bison-1.gif
>
>
> When the EL tore up most of the DL&W's Buffalo Div, a lot of rail went to
> the rebuilding of Woodward (? Former Erie President??) Yard in East Hornell
> a logical spot for a system yard, as the Buffalo & Chicago lines divided
> here. After only a couple of years, I think 1964 they decided to build a new
> joint NKP-C&O-Wabash yard in Buffalo tearing up the East Hornell yard and
> again moving the DL&W 132# rail to build Bison.
>
> When I first started at General Railway Signal in 1970 we were doing some
> upgrades. The yard was build on the foot print of the old Lackawanna East
> Buffalo yard; using the old brick car shops on the north side of the yard,
> and the Lackawanna's mains became the receiving yard lead and the hump lead.
> The Erie main was the south border of the yard, closely paralleled by the
> Lehigh Valley main-constricting any further southern expansion. One of the
> biggest problems, as the diagram shows the receiving yard was on the north
> side of the hump and so no EL trains could be 'received' from the east while
> they were humping cars. The C&O and Wabash trains could arrive and depart
> from the west up the Black Rock Branch (in the top right corner of the map
> at the top of the wye).
>
> At the east end of the map the four track yard lead was the DL&W main, and
> the track at the south east where the "Engine By-pass" track connects with
> is the Erie main, which afforded west-inbound EL trains to cut off of their
> train east of the yard (acting as a 'receiving yard-tracks') and run the
> Erie main down to the engine service facility.
>
> The EL did build a connection between the DL&W and Erie two miles east of
> the yard at "WK" where trains from the east could enter the yard, and
> conflict with the hump engines. At WK our Depew Lancaster & Western-to
> be-then the Lancaster Spur continued the DL&W main 3 miles to the east.
>
> I remember in the railfanning 70's being thrown out of Bison many times as
> we tried to sneak in off of Union Road and snake our way down to the engine
> service facility to see EL, N&W, Wabash now N&W F's and C&O GP30's that both
> operated through Canada. After Conrail ripped up the yard, only a Conrail
> local and our diminutive DL&W RS3 operated into the large plot of weed grown
> real estate. I remember plenty of times being part of the only crew
> operating into Bison for interchange.
>
> Alas today, NS has re-laid a lot of the yard and it is again very active as
> a block swapping and flat yard, with most of the hump dozed away!
>
> David J. Monte Verde
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>
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