(LVRR) Pre-EL inclusion Conrail plans

["Bill K." <pontiac_@_dreamscape.com>]

Does anyone have, or has anyone seen, a copy of a Con Rail plan made before
the EL was folded into the system?  I'm not sure if it makes a difference if
the plan is for before EL went broke, or for EL going to Chessie.

I am curious what the plan was for the LV from Sayre west - without the EL
to replace it, seems like they'd have to have kept more of it.  I seem to
recall reading that they also planned to add a set of crossovers on the EL
main to allow CR/exLV and D&H interchange to continue without need to use
the branch past where it was crossed by the EL.  The branch I think was
never intended to be included in Conrail.  (should have been in the Railfan
mag article on The Owego Connection).


My suspicion is that the only major difference might be retaining the Van
Etten Jct. to Geneva Jct. segment - the few trains with through traffic
could be run down the interchange at Geneva onto the NYC and then taken
north on the Corning Secondary up to the Chicago Line.  This section of the
Corning was even signalled into the 90's.  Would require either a new ramp,
or more likely just a runaround move in the yard at Geneva.  Or, there used
to be a wye on the NYC connecting the Auburn Branch with the Corning
Secondary - he could run down into the yard, back up the branch (remember we
had cabooses then to make this stuff a lot easier), and continue up the east
leg of the wye to Lyons.

I'm not sure what traffic levels were like early on, but they had a
Buffalo-Allentonwn through train right up until almost the end of Conrail,
one each way a day.  I think there was one or two more pair initially.   The
Corning Secondary itself only had one pair of trains a day when it was
pulled up finally in PA.

I also think it likely that eventually traffic from the NYC and LV would
have been rationalized into one route.  The question would be which, since
the LV has more online industry, but still would have that pesky connection
in Geneva.


However there is one additional monkey in the works - the G&W interchange
traffic. Without the EL, they don't have the ex-DL&W main connection to the
tier, and this is before the R&S was ever thought of.  You also don't get
the ex-Erie branch into the north end of it at Caledonia.  So they have to
pick between a PC line that was always a branch and the former LV which was
a mainline - although not all that much better of shape by then.

This Erie branch is also what's used to connect the piece of LV in Batavia
to the Chicago line, if I remember right.

From 1976-1980, they kept the Rochester Branch to serve an Agway - it
outlived the mainline.  I can't remember the town it was in, but it was
where the branch crossed NY Route 5.

So you wind up with reasons to retain the LV from Manchester to Batavia -
and find ways to connect it to the rest of the system.  The piece from
Manchester to Victor, the Ontario Central of today, could be jettisoned to a
short line in the same manner.   The piece in Batavia could I suppose be
connected via an added fill over to the Chicago main - expensive, but if you
pull the fill from a part of the line you're abandoning, or even reuse a
portion of the bridge they pulled adjacent the Genesee River bridge, it gets
cheaper.

It leaves the salt traffic.   Back to Rochester Jct. and then north, since
you're running down to the Agway anyways?   Keep enough main to the east for
running around 75 or 100 car trains since the connection is the wrong
direction.  Or run to Batavia and connect to the mainline there somehow?


Ideas?  Anyone know what they really planned?



Bill K.

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End of (LVRR-digest) V1 #517
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