Genessee & Allegheny Southern History

The Genesee & Allegheny Southern got its earliest roots from the formation of the Rochester & Southern back in 1864. It started when Rochester wanted a railroad to haul freight to and from Kodak, as well as farms and wineries in the area. Capitol to due so, however, was almost non-existent, so Kodak, farmers, and wineries jointly came up with $1.2 million dollars to start up a railroad. In 1867, the right-of-way was started. The railroad was to head from Rochester south to Caledonia, where 6 agricultural customers were located. Interchange was set up with the New York Central Railway in Rochester, NY, at their Goodman St. Yard. The line also rolled through Henrietta, Scottsville, and Industry.

By 1871, the line was completed and the first train, a 4-4-0 American C type coupled to a combine and a coach headed south along this line to Caledonia. Many people were waiting at Caledonia for this train and a ceremony including the breaking of a ribbon was performed. A similar, but larger celebration, took place in Rochester on the return trip. The next day, freight started being shipped and the first freight train with another 4-4-0 American C type was pulled north to Rochester from Caledonia, consisting of five grain hoppers, two reefers, and a caboose with some high executives on board.

In 1887, large salt deposits were discovered near Geneseo, NY, approximately 13.2 miles south of Caledonia. Rochester & Southern immediately acted on the situation by building a line south to Geneseo, which was completed in 1888. Salt proved to be extremely profitable and the profits from this were astronomical. To accommodate all of the extra trains, 3 more 4-4-0 American C types were purchased, along with 100 salt hoppers. Around this time, the railroad renamed to Genesee & Wyoming.

By 1892, profits had eased down, so Genesee & Wyoming decided to put 50 of their salt car fleet in storage. However, at the time, Genesee & Wyoming had no true yard big enough to hold this, so they build one at the junction in Caledonia. It featured 12 tracks, each 8000' feet long (roughly) costing $250,000. This yard also served the purpose of interchanging cars with the New York Central Peanut Line as well as the Lehigh Valley. Genesee & Wyoming also interchanged with the Erie Raiload in Wadsworth.

In 1898, Corning wanted a railroad to compete with the Erie Railroad due to unfair prices on shipments and offered Genesee & Wyoming $400,000 if they could connect Corning. To do this, Genesee & Wyoming build a subsidary that connected Corning to Bath, known as the Bath & Hammondsport. This railroad was in deep farming country, hauling much grain and other agricultural projects, as well as glass products from Corning. Still, no connection existed between Geneseo and Bath, however. This would soon change.

In 1904, the Dansville & Mt. Morris Railroad Co. was created, hauling freight from Geneseo to Bath. This also passed through rich farming country, as well as a new plastics company in Mt. Morris. By 1911, the Dansville & Mt. Morris and the Bath & Hammondsport were both wholly owned by Genesee & Wyoming.

During the 1920's, with the huge stock market crash, many railroads went out of business. Genesee & Wyoming, however, got lucky and became a subsidiary of New York Central, which managed to keep from going bankrupt at this time. Because of this, the 4-4-0 American Cs were retired and replaced with New York Central equipment, such as 4-6-4 Hudsons or 2-8-2 Mikatos. Some of the aging freight cars were also replaced with some of New York Central's own cars. All of this was part of he original plan to purchase Genesee & Wyoming.

In 1937, the deal with New York Central fell through, leaving Genesee & Wyoming on it's own and with brand-new practically free equipment. At this time, New York Central also decided to abandon it's Hojack Line since it was upgrading it's Chicago line with CTC, so Genesee & Wyoming purchased it for $6.7 million dollars. This turned out to be a wise decision, as it now had a connection with the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which did a lot of business with Genesee & Wyoming. Plus, Genesee & Wyoming now had a connection to Syracuse, which turned up the profits even more for Genesee & Wyoming. They also connected with Oswego, the location of a massive power plant, which needed constant coal trains to feed it (of which Genesee & Wyoming was the hauler).

In the 1940's with the start of World War II, Genesee & Wyoming played a key role hauling tanks, armored vehicles, Jeeps, and other military equipment east for exporting. Much of this came from Canadian Pacific's Detroit Terminal, where Ford was producing tanks, armored vehicles, and such. To haul such heavy freight, Genesee & Wyoming purchased ten 2-6-6-6 Alleghenys, five 2-8-8-2 Mallets, and five 4-6-6-4 Challengers, costing a total of $20 million dollars.

With the end of the war came time for expansion. Genesee & Wyoming purchased the Southern Tier Line from Erie for cheap since the Erie was having financial troubles and went bankrupt. This proved a success and Genesee & Wyoming made tremendous profits by hauling fast freight from Niagara Falls at the junction with Canadian Pacific (most Canadian Pacific trains originated in Vancouver) to Croxton, NJ. To access the beginning of the Southern Tier Line was a harsh battle, however. The route needed was New York Central's Belt Line from Buffalo to Niagara Falls. However, because the deal that fell through years ago (at which New York Central was still angry about), New York Central offered it at a minimum of $25.8 million dollars. A large court debate in Washington occurred over this with the ICC eventually saying that New York Central couldn't charge more that $10 million dollars for the line. When Canadian Pacific heard the news, they helped Genesee & Wyoming pay for this line, since it would shave almost five hours off of the current time of service to Binghamton, NY where they had a connection with Delaware & Hudson, which would soon be under the wing of Canadian Pacific in the not too distant future.

In 1953, Genesee & Wyoming officials and stockholders felt a name change was necessary, so the name was changed. Out of 17 possible names, Genesee & Allegheny Southern was picked. Shops immediately went to work on repainting equipment while the head office was busy changing document names and registering various items with the FRA and IRS. After a year, the name change had been completed.

By 1957, Genesee & Allegheny Southern was in a desperate need for motive power, so they decided to purchase a new locomotive that would forever be a milestone: the diesel. Genesee & Allegheny Southern purchased 15 S-2s from ALCO for yard switching and 15 GP9s from EMD for freights. These units proved so successful that Genesee & Allegheny Southern retired all of their Challengers and Mallets. The Alleghenys, however, remained in service for use on drag freights (they were very good at hauling unit salt trains). This was going to be the start of a tradition not broken for more that 50 years.

In 1963, Genesee & Allegheny Southern decided to purchase the New York, Susquehanna, & Western when they started running into financial difficulties aafter they lost an intemrodal contract to the New York Central. This gave them tracks south from Syracuse down to Little Ferry, NJ, and Croxton, NJ. Since the New York, Susquehanna, & Western was still running steam-only, Genesee & Allegheny Southern purchased 10 GP18s, 12 RS1s and 5 SW9s to deiselize the ex-New York Susquehanna, & Western.

By 1969, railroads were starting to look towards piggyback freight. Genesee & Allegheny Southern was hesitant at first, but seeing that both New York Central and Pennsylvania were successful with this, they decided to start transcontinental intermodal service with Canadian Pacific. Genesee & Allegheny Southern also decided to purchase 20 SD38s to haul intermodal freights. Another acquisition was five GE 44-Tonners, which Genesee & Allegheny Southern leased out to the Kodak Railroad. Things were starting to look bright for Genesee & Allegheny Southern.

In 1978, Genesee & Allegheny Southern purchased Conrail's Williamsport Line from Binghamton, NY, to Williamsport, PA. There, they interchanged cars with Conrail. They also purchased Delaware & Hudson's mainline from Binghamton to Albany for access to Penn Central's massive Selkirk Yard (trains went through the interchange at Voorheeseville, NY). They also gained the Mohawk Yard, which was located near many chemical plants, bringing in some extra revenue for Genesee & Allegheny Southern. This required many engines and since some engines were getting elderly, Genesee & Allegheny Southern purchased 10 GP35s, 35 GP38-3s (rebuilt in Schenectady to Dash 3 standards), 48 SD40-2s, & upgraded 26 ex-Southern Pacific SD45T-2s (which were wrecked) to Dash 3 standards (then known as SD45-3s). However, they also retired and/or sold off all GP9s, GP18s, SW9s, RS1s, and S-2s.

By 1985, Genesee & Allegheny Southern had purchased trackage rights on the Buffalo Line of Conrail to gain access to the massive Enola Yard. Since Genesee & Allegheny Southern had retired and/or sold off all of their elderly power earlier, they purchased 19 GP40-2s and 37 CF7ACs. The CF7ACs proved good for yard and local service, so Genesee & Allegheny Southern purchased them from Santa Fe.

In 1990, Genesee & Allegheny Southern purchased 3 E8As for executive and excursion purposes in addition to many old coaches for use on the OCS trian after refurbishign and painting. They also purchased 9 S23-7Rs (Super 7s) to haul van trains to and from Croxton, NJ. These super-modified locomotives proved great in light intermodal service, especially van trains.

In 1993, Genesee & Allegheny Southern purchased 32 GP15-1s, all ex-Conrail, to make room for the recently purchased the Harrisburg Line and the Lehigh Line. Part of this deal included Oak Island Yard, which Conrail gave up in favor of their Fresh Pond Yard. However, the best part of this all was that they had a connection now in New Castle, PA, with Hocking Valley Railroad, giving them extremely fast Chicago-New York service. Both the Hocking Valley Railroad and the Genesee & Allegheny Southern liked this deal and it became their main source of revenue by the mid-late 90's.

In 1997, Genesee & Allegheny Southern rearranged the track layout in Buffalo, which included a new fly-over and tracks that were no longer shared with Conrail. This cleared up a lot of traffic for both Conrail and Genesee & Allegheny Southern. It also prevented periodical collisions on the line, which clogged up the whole Buffalo area for days on end.

In 1999, both Hanjin and APL decided to start shipping from Vancouver to New York via Canadian Pacific and Genessee & Allegheny Southern. This brought a tremendous increase in revenue for Genesee & Allegheny Southern. By the end of 1999, several daily Hanjin and APL stack trains (each around 2 miles in length) were being run per day.

In early 2001, they double tracked their entire Southern Tier Line, added 9 sets of crossovers, and installed both ABS and CTC to this line with the dispatcher being located in Albany in the same building as Conrail so that they could communicate better in terms of train locations. The total cost for this massive project was $24.8 million dollars ($1.2 million being for trackage rights over CSX during the rebuilding project). They also purchased 64 new MP15DCs. After this, G&AS purchased both CEFX and HLCX, merged them together, and renamed it NLSX (National Leasing Service). This brought in huge amounts of revenue for G&AS and they soon purchased more locomotives to add to the leasing pool, as well as many junk cars railroads wanted to get rid of (of which NLSX rebuilt some and used others for parts to help with the rebuilds).

In mid 2001, CSX was replacing ties on a large portion of the Chicago Line between Buffalo and Albany, so G&AS provided their route to CSX traffic. The cost for this was $29.2 million dollars (The price was so high due to that fact that 53 trains a day used the temporary trackage rights and the work lasted 3 months). They then took that money and purchased 28 C40-9Ws after testing some from Norfolk Southern. They also purchased 38 SD70MACs, and leased 13 SD80MACs from NLSX on a long term contract with the option to buy. Also at this time, all of the elderly engines retired in 1978 not sold off were scrapped (except for 2 GP9s, 1 GP18, 3 RS-1s, and 1 S-2, which were donated to local railroad/transportation museums).

In mid 2002, G&AS double tracked their line from Binghamton to Albany, installing numerous extra crossovers and ABS and CTC with the central dispatcher still being located in Albany. Also, G&AS put in and order for 22 more C40-9Ws from GE due to the steadily lengthening intermodal trains (delivered in January of 2003). However, by December 2002, the double tracking project of the Binghamton-Albany route was completed and the crossovers are installed, as well as signal bridges and CTC (the Albany office is busy with an expansion to it's office to make room for the new dispatcher's desk for this area).

In January of 2003, G&AS purchased the ex-Monogahela Route from CSX for coal revenue and access to Pittsburgh. To confincate for this, G&AS purchased 60 CW44ACs for coal service, 50 SD70s and 35 SD70Is for intermodal service, and 25 C39-8s for autorack (ML) trains. They also started running intermodal trains and autorack trains via the NJ&P from Williamsport, PA, to Sscranton, PA. Low priority trains started running via the Lehigh Line instead. The NJ&P Line was double tracked from Williamsport, PA, to Scranton, PA, where G&AS's Scranton-Easton connecter line was in place. G&AS also purchased the former Norfolk Southern line from Reading to Philadelphia, causing a rise in intermodal and autorack traffic (Intermodal came form Morrisville, autoracks came from Twin Oaks).

By mid 2003, G&AS had stopped buying lines for the moment and focused on customer service instead. G&AS, HVR, and NJP came together to lease 120 Automax's for use on Automax trains hauling Honda's imported from Japan. G&AS also leased 800 60' Gunderson Hi-Cube Single Door boxcars from CRLE for better service to their customers. G&AS also reprogrammed the software in their CW40-9's to let 4400 HP out ofthese units. G&AS also decided to start steam excursions using coaches leased form FCR to earn some extra revenue and establish better public relations. Now, what is to become of the G&AS?