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Erie County's Buffalo Southern Railroad gets nearly $10M for upgrades

A green locomotive with yellow writing "BUFFALO SOUTHERN RAILROAD."
Mike Desmond
/
WBFO News
Erie County leased the Buffalo Southern Railroad to potential new businesses which may require rail service.

A rail line that was built in the 19th century may have a significant role in the future of the region's economy.

Running down from the vast rail yard under Ridge Road near the Buffalo-Lackawanna border is the Buffalo Southern Railroad. It now belongs to Erie County and is leased to the Buffalo Southern by the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, which offers it to potential new businesses which may require rail service.

With the line running to Gowanda, where it connects with the New York & Lake Erie Railroad, ECIDA President and CEO John Cappellino said the Buffalo Southern has additional potential.

"We have businesses that are looking for a rail site. We have those along the line that are potentially available," he said. "The one thing that are starting to do, too, which is sort of a recent trend of some of these smaller short lines. They're doing tourism trains, particularly in the fall. They're starting to do that on that line. So they're basically going from like Eden to Gowanda or towards Gowanda and back."

Seven cars, in different colors, of the Buffalo Southern.
Mike Desmond
/
WBFO News
The Buffalo Southern runs south from near the Buffalo-Lackawanna city line to Gowanda.

Cappellino said the line is a tribute to old-time engineering.

"There's some really neat vistas, not that I'm encouraging anyone to go back and climb on the bridges," he said. "Particularly along the 18-Mile Creek crossing, there's some really old, nice steel truss bridges, which are really impressive when you get down. You look to see how old those are and how they constructed them. It's really an amazing feat that they were able to build a lot of those."

New York State is investing in freight railroads like the Buffalo Southern. A recent announcement highlighted how nearly $10 million would be going into repairs and renovations of four railroads in Western New York, including funding for Buffalo Southern for renovation of five bridges and seven miles of track. There are also grants also going to the South Buffalo Railway, Depew, Lancaster & Western and Buffalo & Pittsburgh.

Mike Desmond is one of Western New York’s most experienced reporters, having spent nearly a half-century covering the region for newspapers, television stations and public radio. He has been with WBFO and its predecessor, WNED-AM, since 1988. As a reporter for WBFO, he has covered literally thousands of stories involving education, science, business, the environment and many other issues. Mike has been a long-time theater reviewer for a variety of publications and was formerly a part-time reporter for The New York Times.