Rochester and State Line Railroad - Genesis

Genesis

Numerous meetings in both Rochester and the boonies led to many proposals, at least one of which came to fruition. Oliver Allen II and Donald McNaughton, both of Mumford, as well as Rochester attorney, D D S Brown, led a group of both business and government officials in promoting the project. In 1869, the Rochester and State Line Railroad was incorporated, chartered on 6 October to construct a railroad from Rochester to the Pennsylvania state line. Allen was elected vice-president of the new company. In the same year, the first surveys were made, by William Wallace, who had done the same thing for the Scottsville and LeRoy Railroad thirty-five years earlier.

George Slocum writes in 1906:

"The Rochester and State Line Railroad in its inception was a Wheatland institution. At one period in its early history its officers, the President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and four of the nine directors, were residents of Wheatland. D. D. S. Brown, Oliver Allen and Donald McNaughton were active and energetic in pushing this enterprise. This road was opened for business from Rochester to Le Roy in 1874; to Salamanca in 1878, and completed to Pittsburg at a later date. In 1872 the town of Wheatland issued its bonds to the amount of $70,000.00 to aid in its construction, $53,000.00 of which has been paid. In 1860 the control of this road passed from the hands of those who had managed it and its name was changed to the Rochester and Pittsburg R. R. Company. Later on it was again changed to the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg R. R. Co. which name it now bears."

Although the initial state charter set the southern terminus at Wellsville, new coalfield discoveries in Pennsylvania spurred the organizers to move the route west, running through Warsaw and Ellicottville to Salamanca. This would facilitate an easier connection in Carrollton to the Buffalo, Bradford and Pittsburgh Railroad, and thus the coalfields of northern Pennsylvania.

The anxiety with which small communities (in the days before a reliable highway network) sought rail connections may be inferred from the actions of Perry. Upon learning of the R & S L plans not to connect with their village, local interests on 1 October 1868 set up their own railroad company for a line from Perry to East Gainesville, where the Erie Railroad had a station. In the event, when the R & S L was actually set up, Perry was on the route. However, when the route was shifted westward, Perry was off the route. Since interests along the original eastern route were now irate, yet another line, the Rochester and Pine Creek Railroad, was proposed to run from Caledonia to Castile, through Perry. Perry was unimpressed and decided to maintain their original intention. Barely a few years later, the Silver Lake Railroad merged into the Rochester and Pine Creek and, on 1 February 1872, opened a short line between East Gainesville and Perry. Five years later, this company renamed itself the Silver Lake Railway.