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Arcade & Attica Railroad by Edward A Lewis Soft Cover
Arcade & Attica Railroad by Edward A Lewis
Soft Cover
Copyright 1972 SECOND EDITION
104 pages
Contents
Preface
Chapter I, Narrow Gauge Days
Chapter 2, Buffalo, Attica & Arcade
Chapter 3, Arcade & Attica
Chapter 4, Scenes Along the Arcade & Attica . . .
Chapter 5, Snow, Snow and More Snow
Chapter 6, Depots along the Way
Chapter 7, Locomotives, Motor Cars and Equipment
Acknowledgements
Preface --Beyond their own immediate area of operation, most short line railroads are relatively unknown and obscure to all but a small handful of dedicated railroad buffs. This was the case with the Arcade & Attica Railroad prior to 1962. But on July 27th of that year, the A&A made a dramatic break with tradition by instituting passenger service, powered by an old steam locomotive, over what had been a "freight only" line of railroad.
In retrospect this seems like a natural step for a company that needed more revenue to survive; however, in a tradition bound industry where both "passenger" and "steam engine" are "dirty" words, this was a step almost equal to man's attempt to walk on the moon. And, just as many said man would never walk on the moon, most Arcade area residents thought the steam train wouldn't last more than a year or two. Man has now walked on the moon and the Arcade & Attica is still running its excursion train with more passengers each year.
The passenger train has been a success and the fame of the little railroad that "thought it could and actually did" has spread across the nation. More recently, when most of the big railroads could no longer "afford" to operate their passenger trains, Amtrak, a Federal agency was created to take over their operations, leaving the A&A as one of the last private passenger train operators in the entire United States. Each year tens of thousands of the interested and the curious travel to Arcade to look at the train and ride behind the old steam locomotive. Many of these people think that the A&A is only an amusement operation set up to take advantage of the recent surge of interest in nostalgia, but this is not the case. The A&A is a regulated common carrier, like the biggest of them, and its history began more than 130 years ago.
CHAPTER 1 Narrow -Gauge Days
The first recorded attempt to construct a railroad from Attica, through the Tonawanda Valley, into the Arcade area occurred during 1836 when a number of prominent Attica businessmen formed The Attica and Sheldon Railroad. The railroad, as proposed, would have opened new markets for the farm produce and forest products of the area, however, the project was a failure and was abandoned before any construction was undertaken.
The subject of railroads was not brought up again in the Tonawanda Valley for 15 years. At that time agitation began for a railroad to connect the coal fields and timber regions of northern Pennsylvania with the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad (Erie-Lackawanna) and the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad (New York Central System) at Attica. On November 4, 1852, the articles of association of the Attica and Allegheny Valley Railroad were filed with the Secretary of State. The company proposed to build and operate a three-foot gauge railroad from Attica, south through Arcade, to the Pennsylvania state line in Cattaraugus County. A second railroad was to be built from a connection with the A. & A. V. on the state line to the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Promoters of the railroad estimated the mercantile potential of the project to be in excess of two and a half million dollars annually, while the coal trade from northern Pennsylvania, it was optismistically predicted, would furnish an inexhaustible and ever increasing flow of traffic. The completed route would have cut off 100 miles on Pittsburgh - Albany coal shipments, and produced a savings, through reduced coal rates, of about $2.74 per ton.
The company's charter specified a total capital stock issue of $1,000,000 of which $86,200 was quickly subscribed. At that time the law required that only ten per cent of each subscription be paid in cash, the balance could be paid later when conditions or agreements had been met. During 1853 a contract for construction was let to Tilden & Company of Buffalo for $1,000,000, of which $200,000 was to be paid in cash and the balance in the bonds of the railroad. Completion was scheduled for September 1, 1854.
There was some difficulty in selecting routes. In the Curriers area, local farmers fought with farmers of nearby Java Lake for the railroad. The Curriers faction won because their route was a mile shorter and involved less grade and fewer curves. Two routes were also proposed for the line south of Arcade. The first route was from Arcade, south to Sandusky and on to Freedom. The second and favored route was from Arcade through Yorkshire, Machias, Lime Lake and Franklinville.
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