The Hydraulics was the site of a small depot where the first rail line running from Buffalo to Albany was opened for business on January 8, 1843. The completion of the Attica & Buffalo Railroad, the last link in a chain of seven connected, independent railroads stretching across New York State from Buffalo to the Hudson River, was declared a moment in the history of Buffalo second in importance only to the completion of the Erie Canal.
The cross state rail link, reducing the time of travel between Buffalo and the Hudson River from six days to 25 hours only 18 years after the canal's completion, reordered the landscape of Buffalo's economy and established the early conditions for large scale manufacturing in the city.
The line still exists! The rail corridor built in 1843 and absorbed into the New York Central system in 1853 is still in operation on the same ROW, passing underneath Seneca Street in the Hydraulics. The first terminal depot for the cross state line was at Seneca Street near these tracks on property owned by Reuben Heacock, the Attica & Buffalo's proprietor and the founder of the Hydraulics.
Almost everything you ever wanted to know about the Attica & Buffalo Railroad is located in a 7/11/1943 article in the Buffalo Courier Express. Check it out:
All-rail route traversing state finished century ago: Completion of Attica & Buffalo Railroad gave city year-around link with the East
By Donald M. Rippey
If you had been living in Buffalo a hundred years ago, you probably would have noticed in your morning Courier or evening Advertiser a series of little advertisements like this:
ATTICA AND BUFFALO RAIL ROAD
(Cut of old railroad train)
On and after Monday the first of May next, the afternoon train will leave at 4 p.m. Through to Rochester, 75 miles, in five hours. Fare, $2.
William Wallace, Superintendent, Attica and Buffalo R. R. Co.
If you were something of a man about town, you might have heard earlier of the arrival by Erie Canal boats of the new locomotive and two cars. Perhaps you had even seen them being slowly trundled across Main Street and out Seneca Street to the Hydraulics, a short distance east of Jefferson Street, then the city line, where a temporary depot was being built and the tracks began.
Parts of two present roads
Possibly you had been one of those fortunate few who were given a premature "opening day" ride as far as Darien - the end of the line - in September 1842. Or perhaps you were an early prototype of the modern railroad fan and noted that the locomotive was a new eight-wheeler of the 4-4-0 type.
You might have inspected the new cars and found they had seats of solid mahogany and "their spaciousness and luxurious cushioning leave nothing to be desired in the way of ease," as reported in the Advertiser. The cars could seat 48 passengers and cost $2,000 each.
However, living in Buffalo in 1943, you may say: "I never heard of the Attica & Buffalo Railroad. What became of it?"
It is still very much alive. Its 32 miles are small but essential parts of two great railroads of the present. From Buffalo to Depew it is part of the main line of the New York Central; from Depew to Attica it is part of the Erie.
Its 33 and 40-foot-wide right-of-way has been widened, but most of it is still in active service.
Completion of the A&B was of tremendous importance to buffalo because it was the final link in a chain of seven short railroads extending across the state from Albany. Thus Buffalo became the western terminus of a railroad as well as the Erie Canal - often in those days called the "Grand Canal."
From that time on, Buffalo had year-around transportation and was thus emancipated from the dull winter season when the Erie Canal was closed due to freezing.
Even in those early days, when the full import of the event could not be foreseen, a group of local businessmen and officials gathered in the old Mansion House and by formal resolution proclaimed "that the completion of the line of railroad communication is an event in the history of the enterprise of this country second only in importance to completion of the Erie Canal."
The event proved of even more importance than the opening of the canal. The railroads first supplemented the canal system and subsequently almost supplanted it. The Barge Canal, successor to the Erie, must still have its five-month long winter rest. The railroads never sleep.
To Albany in 25 hours
It was amazing to the Buffalonian of 1843 to read the announcement in his Courier or Advertiser that it was possible for him to go from Buffalo to Albany in 25 hours. Or to Rochester - 75 miles - in five hours! An average speed of fifteen miles an hour was considered mighty good in those days when the trains ran on the old-fashioned strap or flat bar rail.
Ten years later, the seven railroads strung across the state were consolidated and became the New York Central Railroad. From west to east, they were: Attica & Buffalo Railroad; Tonawanda Railroad, Attica to Rochester via Batavia; Auburn & Rochester Railroad, via Canandaigua and Geneva; Auburn & Syracuse Railroad; Syracuse & Utica Railroad; Utica & Schenectady Railroad; Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, Schenectady to Albany.
This route involved 327 1/2 miles of travel and, in the earliest days, required change of trains, frequent waits for connecting trains and transfer of baggage at six points.
Boat link to New York
If a Buffalonian was proceeding to New York City, he would take either the day or night line steamer down the Hudson River from Albany. If Boston was his destination, he would be ferried across the Hudson at Albany and take the Western Railroad, later the Boston & Albany Railroad, from Greenbush. It was not until 1851, when the Hudson River Railroad was completed from New York to Greenbush, that it was possible to make a nearly all-rail trip from Buffalo to New York City.
Between 1850 and 1853 the distance from Buffalo to Albany was shortened by the construction of a two "direct routes," one from Depew to Batavia and the other from Rochester to Syracuse. Today the route of the New York Central from Buffalo to Albany is 293.7 miles - 33.8 miles less than the original route.
The Attica & Buffalo Railroad was not, however, the first in Buffalo. That honor goes to the Buffalo & Black Rock Railroad, put in operation in 1831. The 22-mile Buffalo & Niagara Falls Railroad commenced operations in 1837.
More than six years elapsed between the incorporation of the Attica & Buffalo Railroad Company May 3, 1836, and operation of a part of it as far as Darien in September 1842. The delay was probably due to the financial panic which occurred almost immediately after its incorporation. Apparently stock could not be sold and funds raised to start construction until 1840 and 1841.
Battle over depot site
The reason for the selection of Attica as the eastern terminus was that the state had granted a charter to the Tonawanda Railroad in 1832 to construct a railroad from Rochester to Attica and it was proposed to connect with the Tonawanda Railroad at that point. The route selected was by way of Lancaster, Alden and Darien to Attica.
Location of the passenger depot in Buffalo, then a booming young city of about 25,000 population, became a bone of contention. Construction had been started outside the city limits and a temporary depot built near Seneca Street east of Jefferson Street. The Common Council was apparently unwilling to grant a right of entry into the city or unable to agree on the route.
The city had permitted the Buffalo & Black Rock and the Buffalo & Niagara Falls railroads to lay tracks in the streets. But having locomotives puffing and snorting up and down the streets and frightening the horse-drawn vehicles apparently was not relished and opposition developed to any further occupation of the streets by railroad tracks except for necessary crossings.
A route not occupying any street longitudinally was authorized by the Legislature. This did not require consent of the Council. Accordingly, a 40-foot-wide right-of-way was brought from the temporary depot site north of Seneca Street to Michigan Avenue.
Lot bought from Wadsworth
On the west side of the Michigan Street, an L-shaped lot was bought from James Wadsworth of Geneseo for $1,800. A train shed was built on the part of the lot fronting on Michigan Street and a small passenger depot connecting with it was built on the rear end of the lot fronting on Exchange Street.
Today only one passenger train a day makes this stop. That is the Olean-East Aurora-Buffalo local of the Pennsylvania Railroad. This train daily comes in on tracks of the New York Central over the narrow Attica & Buffalo right-of-way from a point north of Seneca Street near the site of the first temporary depot to almost the precise location of the old train shed.
While the complete line from Exchange Street to Attica did not operate until 1843, the promoters placed a portion of it in operation late in September 1842 and resorted to various expedients to make it convenient to travelers. The aggressive superintendent of the A&B, William Wallace, make arrangements with W. Ottley & Co., proprietors of the "Swiftsure Coach Line" from Buffalo to Batavia, to make connections with his new railroad when it was completed to Darien. Passengers from Buffalo transferred to stage coach at Darien were taken 15 miles to Batavia, where they boarded cars of the Tonawanda Railroad for Rochester and points east.
Had to pay canal tolls
A few months later the road was completed to Attica, but passengers frequently had to take a stage coach for Batavia, as the early managers of the Tonawanda Railroad had difficulty in opening the new extension to Attica and proper connections were not achieved for several months after completion of both lines.
The location of Buffalo's temporary depot was inconvenient, so Wallace inserted an ad in the local newspapers on March 11, 1843, stating that "conveyances for passengers will leave the stage and railroad office at the Mansion House, corner Main and Exchange streets, for the depot every morning at half-past six o'clock."
Contrary to the railroads' present experience, the Attica & Buffalo and its contemporaries derived their principal revenue from carrying passengers, although the rate was fixed by charter at three cents a mile.
In 1844 the railroads across New York State were required by state law to "pay to the commissioners of the canal fund the same tolls per mile on all the goods, chattels and other property so transported as would have been paid on them had they been transported on the Erie Canal." Thus the shipper by railroad paid not only the railroad rate but the canal toll as well.
This law remained in effect until December 1, 1851, but it did not prevent the construction of a freight terminal by the Attica & Buffalo on the Buffalo River in 1847. This is now known as the "Ohio Street branch and yards."
Prospered immediately
The passenger revenue for 1843 amounted to $42,837, while the freight revenue was only $3,062. It was not until after the removal of the canal toll charges on railroad-hauled goods that the freight revenues began to climb.
The railroad prospered from the start, as indicated by the reports it filed with the secretary of state. In 1847 it reported a gross revenue of $123,810 and a net of $74,810. In that year it was authorized to double its capital stock by the addition of $350,000 in shares of $50 each, with which it proceeded to relay its track with "heavy iron rail" (62 pounds to the yard) and to construct its freight terminal.
In 1850 the Attica & Buffalo lost its identity. It was consolidated with the Tonawanda Railroad, becoming the Buffalo & Rochester Railroad. The new company at once proceeded to construct the direct line from Batavia to a point near Depew, where it connected with the older A & B track.
in 1852, that part of the old A & B lying between Attica and a point near Depew, about 23 miles, was sold by the Buffalo & Rochester Railroad to the Buffalo & New York City Railroad Company - a predecessor of the present Erie - for $322,000.
Then, in 1853, the Buffalo & Rochester Railroad became a part of the New York Central Railroad by the consolidation of the short independent cross state railroads.
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