When I want to take the train to see my family in Rhode Island, I need to start out by driving 80 miles in the wrong direction– from Bath to Rochester – and get on board at the Amtrak station by the Inner Loop. Life would be much simpler (and I’d go much more often) if I could board in Bath… or Corning… or Elmira… ride to New York City, and change for the Northeast Corridor.
Well, once upon a time you could, and it wasn’t that long ago.
When DeWitt Clinton started work on the Erie Canal, he transformed the state, the nation, and New York City. Little no-account shanty towns like Syracuse, Buffalo, and Rochester started to boom. But part of that transformation entailed drying up the old Conhocton-Chemung-Susquehanna water traffic. Clinton promise that once the canal was finished (1825), the Southern Tier would get its own major transportation project.
Connectors such as the Crooked Lake Canal and the Chemung Feeder Canal soon tied Keuka Lake and the Chemung River to the Erie system, but by then a new technology was beating on the door. The Southern Tier’s major project would be a Lake Erie-New York City train line – what came to be called the Erie Railroad.
By 1851 the line was complete. President Millard Fillmore, a loyal western New Yorker, rode the ceremonial first train, shrewdly bringing along the far more-popular Daniel Webster. The story is that Webster sat in a rocking chair on a flatcar, waving to the crowds along the way.
The Erie came to Corning, then headed through Addison, Canisteo, and Hornell on its way to Dunkirk. Critically for Steuben County, the Erie’s Rochester Division also branched off from Corning, heading through Savona, Bath, Kanona, Cohocton, and Wayland. Both lines became conduits for growth.
There are 32 towns in Steuben County, and two cities. Neither city would exist without the railroad.
The Erie selected the hamlet of Hornellsville for its main repair shops, where eventually they could work on two or three dozen units at once. In 1835 the Town of Hornellsville (then much larger) had 1850 residents. Twenty-five years later it was 3843. In the 1890s, the even more-populous City of Hornell was separated out and given its own government.
Marty Muggleton, who used to be director of the Corning Chamber of Commerce, once told me, “If it hadn’t been for the Glass Works, Corning would probably be like Angelica – a pleasant little town in the valley.”
But if it hadn’t been for the railroad, the Glass Works never would have come up from Brooklyn. Corning had that Erie main line to ship product out. But the other piece of the puzzle was a short-line railroad running up from Pennsylvania, bringing coal and sand IN. Without that junction, there never would have been a Corning Glass Works. In 1835 the Town, then much larger and still called Painted Post, had a population of 1619. By 1869, a smaller Corning had 6334. In 1890 the new City alone had 8530.
By 1882 another major line, the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western, also ran through our region, often just a few feet away from the Erie tracks. Smaller railroads such as the Shawmut, or the New York & Pennsylvania, also crisscrossed the landscape. One-track short lines joined Kanona with Prattsburgh, and Bath with Hammonsport.
Possibly Hammondsport would be much the same today if the B&H had never existed, but the INTERIM would have been very different. It’s hard to imagine that the grape and wine business would have developed so dramatically without the train to ship out product, though possibly they’d have used the steamship connection with Penn Yan. But none of us today would have heard of Glenn Curtiss. Without the rail line to send out engines, airplanes, and motorcycles, Glenn would have lived out his life in the bike shop – or else he’d have moved away from Hammondsport altogether.
So without the railroads: no Corning; no Curtiss; no Hornell; and at best a much smaller grape and wine business.
Passenger travel is, alas, no more in our region, but the railroads still run. According to Steuben County I.D.A., in that county there is one major (Class I) operator, the Norfolk Southern. They maintain that major rail yard in Gang Mills, and run 18 to 20 trains weekly on the Binghamton to Buffalo Southern Tier Line. They also have one train a day to Geneva on the Corning Secondary Line.
Then there are three smaller (Class III) operators. BH Rail Corporation (successor to the B&H) operates between Wayland and Painted Post. Western New York & Pennsylvania runs between Hornell, NY and Corey, Pennsylvania. The Wellsboro & Corning Railroad also crosses the state line, joining those two communities.
There’s always potential for more. There’s current public discussion about upgrading part of the old B&H line (now used as a siding) to the Steuben County Industrial Park north of Bath. And there’s certainly potential for excursion tours catering to tourists… though success has been spotty in the past. But no one seems to be picking up on my hopes for passenger travel to New York City. Oh, well. A man can dream.