|
|  |
Here is a brief history of the rail line that eventually became the Silver Lake Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It was a 7.6 mile piece of railroad linking Perry,NY with the Rochester-Ashford mainline of the Buffalo,Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway. Here is a list of the stations along the line from Silver Lake Junction to Perry,NY:
1.East Gainesville(Silver Springs),full agency
2.Chace, agency station, psgr. only (relocated, stillstanding)
3.Epworth Inn (flag stop),concrete shelter, still standing
4.Silver Lake, full agency,psgr. only
5.Walkers, flag stop
6.Perry, full agency, freight and passenger
|
|
What became the Silver Lake Branch of the BR&P Railway,then the B&O RR, had its origins with the organization of the Rochester and Pine Creek RR in 1869. The line was opened to Perry in 1871 and served the community for 102 years. It began as two connecting short lines, the Silver Lake Railway and the Perry Railroad, which were both merged together and then merged into the BR&P system. Passenger service began in 1971 and was discontinued on August 4,1951, with the final run of B&O trains 67 and 68 in and out of Perry. Freight service on the line continued for another 22 years and the line was closed on June 26,1973 and abandoned soon after.
At Silver Springs, the line served Morton Salt(aka Worcester Salt) and interchanged freight and passengers with the Erie Railroad at that location. During the 1950s, the agent at Silver Springs was Walter Nichols, while at Perry, the agent was R.T. Poydock, who serviced the following freight customers at Perry:
1.Perry Water Company
2.Kaustine Company
3.Ray-o-Tex Corp.
4.EL Phillips
5.New York State Electric Corp.
6.Grange League Federation Coop
7.E.J. Abbott & Son
8.Hawley Supply Company
9.Borden Company
10.Merrill Soule and Company
11.Cole-Sedam Company
12.George Tomlinson & Son Company
13,CG Martin
For many years, freight service on the line was operated daily, except Sunday, and was operated 3 or 4 times a week in the line's final years. In 1968 the train came into Perry 3 or 4 times a week and operated on the following schedule:
Lv Leroy 0715
Ar Silver Springs 0900
Lv Silver Springs 1500
Ar Leroy 1630
Train would operate into Perry contingent on traffic requirements, otherwise, it would be switching Morton Salt Corporation at Silver Springs as well as delivering cars to the Erie Lackawanna. As the Perry customers went out of busines or switched to trucks, freight traffic into Perry on the railroad gradually dried up. The beginning of the end came in 1969 when the Perry Knitting Company went out of business.
DESCRIPTION OF FACILITIES. The facilities in Perry consisted of a turntable for turning locomotives, a small yard with runaround tracks, a coal chute for Fanning Coal Company, a side track for the Martin Company to receive coal. Line was a single track with automatic block signalling for both directions. There was a passing siding, and a couple of side tracks for spotting cars.By the 1960s the side tracks out side of Perry were gone. The end came for the rail line on June 26,1973 when the last train departed Perry for the has time.
|
|
|
|
