Welcome to the Western New York Railroad Archive. This is a web site devoted to the history of railroading in Western New York State. It contains information about the railroads of the area and two towns, villages, and cities they served.
Structure
This site has three main sections:
Railroads: This section contains information about some of the many railroads, interurbans, and streetcar lines that ran in the area.
Towns: This section briefly describes some of the towns in the area as they related to the railroads.
News: This section contains copies of newspaper and magazine clippings about railroads in the area. These original source materials provide a wealth of information and illustrate the type of information about railroads the "man on the street" read in the newspaper.
I have tried to provide as many internal and external hyperlinks as possible so someone entering the site at any page can quickly find related information. For example, a newspaper article about the Erie Railroad in Salamanca would have links to both the railroad and the city for quick reference.
Note to Genealogists
Well over 75% of the email messages I receive (discounting spam, of course) are genealogical queries. Unfortunately, I do not have any information about individuals who worked for any railroad. In most cases the personnel files for a given railroad have been lost/destroyed over time and finding your ancestor's information is unlikely. One place you can look for information is the Railroad Retirement Board. Their page on genealogical Information will provide more details on the records available through them.
Submissions and Corrections
If you have additional information about a subject on this site or you would like to add information that I am missing, please drop me an email. I would greatly appreciate any help in making this site more valuable. The same is true for corrections, please let me know if I have something wrong so I can fix it.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you find something worthwhile and fun while you are here.