How it started
New York and Erie Railroad: 1832–1861
In December 1831, a group met for a "convention" to discuss growing transportation needs in the Southern Tier region of New York State. As a result of that meeting, a company was organized to build the New York and Erie Rail Road, which was chartered on April 24, 1832, by New York governor Enos T. Throop. It was to connect the Hudson River at Piermont, north of New York City, west to Lake Erie at Dunkirk. On February 16, 1841, the railroad was authorized to cross into the northeast corner of Pennsylvania on the west side of the Delaware River, a few miles west of Port Jervis, NY, as the east side was already occupied by the Delaware and Hudson Canal to a point several miles west of Lackawaxen, PA. Construction began in 1836 and was opened in sections until reaching the full length to Dunkirk on May 19, 1851. At Dunkirk, steamboats continued across Lake Erie to Detroit, Michigan. The line crossed the Kittatinny Mountains at 870 feet. The New York Legislature had forced the Erie to use a less populated route to spur economic growth in these less populated areas
When the route was completed in May, 1851, President Millard Fillmore and several members of his cabinet, including Secretary of State Daniel Webster, made a special, two-day excursion run to open the railway. It is reported that Webster viewed the entire run from a rocking chair attached to a flatcar, with a steamer rug and jug of high-quality Medford rum. At stops, he would step off the flatcar and give speeches.
The line was built at 6 ft (1,829 mm) wide gauge; this was believed to be a superior technology to standard gauge, providing more stability.
In 1848, the railroad built the Starrucca Viaduct, a stone railroad bridge over Starrucca Creek in Lanesboro, Pennsylvania, which has survived and is still in use today. In fact, current owner Central New York Railroad spent $3.2 million in 2021 centering its single remaining track, re-ballasting and repairing masonry. The viaduct is 1,040 feet (317 m) long, 100 feet (30.5 m) high and 25 feet (7.6 m) wide at the top. It is the oldest stone rail bridge in Pennsylvania still in use.
As stated in the introduction, the shops in Hornell, New York were the largest on the Erie system beginning in the late 1920s, processing about 350 locomotives per year with "classified" (heavy) repairs. However, the first major repair facilities were built in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania in 1848, which were enlarged in 1863 to employ 700 workers. The primary car shops were located in Meadville, Pennsylvania in the western part of the state, employing 3,500 in 1912.
From Wikipedia’s article on Erie Railroad, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2