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B&O Freight Station Closed at Osceola (Article dated May 1952) Sent in by Kathy Sarber
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad closed the Osceola station Friday and will abandon the property, to maintain a no agency station handling carload freight only. All freight and express will be handled through the Elkland station.
William Roche, station agent, has been transferred to Newfield Junction. The Elkland man had been at the Osceola operation for the past four and one-half years. Before taking the agency at Osceola he worked there briefly under D. E. Wiess.
The closing leaves Osceola without a railroad station, since the Central abandoned their station several years ago and had been using the B&O facilities. The closing was authorized by the Public Utility Commission on April 15th, after hearing the road apply for abandonment at Wellsboro in November. Osceola people fought the closing unsuccessfully, despite the fact that the Osceola station was showing an average yearly profit of over $20,000.
The B&O sent the last passenger train over the rails on November 19, 1949 and stopped Sunday scheduled freight service at that time. With the loss of passenger and mail revenues, and the Sunday freight, the station last year still had a revenue of $63,048.99.
Hay, lumber and milk were the principal materials handled by the station since it was opened in 1882 when the rails pushed westward from Elkland. The present building was erected about 1895. At the peak of valley railroading the station handled as many as eight trains daily – four were passenger trains.
The Central pulled rails between Westfield and Newfield Junction in 1926 and discontinued passenger service on their entire Cowanesque line in 1932 – Closing the Osceola and other small freight stations as other means of transportation cut into revenues. With the curtailment of powdered milk manufacture and the closing of the Osceola Powdered Milk Plant three years ago, the steady downward trend of lumbering and the rail shipment of farm products, freight revenue hit a new low last year when the Osceola station showed a $19,129.18 profit. That year the station handled 78 cars of freight and 353 cars of milk.
A. J. Dayton, B&B Auditor of Wellsville officially closed the station Friday
and ordered equipment shipped to Dubois. He was accompanied by NYC
auditors and other B&B officials.
Subj: Railroads
Date: 3/1/2002 10:45:52 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: dc567810@hotmail.com (Dave Clark)
To: JoyceTice@aol.com
Hi Joyce,
I opened up another can of worms earlier in the week by posting a query on the PABRADFO [Ttri-County] list concerning passenger rail service in Tioga Co. The response has been extraordinary!
You may want to check out this link - since I saw that you had posted a few photos of old train stations. http://libwww.syr.edu/digital/images/e/ErieRailroad/
The 'Tioga Division' section has photos of nearly all of the stations along that line - mostly from 1909. This time, I'm keeping track of the responses, links, anecdotes and whatever, as they come in.
Dave Clark Belmont, NC
In a message dated 8/19/2011 3:01:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time, emw55@cornell.edu writes:
Hi Joyce,
I came across something that I’m sure our internet archeologists will appreciate reading. This part refers to our neighborhood in particular.
http://russnelson.com/inventory/inventory-of-abandoned-railroad-rights-of-way-region-6.html
maps http://russnelson.com/inventory/maps/ are available, too.
Cheers, Ewa
John H. Way
Corning Journal, 19 January 1888
On Monday John H. Way, who had been for thirty years a conductor on the Fall
Brook railroad, resigned that situation and became chief clerk in the office of
George R. Brown, General Superintendent of the Railroad Company. He left the
railroad by choice to take a business situation more to his liking and for a
variety of reasons more desirable. His retirement from active service on the
railroad, which he served so long and faithfully, offers occasion for
reminiscence. Mr. Way first became a Conductor in 1857. He was then only twenty
years of age. He was appointed by L.H. Shattuck, the then Superintendent of the
Tioga Railroad, as Conductor of the mail train running from Corning to
Blossburg, which route was in 1860 extended to Fall Brook. For twenty years he
served in that capacity. When the Syracuse, Geneva & Corning Railroad was built
by the Fall Brook Company in 1877, Conductor Way was placed in charge of the
night and day express between Corning and Geneva, his run being extended to
Lyons on the building of the branch to that place. He continued on that run
until Saturday, when he made his last trip as a Conductor. When he began
railroading there were only four locomotives on the road. Their names were
Corning, Morris, Colket and Baltimore. They were all wood-burners, and had to
stop frequently at stations to get fuel. It was during the early part of his
service that these locomotives were changed from wood-burners to coal-burners.
It was the first use of coal on that road as fuel for the motive power. The
change was an innovation – an experiment – but it “worked,” and thereafter all
the other locomotives – and subsequently those on the Erie Railroad – burned
coal. It is an interesting fact that Conductor Way brought on his train the
first supply of bituminous coal mined at Fall Brook, Pa. This was in 1860. The
coal was carried in four barrels. Two were shipped to W.E. Gregg, Master
Mechanic of the Erie Railroad at Susquehanna; and the other two were for Reed
Wilson, a coal agent at Buffalo. The coal was sent to them for trial, and for
the purpose of introducing it in the market. Conductor Way has seen the Fall
Brook Railroad develop from small proportions into one of the busiest and most
important iron thoroughfares in the East. The four feeble wood-burning
locomotives which the old Tioga road had during his young Conductorship have now
given place to 62 powerful engines. When he first began his run, the coal and
freight traffic was in its infancy. There was so little freight that one car,
sent from Corning every other day, sufficed to hold all the freight articles
consigned along the entire route from Blossburg. As for coal, the traffic in
that was of course larger, but not more then 30 cars daily – or 4,500 tons
monthly – were brought to Corning. That was all the coal that could be disposed
of, to consumers north, east and west. Now the freight traffic is immense, great
trains running over the road daily, and 200,000 tons of coal on an average
passing each month through Corning. Conductor Way made an enviable record as a
Conductor. It is but just to say that his record was ever free from spot or
blemish. No railroad official was more attentive to duty, or more honorable in
all his business relations. He won and retained the regard of his employers, by
his conscientious and untiring efforts to discharge his duties with credit to
himself and satisfaction to the traveling public. He never received a word of
reprimand from the Company, and he never caused the loss of one dollar to his
employers by reason of mistakes or errors of judgment. He probably has as large
an acquaintanceship as any man in the country. Thirty years is a long period,
and in that time he has made thousands of intimate acquaintances, who esteem him
for his intelligence, his tact, and his undeviating courtesy. During the last
ten years his run has been through six Counties of this State. Starting from
Corning – which, as the crow flies, is only nine miles from the Pennsylvania
line – he has gone north through Steuben County, cutting through the northwest
corner of Chemung, passing through Schuyler, up through the Counties of Yates
and Ontario, and finally bringing up in Wayne County at Lyons, which is only
eleven miles from Lake Ontario. He had made this trip daily and has thus
practically crossed the Empire State every day for a decade. He estimates that
during his thirty years as Conductor he has traveled one million miles – a
distance equal to forty times around the globe. He is certainly worthy, from a
life of veteran service, to have emeritus written after his name.