Rochester's Regional Market - Rochester Railroad Association - 1966

In a posting on railroad.net, a question was asked about rail service to Rochester's Regional Market.   One poster told of a 1966 trip of the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville's steam engine #17 to the Regional Market for a display for the Rochester Railroad Association.    Digging into the Rochester Chapter's photo archives, we found the following images of the #17 traveling to the market via Batavia and photographs of the event at the market.   The images are taken from the Harold Caulkins Collection of the Rochester Chapter NRHS.

The Rochester Chapter NRHS would welcome information on the photographs to better document the images.   Please contact us if you have something to offer.   Thanks!

And to add some more detail to the images, this was offered by one poster:

"The Regional Market also hosted at least two open houses for the Rochester Railroad Association in the mid 60s'. All the carriers serving Rochester participated. Most supplied the newest and best appearing on the rails at that time, although some older albeit freshly repainted equipment appeared as well.

The Rochester Railroad Association was comprised mainly of Traffic, Sales and Marketing representatives from all the railroads with both an operating and non-operating presence in the Rochester area. At that time out of town carriers such as the Southern, Missouri Pacific and others had sales offices in Rochester to call on the traffic departments of area manufacturing companies.

The event was popular and in previous years was hosted at such places as the Exchange Street yard of the Erie/E-L.

In 1966 the LAL departed Livonia with steam engine #17 and two Stillwell coaches. At Avon we picked up a new EL bay window caboose. At G&W Junction near P&L we picked up the GNWR office car Edward II. The whole menagerie then operated over the EL to Batavia, where we crossed over to the NYC downtown trackage thence proceeded east on the NYC main to Chili Jct then down the shore to the Regional Market. This was a whole day trip in the most miserable wet weather. A lot of area railroad officials rode this trip along with a few stowaways.

The weekend event on the other hand was in stellar weather and a good turn out was had."

Auditing the Erie's Rochester station - 1/24/1927

The Erie Railroad had a station in downtown Rochester.   Located on the south side of Court Street on the west side of the Genesee River, the station was the end of the line for the Erie's Rochester Division which passes by the Rochester Chapter's Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum in Rush.    Long gone having been torn down many years back, one can only wonder about the details of the daily operation of the Erie's downtown station.    Well...  Here is a snapshot in time of the station; an audit form from January 24, 1927 showing its employees with their wages, its scope & equipment and its revenue.
  The Erie station had ten employees, at least two of which were women.   We find that Mr. C.J. Gilbert was the ticket agent at the time.   He made $198.00 per month.   There were 3 ticket clerks, one telegraph & information clerk, one station baggage agent, one day baggage man, one night baggage man, one baggage agent's helper, and one janitress.
  We find that the office was 20'x20' with 9250 square feet of passenger platforms.  The depot was equipped with three two-wheel and five four-wheel baggage carts along with a Fairbanks Standard #23 platform scale.
  Monthly revenue was $8582.00 while the station handled 600 bags and 2100 parcels "under check" while serving a population of 330,000.
   Finally we note that at this time, the Erie's Rochester station not only served the Erie, but also included the interurban lines, the Rochester & Syracuse RR and the Rochester, Lockport & Buffalo RR.
   A very interesting snapshot in time of one of Rochester's several railroad stations with...

More to come... From the archives of the Rochester Chapter NRHS...