Western New York & Pennsylvania mothballs 70 miles of track

By Trains Staff | March 8, 2024

Sagerstown, Pa.-Jamesville, N.Y. route generated just three carloads in 2023, railroad president says

MEADVILLE, Pa. — The Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad is discontinuing operation on about 70 miles of railroad between Saegertown, Pa., and Jamestown, N.Y., the Meadville (Pa) Tribune reports.

Company president Bob Babcock told the newspaper that the railroad generated just three carloads of traffic over that segment last year. A “handful” of employees based in Meadville will lose their jobs, Babcock said, but customers in Meadville and Saegertown will still have service; a segment of the railroad from Meadville to Oil City, Pa., continues to operate.

The route is a portion of the former Erie Railroad/Erie-Lackawanna New York-Chicago main line. For more on the WNY&P, see “Where Alcos tough it out,” Trains Magazine, June 2012.

A map of the Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad from a June 2012 Trains Magazine feature. Saegertown, Pa., is misspelled as “Seagertown.”