The Buffalo & Attica Railroad, Buffalo’s first eastbound rail line, was built in 1843. Amazingly, the original right-of-way of the Buffalo & Attica, laid out over 166 years ago, is still in use for rail transportation today.
Opening to passenger and freight traffic on January 8, 1843, the Buffalo & Attica Road completed the last link in a chain that connected Buffalo to New York City for the first time by rail. Bypassing the Erie Canal only 18 years after the canal’s completion, the rail lines promised a trip to New York in 25 hours, far quicker than the 6 days it would take on canal boats pulled by mules named Sal. The Buffalo & Attica Road, the embryo of a system of iron highways that would eventually connect Buffalo to the farthest reaches of the continent, created a new sense of possibility about what the city could become. Ten years later, the Buffalo & Attica was absorbed into the New York Central Railroad, the rail empire whose growth wed Buffalo to an industrial future.
By 1900, dozens of rail spurs converged at this point, roughly where Exchange and Hamburg streets intersect. The Hydraulics became one of few places in the country where firms like the Larkin Company could conveniently ship millions of bars of soap to homes across America and F. N. Burt could roll out 99% of the cigarette boxes produced in the country. Without the extensive rail network, the emergence of the Hydraulics as a center for large-scale manufacturing would not have come to pass.
Today, this rail infrastructure is far reduced from its peak size and scope from around 1920, evidence of the decline of Buffalo’s industrial economy and the falling out of favor of rail transportation nationwide. Check out the 1894 City Atlas. A veritable moat of rail spurs once boxed in the district from every angle, flooding the area with industrial commerce. No more!
Still, the rail lines of the Hydraulics are heavily trafficked. Buffalo is still home to one of largest rail networks in America. Trains pass underneath the Hamburg and Seneca viaducts all day and all night. The Buffalo & Attica line that was a financial bonanza in 1843, and set the stage for Buffalo’s rise as an industrial center, continues to be used by freight and passenger trains in the 21st century. Consider how much has changed in Buffalo and America over the course of 166 years. That the original use of this corridor persists is a pretty notable thing!
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